Force Crystals

This "not to be used for evil purposes" FORCE CRYSTALS ad ran in various magazines in 1979-80. It comes astonishingly close to major trademark infringement with its rather obvious redrawn STAR WARS characters and use of variations on "May the Force be with you." What exactly are "force crystals?" Well, to read the ad is to have no clue. Someone worked overtime to NOT actually say anything in this ad! The "actual photo" certainly doesn’t help either. I have to believe that they were actually selling simple, tiny rock crystals and telling you to use your imagination to pretend them to be "space SCARED (??)" What really gets me is that they were ripping fans off to the tune of $4.98 apiece! "Not to be used for eavil purposes?" Yeah right! Do you know how much GAS $4.98 would have bought you in 1980? Oh, and...why does it appear to be snaowing in outer space?

You Know How You Get a Song Stuck in Your Head # 2

Today's stuck like glue music is the 1970 protest song by Johnny Cash entitled 'What is Truth? "The old man turned off the radio
Said, 'Where did all of the old songs go
Kids sure play funny music these days
They play it in the strangest ways'
Said, 'it looks to me like they've all gone wild
It was peaceful back when I was a child'
Well, man, could it be that the girls and boys
Are trying to be heard above your noise?
And the lonely voice of youth cries 'What is truth?'" This was actually a pretty heavy-handed, talky piece against war and promoting youth values. It was a big hit in 1970 thanks in part to the huge youth appeal of the man in Black's popular ABC television series. THE JOHNNY CASH SHOW somehow managed to promote down home family values and at the same time became, in a way, nearly as subversive as THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS SHOW by continually giving a musical forum to such artists as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Wonder. Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominos even made a rare TV appearnce with Cash, jamming with legendary show regular Carl Perkins! The post-Tork Monkees even guested, doing schtick and Cash's old minor hit, "Everybody Loves a Nut" with Johnny! I don't think I've actually heard "What is Truth?" more than once since those days. Maybe it's the news headlines that brought it back out of the files in my brain. Seems to apply today as much as it did then. Sigh. What goes around comes around and it goes around and around and around and still comes out here.

British Children's TV

My first exposure to British television was probably Gerry Anderson’s FIREBALL XL-5 back when I was five years old. The US imported quite a few shows from the UK back in the day and I became enamored of THE AVENGERS, THE PRISONER and even DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE. Cliff Richard and the St. Trinians girls turned up regularly on the UHF channels in old movies and staid old PBS (or NET at the time) offered more highbrow fare on MASTERPIECE THEATRE. Eventually they picked up britcoms such as Pauline Collins in NO, HONESTLY! before finally presenting DOCTOR WHO, RED DWARF and MYSTERY! One of my favorite British programmes of late has been LIFE ON MARS.
That said, in spite of starting out with kids’ shows, I knew virtually nothing about the history of UK TV for kids when I ran across Ian Hartley’s 1983 GOODNIGHT CHILDREN…EVERYWHERE at a used bookstore in the early nineties. I was intrigued by the appearance of William Hartnell’s DOCTOR WHO on the cover and purchased it immediately.
The book does a splendid job of capturing the early radio and television world of British children, detailing not only the shows that they listened to but also their reactions to them. One mother wrote the BBC to ask that they not have the sounds of horses’ hooves at the end of a radio show as her daughter became afraid that the horses were about to gallop out of the box! Early, simplistic television shows are given equal time with the sixties puppet shows and even US imports such as THE LONE RANGER and TOP CAT (called BOSS CAT in the UK due to a conflict with the brand name of a cat food.) Familiar personalities are profiled as if they were old friends.
One has to presume that these are the shows and stars that the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion groups watched and listened to growing up. These are the shows that influenced the people who most influenced pop culture in the sixties.
I didn’t live in this world of Daphne Oxenford, Mr. Pastry and BLUE PETER and reading about it is, in a way, like reading the history of an alternate universe. If you have even a trace of Anglophile in you, however, it’s a most imaginative and wondrous universe! It makes me wish I HAD lived it.

Another Letter From DC

Awhile back, I ran a piece on the form letters DC Comics sent fans in response to letters sent to their comics back in the sixties. More recently, I ran a letter I received from DC inviting me to join a new fan club. Well, today I ran across this forgotten missive from DC’s advertising department received in 1993. You know, sometimes it seems like DC was writing me more than I was writing them!
This time, they wanted me to take a survey. Apparently they wanted me to take it so badly that they were willing to pay me to do so! The letter contained one crisp new dollar bill (and no, it didn’t have Perry White’s face on it) as an enticement to return the survey. This was followed by the suggestion that it be used to go toward buying my next comic book.
The really bizarre part of this is that the back of the stationary contains this marvelous cheerleader move by seven of the most well-known superheroes with Wonder Woman clearly meant to be holding up the DC logo…but it’s on the other side! Was the letter printed on the wrong side? Was the illustration meant to be a lighter, background thing? What’s the deal? Oh, and who did the artwork? Wonder Woman and Robin almost look like friend Michael Netzer. Mike? Oh, and why the John Stewart Green Lantern, I wonder? Just sneaking in a little diversity?
Anyway, I did return the survey but they appear to have ignored anything and everything I said as I have spent the last 13 years since then buying less and less current DC books and, more recently, paying less and less attention to them altogether. I just never thought that would happen but I guess the lesson learned is that nothing lasts forever. I used the dollar to buy a large candy bar and split it with my wife.

Memorial Day

Unsold TV Pilots

Lee Goldberg’s UNSOLD TV PILOTS, published by Citadel Press in 1991 is actually an abridged version of his similarly titled small press book often found in the reference sections of libraries. Besides research, though, either version can be just plain fun to read as the author describes scores of the most bizarre concepts ever greenlighted. Many of these shows aired as TV movies or episodes of already existing series. Others never aired at all. Some prime examples of actual unsold series included are:
THE RETURN OF THE ORIGINAL YELLOW TORNADO- 1967-Mickey Rooney and Eddie Mayhoff as retired super-heroes. This was written by Jack Benny’s former writing team!
GOOD AGAINST EVIL-1977- the late Dack Rambo starred as a writer who falls for…wait for it…Satan’s girlfriend, then teams up with an exorcist to get her back, righting wrongs and solving crimes along their way.
HIGH RISK-1976-Victor Buono, BATMAN’s King Tut and Joanna (ISIS) Cameron as two of a group of circus performers who use their skills to solve crimes.
ALIAS SHERLOCK HOLMES-1976- Larry (JR) Hagman as a delusional motorcycle cop who thinks he’s the world’s greatest detective and, with the help of his female psychiatrist, conveniently named Dr. Watson, solves crimes.
SHOOTING STARS-1983-Parker Stevenson and Billy Dee Williams (Lando!) as two former TV detectives who become detectives in real life and…you guessed it, solve crimes.
VAMPIRE-1979-Created by HILL STREET BLUES’ Steven Bochco and directed by Bridget (HERE COME THE BRIDES) Hanley’s ex-husband, E.W. Swackhammer, this was the story of a guy (THE EXORCIST’S Jason Miller) who ticks off a vampire (Richard Lynch) and teams up with a retired cop (E.G. Marshall) to stop him…no doubt solving crimes as they do so. A good cast included Barrie Youngfellow, Jessica Walter and Michael Tucker.
BUNGLE ABBEY-1981-Lucille Ball and her husband Gary Morton produced this as a vehicle for her long time co-star Gale Gordon as an Abbott. His "Costellos" included Monks Gino Gonforti, Graham Jarvis and Charlie Callas. As far as I know, they didn’t solve crimes.
YAZOO-1984-William (CANNON, NERO WOLFE) Conrad was legendarily dissed when his hit radio series GUNSMOKE came to television and the CBS brass decided that the portly actor didn’t "look the part." Strange then that somebody somewhere felt the actor WAS right for this series that found his character, a widowed journalist, learning about life in a magical land populated by puppets! (Wonder if they had any crimes to solve?)
WHERE"S EVERETT?-1966- Very early Alan Alda as a man who finds an invisible alien baby on his doorstep one morning. Needless to say, he and his wife decide to adopt and hilarity ensues. Just keeping up with an invisible baby, alien or not, left him little time to solve any crimes even if he wanted to!
SAFARI-1962-Dick Powell produced this AFRICAN QUEEN remake that would have found James Coburn and Glynis Johns having adventures and …aww, YOU know…every week.
THE SUNSHINE BOYS-1977-Red Buttons and Lionel (HART TO HART) Stander as Neil Simon’s "geriatric odd couple" here forced into becoming roommates.
HIGHER GROUND-1988- Singer John Denver as a former FBI agent who avenges his partner and vows to continue to solve crimes in Alaska!
SAVAGE-1973-The producers of COLUMBO brought their boy wonder director Steven Spielberg to this pilot featuring long-time couple Martin Landau and Barbara Bain as an investigative TV reporter and his producer solving political crimes.
OUT OF THE BLUE-1968- Academy award winning actress and future Partridge Shirley Jones is, along with the great Carl Ballantine and several others, an alien visiting our planet to see if they’d like to settle here. Hmmm… probably too much crime.

Movies That Fell Through the Cracks # 7

THE DYNAMITE BROTHERS was a no budget 1974 martial arts/blaxploitation film from no talent exploitation movie legend Al Adamson (DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN, BLAZING STEWARDESSES). "See for the first time street fighting against kung-fu!" promised the ads that showed the film’s leads chained together like it was a latter day remake of the classic THE DEFIANT ONES. Like most films of this type, it promised more than it delivered.
The lead role of Stud Brown (which became the title of the eventual VHS release) was played by Timothy Brown. Brown was a pro football player for Philadelphia for most of the sixties but then, like Jim Brown, Fred Williamson and later O.J. Simpson, opted for an acting career. A small role in the film version of M*A*S*H led to his taking on Williamson’s role of the unfortunately named "Spearchucker" Jones in early episodes of the TV series version. The controversial token black character was written out of the series pretty quickly which apparently freed up Brown for THE DYNAMITE BROTHERS.
The martial arts half of the team was Alan Tang, a second string Asian star/stuntman. The supporting cast included prolific Asian-American actor James Hong and Hollywood veteran Aldo Ray. Ray, sadly suffering from various addictions in the seventies, turned up in everything from a straight role in the porn western SWEET SAVAGE to FRANKENSTEIN’S GREAT AUNT TILLIE! (I recall a late interview in which Aldo claimed to have beaten his addictions and enjoyed a bit of a career revival.)
Timothy Brown has continued an ocassional acting career ever since. Al Adamson was murdered in 1995. I shall attempt to avoid the obvious tasteless joke that it was undoubtedly by someone who had seen his films. OOPS! Sorry.

Alex Toth Passes

Comics art legend Alex Toth died yesterday. Although he began as an old school DC artist in the forties with Kubert, Infantino and Hasen, Alex Toth's artwork, greatly influenced by newspaper cartoonists like Noel Sickles and Milton Caniff, gradually grew more stylized. His panel layouts were legendary and, especially in later years, his long, hand-lettered and illustrated letters to fans, magazines, columns, etc. were highly prized. Although never associated particularly with one strip, Toth is represented here in the Library in many forms. Seen here is a copy of the second Golden Age comic book I ever purchased. ($5.00 in 1974) Toth had been one of the regular artists on the long-running GREEN LANTERN strip that had been cover-featured on ALL-AMERICAN COMICS for ages. With this particular issue, though, # 100, GL took a back seat that would soon lead to his early retirement as Alex Toth presented the new cover feature, JOHNNY THUNDER! Now, of course, all DC fans know that Johnny Thunder was a JSA member and had his own strip (and his own Thunderbolt!) but this was somebody new--a cowboy! The always popular western genre was about to take over the world of pop culture in the fifties on the new medium of television and the comics were jumping on the bandwagon as early as 1948. Toth's storytelling made this a cut above the rest and in just a couple of months, GREEN LANTERN was phased out completely and the book's title changed to ALL-AMERICAN WESTERN. DC reprinted and revived this JOHNNY THUNDER numerous times over the years as Alex Toth's work has grown in stature. He was one of the greats and his incredible work will continue to be discovered by new generations.

Oh, Wicked Wanda!

Beginning in 1972, OH, WICKED WANDA!, PENTHOUSE magazine's answer to Kurtzman and Elder's LITTLE ANNIE FANNY, was a British production, written with a politically and sexually satirical bent by author Frederic Mullaly and painted by classic English comics artist Ron Embleton. In 1975, PENTHOUSE published the now-rare collection seen here which I managed to purchase off the stands in spite of the fact that I was only 16 at the time. Sometimes that prematurely grey hair came in handy. Well, I had been planning to write a piece about OH, WICKED WANDA!, but it all seems so pointless now when this obsessive site-- Oh Wicked Wanda!--offers every little detail you could possibly want to know including the actual stories themselves! Thanks to Curt over on the virtual other side of town at The Groovy Age of Horror for pointing out the site. Adults only, please! Sigh. Some days it's all a blogger can do to keep up!

Castle of Frankenstein-1970

Here’s another one I thought I no longer owned. This was my very first issue of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN, Calvin T. Beck’s erratic pop culture mag of the sixties and seventies. I discovered FAMOUS MONSTERS in 1969 so, naturally, when I saw Vincent Price and Christopher lee, two of my horror favorites, on the cover of this OTHER mag along with DARK SHADOWS’ Quentin Collins, I knew I had to buy this issue! Okay, okay. The semi-nude Frank Brunner sorceress babe on the cover may have been a deciding factor as well.
Having started out, like a dozen other also-rans, as more-or-less a clone of FM, CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN quickly expanded to include coverage of comic books, genre fiction, television and other aspects of pop culture. Striving to be a bit more adult than FM, CoF presented actual critical reviews, not just pun-filled looks at monster movies. There was also a tradition of semi-nudity, again giving the impression of maturity while appealing to the fanboy. Thus we see in this issue a reprint of a vintage piece on Lon Chaney’s makeup but also a cheesecake photo of Hammer movie starlet Veronica Carlson.
Cover artist Frank Brunner, barely out of his Wrightson-ish phase, gets an early profile and a SMASH GORDON comical strip several years before his Marvel fame. There are features on MAROONED, THE OBLONG BOX, BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES and TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA. There’s also coverage of sci-fi fandom and recent comics releases. There are even two pages of LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND reprints…just because! The back cover of this 1970 monster mag features, of all things, the YELLOW SUBMARINE cartoon Beatles. About the only thing CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN didn’t cover was a regular publishing schedule. Notorious for poor distribution and the length between issues by the time I discovered it, I picked up only intermittent copies going forward (including, of course, the Linda Blair cover in 1974) but they all offered a fuller view of my interests than just about any other magazine at the time.

Hammer Films Presents-Vampirella!

Hammer Films had brought the classic Universal movie monsters back to life in garish (un)living color for a new generation of filmgoers beginning in the late fifties with CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HORROR OF DRACULA. By 1976, however, when it released its final major release, TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER with Christopher Lee and Richard Widmark, the studio was on its last legs. A deal with Warren Magazines, whose stories were often inspired by Hammer sensibilities, to film VAMPIRELLA seemed ideal to pull them out of their slump…if only it had come a few years earlier. As it is, this colorful ad (with its umpteenth recycling of THE classic Jose Gonzalez Vampi pose) was all that materialized. At some point, the fan press announced that Playboy model Barbara Leigh had been cast in the lead and somebody, somewhere took a lot of pictures of her in the skimpy costume but I’d be willing to bet it wasn’t Hammer. She looked the part to the extreme and, if she could act at all, might have been able to carry a real film of the story of the reluctant alien vampire and her monster-hunting friends. No film emerged, however, for another two decades. Finally, in 1996, ultra-low budget director Jim Wynorski debuted his silly-looking PVC Vampi, ex-Bond girl Talisa Soto, in a film seemingly designed to be derided by fans and fanboys alike (and how Roger Daltrey got mixed up in it is anyone’s guess!).
Hammer films lives on only in histories and documentaries, Vampirella has returned from Harris Comics, Barbara Leigh has milked her moment of fame much longer than seems possible and the 1996 VAMPIRELLA is already largely forgotten. But in 1976…for a brief moment, we dreamed of Drakulon!

The Great Comic Book Artists

These two volumes of THE GREAT COMIC BOOK ARTISTS come from prolific comic book historian, genre author and sometime William Shatner ghost writer Ron Goulart. Published, respectively, in 1986 and 1989, they offer a nice basic primer on classic and even unsung comics artists from the thirties up through the time of publication. Each volume is laid out so that the left hand page is a biography and the right hand page is a (usually) good black and white scan of an art sample. As you might suspect, with so much work to choose from, many artists are represented by arguably not the best choices. Don’t know how much input Goulart had with the choices, though, and/or how much those choices may have been constrained by rights factors.
The ever-popular John Byrne provided the cover for volume one and Art Adams jumped in for volume two. Besides the obvious choices found here, lesser (but no less interesting) lights such as Matt Baker, Lee Elias, Mort Meskin, George Tuska, Craig Flessel, Mike Grell, Norman Maurer, Tarpe Mills and Ogden Whitney are given equal treatment. Goulart has probably written more books on comic strip and comic book history than any other author and all of them are informative and entertaining. If you're at all interested in the creators behind the comics, these are two of his best.

You Know How You Get a Song Stuck in Your Head? # 1

From time to time, everyone gets a song stuck in their head. Sometimes it comes from a few seconds on a TV commercial or in an elevator but more often than not, at least in my case, the songs just spring up from my vast (and largely unexplored) subconscious. My lovely wife, pointing out that she can't imagine anyone having a more eclectic inner soundtrack than mine, suggested that I might on ocassion, share these interior musical moments. So here we are with that first look into my subconscious. The two songs that have been stuck in my head since awakening this morning are "Gone Fishin'" by Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong and "The Colonel Bogey March" from THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. What's stuck in YOUR head today?

The World's Greatest Superheroes

It didn’t get a lot of fan press as I recall but April of 1978 saw the newspaper debut of THE WORLD’S GREATEST SUPERHEROES, a daily and Sunday comic strip featuring DC’s Justice League. Well, initially it just featured Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman and Aquaman. Packing in more action than most other strips of the period, the first storyline featured classic Justice Society villain Vandal Savage. Doctor Destiny followed. The strip didn’t run for long in my local paper but I clipped it all (as well as some Sunday strips from the NYC Sunday News). During the course of the action, we saw Superman behaving like a male chauvinist pig toward Wonder Woman, a shaved bald Flash needing brain surgery, Aquaman replaced by Batman and Robin and, towards the end, the introduction of Black Canary into the continuity.
Written in the beginning by ex-letter hack Martin "Pesky" Pasko (the first convention guest I ever met!), THE WORLD’S GREATEST SUPERHEROES offered some of the best art from (just recently turned ninety-something) veteran George Tuska, inked quite capably and comfortably by the much maligned (and often with good reason) Vince Colletta. The stories were original, the characterizations were strong for a daily strip and yet it was not a resounding success, even in those SUPER-FRIENDS days. According to Wikipedia it ran a lot longer in some markets, eventually featuring other heroes including Black Lightning. Later writers included Gerry Conway, Bob Rozakis, Paul Levitz and Paul Kupperberg. Additional art over the course of the run was provided by Jose Delbo, Bob Smith, Frank McLaughlin and Sal Trapani (or someone ghosting for him anyway!). The focus switched to Superman and the strip continued for about seven years. I doubt many of the fans who would appreciate it have even heard of it today. Hey, DC, you listening? There’s some trade paperback dollars waiting for you in this!

More Paint Pop Art

Seems I've been chasing the day today but the day has too much of a lead. Lots of interesting things to share and talk about as usual including THE VICAR OF DIBLEY, WEIRD HEROES, ALLEY OOP, more lost movies and Vaughn Bode' but no time to give any of it the respect it's due so, for now at least, here's some more recent Paint Pop Art that I've done on break at work. Enjoy!

Popeye Yis What He Yis

At left is a posable rubber POPEYE figure that I got around 1971 at a store called Twin Fair which, ironically, was around the corner from the house I now own . It cost 50 cents. Every so often, I go through a POPEYE phase. Since Fantagraphics has announced a naturally nifty new series of POPEYE books coming soon (see here: Amazon.com: Popeye Vol. 1: "I Yam What I Yam": Books: E. C. Segar), I've got a feeling I'll be going through one again soon. As I said about M*A*S*H earlier, there are many distinct versions of POPEYE and nearly all of them have merit. I love the Fleischer POPEYE cartoons of the 1930's and I enjoy the Famous color POPEYE's of the forties and fifties. I grew up with reruns of all of those when I was about ten. Much earlier (and again as a teen) I saw the limited animation TV cartoons of the early sixties. Yes, they're pretty bad BUT they offered a much richer tapestry of creator E.C. Segar's great characters than any of the other series including the Sea Hag and Alice the Goon. Thus, by the time I discovered the Nostalgia Press volume seen here, I was prepped and ready for the real thing-THIMBLE THEATER. The creativity, originality and humor in these original storylines put them on a par with the best literature of their period (to those open-minded enough to pay attention). There have been a number of POPEYE books published since including a nice earlier run by Fantagraphics. These strips, perhaps more than any other of their period, deserve to be in print. Yep. Looks like I have another POPEYE phase coming up.

Gloved M*A*S*H

I respect Rober Altman as a filmmaker but the only one of his films that I have ever actually enjoyed is M*A*S*H. I didn’t catch it in its initial run. In fact, I didn’t even watch the TV series until near the end of the first season and it went on to be an all-time favorite. After the series caught fire, the original, R-rated movie was re-released as a PG film in order to cash in on the TV success. I’m uncertain as to whether or not it was edited or if the original rating had just been appealed. The salty language was still there, blood was omnipresent, Hot Lips was still naked, etc. If anything was cut, it clearly wasn’t much. Anyway, the original poster with the legs and the hand and the peace sign is undoubtedly one of the most memorable film poster images of them all. How many, however, recall that when it was re-issued in the mid-seventies the hand was now wearing a glove? Huh? What did that signify exactly? This prophylactic protection seemed designed to indicate that, contrary to all that skin shown on the original, the movie was, in fact, safe for the TV fans. Anyone who’s seen the TV version and the film version, however (or read the books for that matter) will tell you that each M*A*S*H must be taken on its own terms. You really can’t read M*A*S*H GOES TO MAINE and successfully visualize either Donald Sutherland or Alan Alda as Hawkeye. Neither can you imagine the movie’s anarchist doctors preaching the series’ left-wing philosophies. Both versions, as well as the long series of books by creator "Richard Hooker," are legitimate. Underneath the humor, they all make you think about the horrors of war and that glove certainly doesn’t make those thoughts any safer.

A Typical Day at DC-1967

Real or not, thanks to Stan Lee’s editorials and letter pages, sixties comics fans had an idea what things were like in the Marvel Bullpen. DC, then known as National Comics, on the other hand, had kept quiet about that sort of thing, preferring the image of a completely professional corporation. At least they did until late 1967 where, in the unlikely pages of INFERIOR FIVE # 6, we are treated to an exaggerated, but probably factually based, look at what really went on in the DC Bullpen!
INFERIOR FIVE was a superhero parody featuring Merryman (a Woody Allen type), Awkwardman, The Blimp, the cowardly White Feather and the pulchritudinous Dumb Bunny. This issue, however, opened with Merryman promising a brief prologue about how an IF comic book is made. That prologue then takes up the entire issue. Filled with dozens of in-jokes and parodies of comics creators, this story, entitled "How to Make a Bomb!" is actually one of the funniest DC comics ever published.
After a completely misleading cover and an amusing intro featuring a brief look at Ginny and Lucille, "the switchboard girls," we meet I.D., the Boy Wonder and Big Boss of National Comics. Although a parody of then-publisher Irwin Donenfeld (himself soon to be ousted), since he was the son of National Comics founder Harry Donenfeld, he is portrayed as a five year old. I.D. travels in a private elevator down to a sub-basement clearly based on Jack Benny’s legendary vault to visit his staff. Awkwardman observes from the next panel that, "They’re already at the bottom of page 5 and they haven’t even started this issue!"
Editor Jack Miller is introduced next, being fitted for a suit by seven tiny (and racially cliched) Hong Kong tailors as his secretary begins a day-long phone conversation with her mother that occasionally comments on events in the book. I.D. and Jack head off to an editorial conference (the tailors, too) where less than flattering caricatures of Mort Weisinger, Julie Schwartz, Bob Kanigher and others are having a food fight!
The Boy Wonder tells E. Nelson Bridwell, a former MAD writer, to put more of "that MAD spirit" in INFERIOR FIVE. Bridwell rattles off a full panel of MAD nonsense words like "potrzebie" and "fershlugginer" to which I.D. replies, "I’m dubious but try!" At the bottom of the page, Awkwardman observes that, "This ‘brief prologue’ promises to be longer than THE BIBLE." (Merryman responds with, "And that WAS a long movie!"
Miller(and his tailors)meet up with this issue’s artist, Mike Sekowsky and they decide to go see Art Director carmine Infantino for a cover conference only to run into a fanboy tour! Carmine, when they do find him, breaks the fourth wall to use the Blimp as a model (for a vase!), then it’s off to Sol Harrison and Jack Adler in the Art Department, dueling with ink. The aptly named letterer, Joe Letterese gives a gothic touch to the issue’s text next. Then Miller tells Bridwell that he heard he won an Alley Award (Fandom’s early version of the Eisners) for writing INFERIOR FIVE. Bridwell counters that actually he was beaten up in an alley for writing the mag!
A lisping mad scientist-type shows up to audition for the villain role followed by our actual hapless heroes confronting their creators about using all of the space just as the seven little tailors finally finish the straitjacket they’ve been sewing for Jack Miller and take him away, leaving his secretary to sum up the day as the Inferior Five sack out on the floor in the office. A typical day at National Comics in late 1967?

A History of the Beatles

Today’s feature is another that could have fit under the Movies That Fell Through the Cracks banner except that
a) it isn’t really a movie and
b) every bit of the footage is easily accessible on the Internet.
A HISTORY OF THE BEATLES was a more-or-less random compilation of rare footage of the Fab Four that played the Alpha Fine Arts Theater in Cincinnati in early 1978. For all I know, it may well have been compiled locally and that may well have been the ONLY place it played.
Note that the flyer emphasizes that this is NOT a multimedia performance or a slide show. Throughout the seventies, various travelling shows attempted to cash in on the Beatles with exactly those tactics, to varying success. BEATLEMANIA ( "NOT the Beatles but an incredible simulation!")continued well into the eighties, in fact, when I finally saw it. I liked it. Clearly a lot of work went into it and there was a live group on stage performing Beatle songs (in various period costumes) to an overwhelming backdrop of historical context footage, sight and sound. Casual fans loved it but many hardcore fans decried the stage shows. Thus, to appeal to those fans, they distanced themselves with the disclaimer for A HISTORY OF THE BEATLES.
The Alpha Fine Arts had been (without the "Fine Arts" tag) a notorious porno theater that, as you might guess in Cincinnati, was constantly in trouble for one thing or another in the seventies. In the late seventies, it underwent a complete rehabilitation and became a repertory cinema. Their colorful monthly calendars were filled with such fare as SIDDHARTHA, BARBARELLA, THE BICYCLE THIEF and M. HULOT’S HOLIDAY. I had to take two buses to get there (age 19. I didn’t drive until 32 but that’s another story) but I would try to make it every Sunday afternoon.
The footage found in A HISTORY OF THE BEATLES included the STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER video (with Dick Clark outro), REVOLUTION on DAVID FROST, early concert clips, ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE and…well, I’m not sure. You see, one of the first pre-recorded videos I purchased when I bought my beloved Betamax two years later was a two tape set of the same stuff…with about four hours added on! I get confused as to which footage was actually on display at the Alpha. The tape included the full Shea Stadium TV special, the full Tokyo concert and the full MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR and I’m sure THOSE weren’t a part of HISTORY.
Anyway, for a Beatles fan like myself, that showing I attended at the Alpha Fine Arts 28 years ago now was an overload of new to me musical joy. Yeah, yeah, yeah indeed!

View From the Sandbox

One item, if you can call her that (and I’d better not!), seen around the Library every day is my lovely wife, Rene. She has a blog also, dedicated to political issues from a liberal mother’s point of view. VIEW FROM THE SANDBOX grew out of her participation as one of the founding mothers of the Million Mom March in 2000. Of late, her blog has presented some interesting pieces, my favorite being her just posted article on the "English as national language" controversy which she posted in multiple languages including Greek, Spanish, German and Russian. Please check it out here at VIEW FROM THE SANDBOX and then go back and read some of her other editorials. I may be prejudiced, but by looking at things from a different perspective than most of the pundits, she sometimes makes some valid points rarely heard elsewhere.

Movies That Fell Through the Cracks # 6

THE LEGEND OF HILLBILLY JOHN was a barely released 1974 movie based on well-known author Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John stories. Although he wrote regular fiction and science-fiction (as well as some scripts and non-fiction), the author is best remembered for his Appalachian balladeer horror stories but this is the only one that made it to the screen.
Improbably produced by CAGNEY AND LACEY’S Barney Rozensweig and directed by ONE STEP BEYOND’s John Newland, the film boasts an impressive cast of character actors including Second City alumnus Severn Darden, Susan Strasberg, Harris Yulin and, one of my favorites, the unfortunately monickered Percy Rodrigues. Topbilled as John is one Hedge Capers who, assuming he didn’t change his name, apparently never worked in show business again. Original music was by Hoyt Axton who seemingly could do no wrong in the seventies. Special effects were by Gene Warren who had an impressive credits list that included the stop motion work on the original LAND OF THE LOST.
IMDB describes the plot as "A wandering ballad singer in the Appalachians meets an ugly bird-type creature, is transported back in time, finds himself involved in the Devil's work." Their reviews offer fond recollections of fans of the books, all of whom cite the low budget restrictions of the movie. Steeped in the folk traditions of the Carolinas, Wellman’s tales would probably be hard to visualize as well as anything the books could display inside your own head. I find myself wondering, though, if the guitar carrying wanderer didn’t influence the folks who later brought you SIX-STRING SAMURAI.
You’re probably better off reading up on Wellman, himself , so here’s a link to a good source: The Voice of the Mountains

Stan Lee's Best of the World's Worst

What did Stan Lee do for a hobby before he started doing all of those movie cameos (I can understand Spidey and FF but PRINCESS DIARIES 2? Where did THAT one come from?)? Answer: he wrote books! Or…did he? To look at this cover for RHINO PRESENTS THE BEST OF THE WORLD’S WORST, published in 1994, one would get the definite impression that Stan the Man was the author, wouldn’t one? The fact that the copyright is held by Stan Lee would seem to cinch that but then, if you read the fine print on the acknowledgments page you’ve got a compiler, editors and a list of "researchers, helpers, typists and exotic dancers." The most telling phrase is one that says "featuring caustic comments capriciously choreographed and concocted by Stan Lee." Hmmm… Opposite this page is the title page which now calls the book, STAN LEE PRESENTS THE BEST OF THE WORLD’S WORST and is followed by a quote stating, "If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism. If you steal from many, it’s research." What th’??? "Steal?" Are they trying to subtly tell us what becomes obvious as soon as you start the body of the book—that Stan’s contributions are minimal at best. Each page offers a number of paragraphs (some illustrated by various artists including sometime Marvel folks, Jim Owsley and Ed Hannigan) of trivial interest and under each one is an italicized Jay Leno-style zinger from the man who would later bring you STRIPPERELLA. Since he has to come up with something for every single piece, most of them fall flatter than Mister Fantastic after a bad day. For instance, after a piece about a Spanish Church that collapsed after taking 90 years to build, Stan writes, "They shouldn’t have rushed the job." After a piece on the Guyana Tragedy, Stan writes "Odd. We thought they’d died of old age." To be fair, some are better but none bring out a real chuckle. Rhino Records was responsible for this book…which readily explains why they’re Rhino RECORDS and not Rhino BOOKS!

DC Swipes Kirby!

Here's an unexpected one for the Jack Kirby swipe file series in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR(but since I have my own blog, I'm debuting it here) and it's a weird one. One of my all-time favorite splash pages comes from the CAPTAIN AMERICA story in Marvel's TALES OF SUSPENSE 92, 1967. It's a simple piece featuring Steve (CA) Rogers arriving back home at a commercial airport after a long series of very eventful issues. He's smiling, he's optimistic, he's...wait a minute. What's the deal with that scene-stealing little girl holding a doll? She's waving at us like she knows she's in a comic book! In fact, she doesn't look much like a Kirby character at all! I always had the sneaking suspicion that frequent Kirby inker Joe Sinnott threw in a drawing of his daughter or something just for fun. In fact, I vaguely recall an interview where someone asked Sinnott about that panel but I don't recall what he said. Jump now to DC's METAMORPHO 16 which hit the stands just a couple months later and...whadda ya know? There she is again! In fact, the entire airport crowd, in approximately their exact same positions, turns up at a dock where a cruise ship is leaving! Credited artist is Sal Trapani but Sal had a reputation for lots of assistants or, quite often, simply farming out or subcontracting the work he had been assigned. The inks still look to me like the heavy Charles Paris inks that had defined the look of the series but neither DC's SHOWCASE volume nor GCD credits an inker other than, perhaps, Trapani himself. So the question is, who was drawing this scene? Did they need a small crowd scene and just lift it plain and simply from the Cap tale which more than likely was on the stands just as the Element Man story was being drawn? If it was Sinnott's daughter, neice, neighbor or whoever, I wonder if she ever saw herself in THIS one!

The Hulk is Coming (1978)

In late 1978, with the semi-success of the SPIDER-MAN newspaper strip (and the failure of THE VIRTUE OF VERA VALIANT), Marvel ventured once again onto the ink-stained pages of America’s newspapers with THE INCREDIBLE HULK. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the Hulk had been much more successful than Spidey on television. In fact, the newspaper Hulk was, as on TV, David Banner, not Bruce. Ostensibly written by Stan Lee (but I’d venture that they would more than likely put his name on it no matter who was actually writing it) and drawn by his brother Larry Lieber, the plots are fairly uninteresting and the action typically, as in most newspaper strips, drawn out. Aided either by a jarring variety of inkers or at least inking styles, Lieber’s artwork went from pretty good to rushed in a matter of weeks. Seen here is the cool "Coming Soon" ad that appeared in my local paper along with the introductory week of strips. It was not uncommon for newspaper syndicates to provide such strips to get readers up to speed when the series began in a new market. Noting the extremely crude lettering on these, I don’t think it’s a stretch to guess that these may have been cobbled together in-house by The Cincinnati Post themselves rather than distributed by the syndicate. I’m not certain how long THE INCREDIBLE HULK lasted in papers elsewhere but around here, the strip was gone pretty quickly, leaving ol’ Greenskin alone to sit in a corner and wait for Peter David to come along and make him interesting again.

Fandom Annual # 3

I thought I had sold FANDOM ANNUAL # 3 a few years ago but I found it slightly misplaced in the archives last night. This 200 page bound volume collects what is essentially a "Best Of" compilation of early RBCC articles and art. Published circa 1972 (there’s no date) it features such a wide variety of fan-oriented obsessions that it eerily echoes the blog I, myself, have now created! Legendary fan G.B. Love was the editor and his talented replacement, James Van Hise (who still owes me some money on that last RBCC subscription renewal but, hey, that’s all water under the bridge…) assisted.
An index of the contents will give some idea of just how diverse fandom was in those days (and maybe how I got to be that way, too!).
Cover-Sub-Mariner by Farwell and Warner
(?)Inside Cover-Fighting American by Bill Black

EC Revisited by Rich Hauser-20 page section illustrated by original and fan EC art
Blackmark- a review of Gil Kane’s sword and sorcery paperback

Undergrounds- a one page piece by Van Hise

Comics Fans- an undergroundish strip that defines fanboys in 3 pages of still true truisims

Untamed Love-a Frazetta reprint

Interview with Garry Trudeau

An index of UNCLE SCROOGE comics by…wait for it…DON ROSA!!!!!

Magazine reprint on Alex Raymond

Flash Gordon-one page reprint

Serial stills, posters and lobby cards for 16 pages

Harryhausen stills

TOR by Joe Kubert-Cover and 11 page reprint

Star Trek article with rare illustrations

WHITE INDIAN-Frazetta reprint

The Williamson Collector-23 pages of this popular RBCC review feature, with art

Return of the Werewolf-Horror reprint by Al Williamson and Harold LeDoux

7 page Lone Ranger piece with great stills

3 pages of early Wallace Wood art

The Ray- Lou Fine reprint

Interview with PRINCE VALIANT’S Hal Foster

White Indian-another Frank Frazetta reprint

Rocketship-Flash Gordon serial feature reviewed

Buster Crabbe and the Maid of Mars-yet another reprint

SPACEHAWK- Basil Wolverton sci-fi reprint!

Days of Valor- Multi-page EC reviews

Captain Comet-Space Pilot, one final comic book reprint

A series of classic and (at least then) little-seen golden age comic covers

Back Cover-PRINCE VALIANT by Hal Foster
Whew! As I said, what a diverse bunch of stuff…much like what I’ve been presenting here. Okay, Van Hise, I guess I got something out of all this after all. Let’s call it square on that subscription mess, deal?

Ray Heatherton

The other day I spoke briefly of JOEY AND DAD, the short-run seventies series that featured pouty Joey Heatherton and her dad, TV's former "Merry Mailman" of the 1950's. Well, I just noticed that the amazing Scott Shaw! has a MERRY MAILMAN comic up as this week's Oddball Comic over at (naturally) Oddball Comics. Talk about going postal! Ray was actually before my time but his hit children's record was still being recycled in the sixties when I was a child and was one of those "sticksinyourheadforever" songs.

David McCallum

I was watching TV one night a couple weeks back when I found myself interested in the latest CSI clone, NAVY NCIS after catching David McCallum playing a character called Donald "Ducky" Mallard. At one time, the Scottish born actor was the flavor of the month, appearing as mysterious spy Illya Kuryakin opposite Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo weekly in the (sort of) Ian Fleming-created TV series, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Inspired by the success of the earliest James Bond films, the series started out with semi-serious spy stories but, after BATMAN, veered toward the camp and tongue-in-cheek. Almost from the beginning, McCallum, in the small role of Illya, became a fan favorite. Soon enough, in the manner later followed by Mister Spock and Fonzie, he became THE favorite star of the show! The actor, originally known for several guest shots on THE OUTER LIMITS, did personal appearances and even appeared in character on the sitcom PLEASE DON’T EAT THE DAISIES. In 1966, he even had the book seen here all to himself. Ultimately, the U.N.C.L.E. franchise included novelizations, comic books, toys, games and even the spin-off series, THE GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E., all of which wore out Illya’s welcome by 1968.

McCallum returned for several less than memorable TV series tries in the US before re-emerging in the late 1970’s in the UK with SAPPHIRE AND STEEL. Like DOCTOR WHO, this was a serial. Unlike DOCTOR WHO, it was dreadfully dull and slow in spite of an interesting premise and a post NEW AVENGERS/pre-ABFAB Joanna Lumley. My wife loves the series and it has become a cult favorite in its own right although it never really appeared in the US (Just this year, David Warner essayed the McCallum role in new audio adventures).

David McCallum continued to be a familiar, welcome face on various series between leading roles, even returning to Illya in an U.N.C.L.E. TV reunion movie. In 1989, a well-done behind the scenes book on the original series came out. He may not be a teen idol anymore but, with the rise of the Internet, McCallum’s fan base has a place to gather once again. "Open channel ‘D.’" Here are a couple links to David McCallum sites:David McCallum Updates, David McCallum Fans Online entrance

Mass Market Paperbacks

Maybe it’s just the fact that I managed bookstores for literally half my life but this book, UNDERCOVER-AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF MASS MARKET PAPERBACKS, has long been a favorite of mine. Published in 1982, I didn’t find it until about ten years later. Ironically, it was published by Penguin, most of whose small paperback output continued to be considered trades rather than mass markets long past the point where that distinction made sense to anyone. The author, Thomas Bonn, starts out with a nice, reasonably succinct history of paperback publishing. Then, knowing full well that you can't judge a book by its cover and yet how else can you judge it until you've read it, he goes on to detail the always entertaining ways of marketing the books via their garish covers and other hype. There are lots of examples of classic, collectible and just plain weird covers (such as those seen here), many in black and white but with three separate color sections. If you’re a collector, a reader or especially a longtime bookstore employee, you need to find this long out of print book, one of only two I’ve ever even seen on this particular subject (the other of which I passed on, even at a quarter used at a library book sale so that should give you an idea how unimpressed I was!).

Friends Again!

Not that anyone probably cares but my friend Kim and I are on speaking terms again having made up a week after her birthday. This gives me the excuse to run this smiley photomanipulated shot I did of her a couple years ago. I think it's one of the best photos I ever took.

Bob Hope Meets Stanley and His Monster (and Scooter)

This ad appeared in a few DC comics dated December, 1967 and served as almost a last ditch effort to get fans to read the books being advertised. SWING WITH SCOOTER, although an acceptable ARCHIE variation, was too tied to its mid-sixties origins to avoid seeming dated almost immediately. THE ADVENTURES OF BOB HOPE had been around for years but, in spite of Neal Adams artwork and far-out hero Super-Hip, seemed out of place in the sixties (Hope, himself, is said to have had a whole collection, though). STANLEY AND HIS MONSTER, which we wrote about earlier here, was a personal favorite but even I'll admit that it had gotten kind of crowded pretty quickly what with gnomes and leprechauns and ghosts and Bob Oksner babysitters (hotcha!) and such. They were just about to boot FOX AND CROW out of their own mag at thepoint this ad ran but that wasn't exactly a good thing. Apparently, a lot of folks stopped buying it when Fauntleroy Fox and Crawford Crow finally gave up (pardon the expression) the ghost. Soon enough, Bob, Scooter and Stanley and friends were gone, too.

Charley Weaver

Cliff Arquette is recalled today, if at all, as some distant show business relative of all of those other youngish Arquettes running around on TV and in the movies. There was a time, though, boys and girls, when Cliff Arquette--or rather his alter ego, Charley Weaver--was a star! Arquette had actually already retired from a mildly successful showbiz career when his creation of the easy going country comic, Charley Weaver, turned up on Jack Paar's TONIGHT show in the late fifties. Charley would appear fairly regularly, always offering an amusing letter ostensibly from his "Mamma" back home in the fictitious Mount Idy. These pun-filled missives were loaded with old jokes, new jokes, clever wordplay and even visual gags and proved to be so popular that there were at least two multi-printing collections of them published! As Paar gave way to Carson, Arquette parlayed his character's popularity into appearances on dozens of TV shows before ending up as a regular on the long-running game show, HOLLYWOOD SQUARES. If host Peter Marshall's book is to be believed, Cliff Arquette was (in one sense) even more successful behind the scenes, filling his days and nights with wine, women and song as he grew older...particularly the women and the wine! The very idea! What would Mamma say?

Nina David's TV Seasons

Around 1988, I found the four volumes seen here at a Library used book sale at the Mall in which I worked. They were 50 cents each and turned out to be one of the best buys I ever made. Produced by Nina David for Oryx Press, neither of whom I had ever heard of before, these meticulously indexed alphabetical compilations of every series and special airing in the mid- to late seventies have proven to be invaluable reference works. On a completely different note, they serve as reminders of strange TV series, specials and one-shots that are now nearly totally forgotten thirty years on.
Here are some choice examples-
JOEY AND DAD- a 4 part 1975 summer series featuring sexy (and later much maligned) singer/dancer Joey Heatherton and her father Ray, known on fifties TV as "the Merry Mailman." The show featured SMOTHERS BROTHERS alumnae Pat Paulsen and Bob (Super Dave Osborne) Einstein and had some good music and sketches.

THE MAGICAL TRIP THROUGH LITTLE RED’S HEAD-an hour long animated after school special produced by Depatie-Freleng and featuring former LAUGH-IN regular Sarah Kennedy as Little Red.

MITZI AND A HUNDRED GUYS- Inexplicably, Mitzi Gaynor used to regularly turn up with less than spectacular TV specials that often won or were nominated for awards. This one from 1975 featured brief appearances by "The Million Dollar Chorus" who included William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Andy Griffith, Steve Allen, Bob Hope, Monty Hall and dozens of other unlikely candidates.

THE ZOO GANG- A short-run British series featuring Brian Keith, John Mills, Barry Morse and Lilli Palmer and based on a book by the guy who wrote THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. Music was by Paul McCartney!

THE MAC DAVIS SPECIAL from 1975, produced by Jack Haley, Jr and bizarrely featuring his then-wife Liza Minnelli along with the Sid and Marty Krofft puppets and Neil (wasn’t he one of the Sid and Marty Krofft Puppets, too?)Sedaka.

THE GOODIES AND THE BEANSTALK- A 1976 PBS airing of a British satire by the hilarious Python-like comedy troupe that never really caught on in America, hosted by Jeremy Brett (later Sherlock Holmes) and featuring John Cleese.

PBS MOVIE THEATER- a 76-77 series that aired rarely seen film classics that were just eaten up by us budding film buffs! Titles included Cocteau’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, IVAN THE TERRIBLE and KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS.

SECRET SERVICE, a GREAT PERFORMANCES play spotlighting early appearances by Meryl Streep and John Lithgow.

GOOBER AND THE TRUCKER’S PARADISE was a 1978 unsold pilot returning George Lindsey to his familiar Mayberry character, now set in a truck stop café. The delightful Leigh French appeared along with cult actor Brion James. Music was by Ray Stevens.
WHAT’S UP DOC? was another unsold pilot, this time featuring Barry Van Dyke in the Ryan O’Neal role from the movie of the same name opposite Caroline McWilliams, later of BENSON.

In spite of the professional quality of the interiors, the decidedly amateurish covers tell me that this series was not commercially distributed. Were these the only volumes or had it been published for years? When did it stop? Who was/is Nina David and why isn’t she as well-known as other TV historians such as Vincent Terrace? All of which would be interesting to know but none of which would change the enjoyment and practical use I’ve gotten out of this two dollar purchase!

Negative Batman

The picture of the Caped Crusader at left was originally printed in the 1989 Chicago Comicon Program Book. It was my second Chicago Con (and a memorable one! At breakfast one morning in the hotel restaurant, I got to watch legendary BATMAN artist Dick Sprang introduce himself to then DC President Jennette Kahn!) That Denys Cowan art always bothered me, though. It was unique, unusual and, in my opinion, somehow just wrong! Now, through the magic of computers, I give you DC and Batman's greeting to the 1989 Chicago Comic Con the way I still feel it was meant to be! My theory is that the artist did it the way it was printed to save on black ink and that it was supposed to be reversed only no one told the printer.

Kristine DeBell & The Wizard of Ozz

This one may actually have fallen through the cracks before it even got made but clearly some costume shots were done and it was being advertised in the trades. Ozzy Osbourne had nothing to do with THE WIZARD OF OZZ. Producer Bill Osco (FLESH GORDON) lucked onto a surprise hit in 1976 with a silly, sexy R-rated musical version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND starring Kristine DeBell. For a low budget movie of any kind, the budget was well used. The costumes were good and some of the songs were surprisingly singable (What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing on a Knight Like This?). In the year before STAR WARS, ALICE made quite a bit of money so, quite naturally, a follow-up was planned. I don’t even recall where this ad came from. The paper’s too slick to be VARIETY but it appears to be just an announcement. Was it really in production? Was any footage actually shot? Was it completed but unreleased? Not a clue. Osco's next released picture, THE GREAT AMERICAN GIRL ROBBERY, was three years later and co-starred DeBell with FLESH's Jason Williams.The charming Miss DeBell turned up that same year opposite Bill Murray in MEATBALLS. One of her biggest roles was as Jackie Chan’s girlfriend in his American movie debut, THE BIG BRAWL. She bounced from there to various high profile gigs including a memorable guest shot as a high profile rock star on TV’s NIGHT COURT. She even got a regular role on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS. Then ALICE IN WONDERLAND was re-released with Kristine’s originally shot hardcore sex scenes badly re-inserted (and quite frankly making for a lesser film). Whether or not that was what caused it, her career sadly faded and she became a trivia question. Neither fish nor fowl. Mainstream star? Adult star? Nope. Just sadly faded. This ad for THE WIZARD OF OZZ may be all anyone ever saw of what would have been her second starring role.

Charlie Chaplin

Woody Gelman’s Nostalgia Press appeared in the mid-sixties, presaging the nostalgia boom that I mention so often around here. In 1965, one of the company’s early publications was Gerald McDonald’s THE PICTURE HISTORY OF CHARLIE CHAPLIN, seen here. Along with the requisite stills and film clips, this thin, almost magazine-sized volume presented vintage advertisements and comic strips dealing with the almost unbelievable popularity of the Little Tramp character.
I never really "got" Charlie Chaplin. As a youngster, I reportedly adored Chaplin shorts that were mixed in with the Three Stooges comedies I watched every night but, from what I’ve read recently, it’s possible that it wasn’t even Chaplin. Reportedly, the Stooges package aired on many local stations with Columbia silent shorts, some of which featured may have featured one of the many Chaplin impersonators! My parents said it was Chaplin I loved but then, when I grew older and watched Charlie I found myself as silent as the films. I just didn’t laugh. I admired his skill as a filmmaker and his clever setups and set pieces but I did not laugh. I appreciated the grace with which he moved and the pantomime he effected but I didn’t laugh. I laughed out loud at Keaton, I snickered at Lloyd’s double-takes and I even chuckled from time to time at Harry Langdon but Chaplin, to me,was much more clever than funny (much like SCTV). Over the years, I’ve become fascinated by the man himself-- his loves, politics and indiscretions-- and I’ve amassed several of the scores of the published biographies and picture histories but this one, purchased used around 1990, is a favorite—simple, elegant and, as the publisher’s name implies…nostalgic.

Sub-Mariner Meets Wolverine??

The thing that gets me is that somebody somewhere really must have thought it was a good idea: take actual comic book panels and animate mouths and legs and then use tricky camera work to make them look as though they’re moving. Somehow, they rationalized calling the weird result a cartoon and then somebody actually sold Marvel Comics on the idea. Thus was born the MARVEL SUPER HEROES TV series that was highly touted in 1966 Marvels but, being syndicated, didn’t reach my neck of the river until 1969. Being 10 and a big Marvel fan at that point, I, of course, loved it! The theme songs were kitschy and catchy at the same time and the voice work (mostly Canadian) was quite good. Looking at the so-called animated series today, however, is a nostalgic but cringe-worthy experience.
The series consisted of short segments of CAPTAIN AMERICA, IRON MAN, THOR, THE HULK and THE SUB-MARINER. Every single one of the episodes was taken directly from the original comic books with, I believe, just one single exception. One of the Subby episodes was taken from a FANTASTIC FOUR annual and combined two stories, one of which didn’t even have Prince Namor! Since the producers did NOT have rights to the FF (Hanna-Barbera was already starting on their Saturday morning network series), they had to completely write out the main characters and actually provide some NEW (if extremely poor) animation for these.
The book in question was FF Annual # 3, the wedding issue, and the two stories were the wedding itself and the reprint of FANTASTIC FOUR # 6 in which the Sub-Mariner first teamed up with Doctor Doom. Somehow they DID have the rights to Doom. In the mangled and re-written plot, partially told by the Ted Knight-like announcer (Bernard Cowan) and partially narrated by the great character actor John Vernon as Namor, Doom decided to take over the world. Since many of his enemies, specifically the "Allies for Peace" (also called the "Alliance for Peace") will be at the dedication of the new Peace Building (actually the Baxter Building), he calls forth a horde of hypnotized villains to confront them there.
From this point we get a rehash of much of the fight scenes from the Annual as Professor X calls the original X-Men to tackle the Mole man, Thor battles the Super-Skrull, and other heroes and villains are briefly glimpsed (including what appears to be a semi-naked Electro!). Later, we see Quicksilver in what must have been his summer outfit with a blue short sleeved shirt and red shorts and boots. Sigh. Even Captain America appears for two seconds of a static crowd shot.
This being technically a Sub-Mariner story, Dr. Doom eventually says (oddly after the bad guys are defeated) "The battle is not yet won. There’s still the Sub-Mariner." He then tricks Namor into a meeting to show him his "Grabber." Don’t go there…please. He even gets our hero to place one in the basement of the Peace Building for some nebulous reason before going upstairs to talk to the tuxedo-clad Professor X. The evil villain checks monitors in the building and we even see a "4" symbol that someone accidentally threw in. Doom then uses his ultra-powerful Grabber and pulls the entire building into space where he plans on sending it into the sun.
The announcer tells us that unknown to all, a giant asteroid crashed into a dead sun millions of miles away creating little meteors. Subby must have heard about this somehow (Aqua-hearing?) because he decides to use the oncoming meteor storm to enable him to propel himself to Doom’s space plane and stop him. Eschewing the helmet he wore in the original issue, Sub-Mariner leaps outside the building, bouncing off the falling rocks until he reaches his goal and saves the day which, of course, means that the Peace building will settle slowly and neatly back to earth into its original location and somehow re-attach all of its plumbing, wiring, etc. Sigh. We were all sooooo naïve then.
Released on video in 1991 along with an Attuma episode from TALES TO ASTONISH, the box touts the appearance of Wolverine both on the front and the back!Perhaps to justify that cover, Logan does appear in a modern ad before the show itself begins Needless to say, in the episode all we get is the ultra-cheaply animated Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Beast and an absolutely ridiculous-looking Iceman! Historically speaking, though, this was the very first appearance of Marvel’s now oft-animated franchise! It just wasn’t really a Sub-Mariner story!

Made it!

Whew! Well, I think things have settled down since my computorial faux pas nearly eliminated my entire virtual Library the other day. We're up and running with a brand new look , a new counter and the same old cool junk from the boxes, cabinets and bookcases in the next room. Very special thanks to Michael Netzer who not only attempted to help me fix my blogging problem from the middle of a frickin' desert a world away but who completely humbled me with an unexpected review of BOOKSTEVE'S LIBRARY on his own spanking new blog at Michael Netzer: RABBLE-ROUSER. I have no doubt that his will be a fascinating and controversial site to watch as it develops! Thanks, Mike! Also, Happy Birthday to DIAL B for BLOG. My 9 year old son and I celebrated that nifty blog's one year mark by breaking out my nearly complete run of the original Dial H For Hero series in HOUSE OF MYSTERY. David wanted to take them to school with him but when I explained how much he'd have to pay if anything happened to them, he quickly decided on some GOOSEBUMPS books instead.

The 1980 Superman Club

In 1980, DC President Sol Harrison "personally" invited me (I was on their mailing list because of the Direct Currents newsletter from a couple years earlier) to join the new Superman Club "before your friends even hear about it!" Being 21 that year, I wasn't really much of a joiner anymore (although that Buckarooo Banzai Fan Club was still in my future. Ahem!) so I passed. I did, however, come across that original invitation in the Postal section of my Library. Did any of you join? Did it ever really get off the ground at all? Let me know. In the meantime, here's the flyer along with the original envelope.

Linda Blair Again

Week after week, the keywords most used to find my blog continue to be "Linda Blair nude" or some variation thereof. Thus, today, to inaugurate the new look for the blog, I give you what you've asked for--Linda Blair nude...or some variation thereof. I'm on record as being a great admirer of hers,both for her enjoyable mainstream performances and her cheesy but usually fun exploitation work as well as her efforts at animal rescue and other good causes. In 1974, I wrote a poem entitled "Linda" which was published in my high school literary magazine. It was an ode to the lovely young lady Ms. Blair was then but, teenagers being what they are, it was widely ridiculed as being a paen to Linda LOVELACE instead! Linda Blair, as you can see from the picture here, was actually hanging out with Ms. Lovelace as well as Who drummer and legendary letch Keith Moon. As I stated in a previous post, she didn't stand a chance. As Linda's career slowed in the seventies, she took up with a series of older men including funk rocker Rick James. Here we see the only picture I have ever seen of these two together. James drug habit (no doubt amongst his other weird habits) reportedly came between them and he wrote a scathing song about Linda later on. Repeating the time-honored effort to change her image, Linda posed nude (semi-nude actually) for PLAYBOY spin-off magazine OUI after she grew up. Those few pics and various outtakes are recycled endlessly on the Web and quite frankly, as much of a fan as I am, I still can't find her sexy. In spite of her early reputation, in spite of her numerous nude scenes in films and her occasional controversies, I still see Linda Blair as a nice, funny, attractive actress who loves dogs and horses and wants to leave the world a little better than she found it. That works for me. Linda, if you're listening, I'd still like to collaborate on your autobiography. I think it's about time you set the record straight once and for all. Call me.

Wild Cards

Future bestselling fantasy author George R. R. Martin was involved with the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST television series in 1988 (or was it ’89?) when he appeared at the San Diego Con, unfortunately conflicting with what was billed as "An Afternoon of Hellfire and Brimstone with Harlan Ellison." Only one thing could make me pass that up and that one thing was WILD CARDS. WILD CARDS was a then-new book series which postulated a world in which comic book-style super heroes were real. A virus from space (dubbed the Wild Card Virus since you never knew what you would get) landed on Earth and caused mutations. Some people were killed—melted, bones turned brittle, etc. Others were given weird abilities by the virus and chose to use them to their own ends, These were called jokers. Still others chose to use newfound powers and abilities for good. They were called Aces. WILD CARDS was done as a series of interconnecting short stories by different authors including Martin, Roger Zelazny and a number of newer writers. Eventually, Martin developed the format of what was called the "mosaic novel" in which the characters appeared no longer in separate stories but simply in individual sections of a single, book-length narrative.
Jetboy was already a hero on Earth when Dr. Tachyon arrives. Other characters include the Great and Powerful Turtle, the Sleeper, Kid Dinosaur, Chrysalis and Fortunato. That day in San Diego, only a handful of us came to hear George R. R. Martin so he eschewed the stage and we all simply sat around in chairs in front of it talking…mostly about WILD CARDS. The series, like many things, outstayed its welcome but the early volumes were terrific. Marvel did a graphic novel series that went nowhere some time back and, with the author’s current bestselling popularity, some of the early WILD CARDS volumes were re-released in trade paperback just a couple years back. I eventually sold my original copies but today I picked up later printings of the first two volumes at a library used book sale. These contain nifty Tim Truman covers and as I read once again of Jetboy this evening, I recalled how much I enjoyed these books two decades ago. Thanks, George.

Technical Difficulties

Today's technical difficulties are brought to you by the letter "A" for "AAARRGGHH!!" In an attempt to delete my non-working Google Ads, I accidentally deleted my blog. Restoring the code restored the blog itself only now my profile, links, etc. are all down at the bottom of the page and my banner appears between each entry. Any suggestions anyone? In the meantime, here's another piece of my Paint art.

Peter Sellers is Jacques Clouseau is James Bond

No real story here. Just that that 007 piece yesterday reminded me of this great still of the late Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau in the classic James Bond intro stance. When you consider that Sellers was one of several actors who played Bond (or a variation thereof) in the 1967 parody version of CASINO ROYALE and that now three actors have appeared in films as Clouseau, making it also a Bond-like franchise...well, I just thought it was kind of ironic, amusing and interesting, okay? Come to think of it, sometime superspy Roger Moore also appeared as Clouseau in the dreadful grave-robbing Pink Panther movie, THE TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER. I guess what goes around comes around...and it goes around and around and around and it comes out here.

Yoe, Craig!

One of my favorite folks is eccentric humorist, cartoonist and comic and cartoon historian Craig Yoe. I first discovered him when he had a column in TBG (or was it CBG by then?) back in the proverbial day. In 1999, he published one of my favorite books from my Library, CRAIG YOE’S WEIRD BUT TRUE TOON FACTOIDS! The book is a collection of more-or-less random bits of minutiae and trivia on comic books, animated cartoons, newspaper comic strips old and new and any and all related fields. One reason why I enjoy the book so much as I’ve been told that I ALSO am a collection of more-or-less random bits of minutiae and trivia on comic books, animated cartoons, newspaper comic strips old and new and any and all related fields. It may be a slim volume but within its hard covers you’ll find Milton Caniff’s nudes, Basil Wolverton’s portrait of Ben Franklin, Mel Blanc’s headstone, a flashing Pikachu and rare and/or previously unpublished art by Chuck Jones, Dick Ayers, Joe Shuster and dozens of other artists all laid out in a RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT style format!
I JUST recently discovered that Craig Yoe is now blogging with Arf Lovers Blog and, as you might expect, his blog is a colorful, eclectic mess of wonderful ephemera! I must warn you, though. Stay away if you’re easily offended. Despite his having been long-connected with the Muppets, Arf Lovers Blog is NOT an all-ages blog. Recent posts have offered a BARNEY GOOGLE Tijuana Bible and a topless model done up as WONDER WOMAN. Since I no longer manage a bookstore, I also missed another book, MODERN ARF as well as a forthcoming follow-up, ARF MUSEUM. With his obsession on cartoon trivia, I can’t wait to see what he’ll come up with next!

My First ADVENTURE in Print

I sent my very first letter to a comic book in 1966. It was mailed to GREEN LANTERN and it had been dictated to my mother as handwriting was still, at age 7, a practiced art. I dutifuly bought all of the subsequent issues looking for my letter but to no avail. Letters to SUPERBOY and a few other DC comics also went unpublished. Finally, though, in the late summer of 1968, a pivotal year by anyone’s definition, my very first letter was printed in ADVENTURE COMICS number 374.
According to my memory, I had written a long, in-depth missive regarding the nuances in characterization and continuity seen in the new eleven page LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES story in issue 371. Someone—most likely Assistant Editor E. Nelson Bridwell, apparently slashed it down to the few lines seen here. Either that or this really was all I wrote and I had forgotten by the time it was printed. Hey, I was nine by that point, okay? Whaddaya want? Irene Vartonoff? TM Maple? Even Bob Rozakis had to start somewhere!
Re-reading issue 371 today, it is quite a good one, breaking the mold in a number of ways. After being sent back to the Legion Training Academy, Colossal Boy is blackmailed by criminals into stealing Legion secrets. Bouncing Boy, now a trainer there, catches him and in a subsequent trial, he is expelled by newly chosen leader Ultra Boy. Since more than half of the book is filled out with a reprint (which also inexplicably gets the cover!), I’d presume someone had a problem with the "Dreaded Deadline Doom," perhaps artist Curt Swan or inker Jack Abel (whose ultra clean inks had been seen on SUPERMAN at that time, also). I can’t get through to GCD right now but I’d guess the story was by Jim Shooter, boy wonder comics writer. Shooter’s stories were often characterized by their non-standard (for DC) ways of looking at characters. The story itself concluded in the following issue’s book-lengther in which Timber Wolf and Chemical King (a new character but one whose fate was already known from the infamous "Adult Legion" issues) are inducted and we see the return of Legion traitor Nemesis Kid (as well as the young Lightning Lord).
Now that you’ve seen my earliest published work, don’t forget to order your copy of my most recent, THE DUFFY’S TAVERN MATTER found in Jim Harmon’s IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN 3. Order your copy today from Amazon, B&N or directly from http://bearmanormedia.bizland.com/ Tell ‘em Booksteve sent ya!

The New James Bond-1968

The trailer for the new James Bond thriller, CASINO ROYALE, went on line this week ('Casino Royale' Exclusive Trailer Premiere - Moviefone) and I’m sorry to say I was not particularly impressed. If Timothy Dalton was a Sean Connery type and the more polished, self-effacing charm of Pierce Brosnan echoed Roger Moore’s 007, then Daniel Craig may well be the new George Lazenby.
Let’s go back to October of 1968 when LIFE Magazine presented the finalists of the first "New Bond" sweepstakes and then announced Lazenby as the winner. It’s fascinating to see actual moments from these gentlemen’s screen tests. Of the bunch, De Vries and Rogers had both played monsters on DOCTOR WHO and Richardson, with a fake beard, appeared opposite Raquel Welch in Hammer’s ONE MILLION YEARS, BC a couple years earlier. He was probably the favorite or at least thought so.
George Lazenby, an Australian model, got the role and did a passable job in what many fans say they would consider perhaps the best Bond of them all if only Connery had done it. Although he claims in the piece to be looking forward to the hoopla, it didn’t last long for him as this was his only starring film. Connery returned for one more Bond and then the role was recast with former SAINT Roger Moore. Lazenby would turn up in odd places over the years including in a fun cameo as essentially James Bond in the TV movie, THE RETURN OF THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and in several appearances as the main character’s father in the series THE PRETENDER. It’s a shame he doesn’t work more often because he seems a much better actor now.

Happy Birthday, Kim

Today is my friend Kim's 23rd birthday. It's been a bit sad for me as we've not been on speaking terms lately (for all the usual pointless, stupid reasons) but I felt the least I could do is to make sure that my readers all over the world KNOW that today is my friend Kim's birthday. She doesn't read my blog but if anyone sees her and knows her, say Happy Birthday from me! We now return you to your regularly scheduled pop culture stuff!

Christa Helm Update

Still searching for more info on LET'S GO FOR BROKE, I ran across a brief Net note from ten years back where a gentleman was asking if anyone had ever heard of the film. He goes on to say that it premiered in Cincinnati and may not have been released anywhere else. This tells me that someone involved in the making of the picture was probably from Cincinnati. That would explain my memory of a big ad campaign for a film no one's ever seen. He goes on to add that the biggest name in the cast was Eddie Egan, the former cop, on whose life THE FRENCH CONNECTION was based. Egan appeared in a small role in THAT film and went on to an acceptable career as a character actor. This film would have been one of his earliest and is, as expected, NOT listed in his IMDB entry. Egan died a decade ago so we can't ask him about it either. Sigh. More to come I hope!

Elvis Records in the Seventies

The sixties didn’t really exist for Elvis Presley. Between movie producer Hal Wallis and the ever-present evil of Colonel Parker, Elvis was kept in a drugged stupor through most of the decade…in a manner of speaking. They had latched onto a huge cash cow in Elvis’ movies so the canny pair just kept churning out variations on the theme. Some were more entertaining than others but in all of them, Elvis gave his one note impression of the tough but sensitive singing hero who always got the girl. In between films, he was not allowed to grow up. He was given huge amounts of money and kept pacified with expensive toys, guns, sex partners and peanut butter and banana sandwiches. One telling moment captured in a posthumous documentary shows Elvis thanking one of his notorious "Memphis Mafia" for getting him a girl the night before. "That girl last night? She give great head, man!" When informed they were being filmed, he and others around them break into the hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."
A partial clipping from an unknown early seventies magazine that I have in my archives talks about his female entourage. "The membership of this select group may change, but their purpose is to pamper Elvis, to soothe him when he’s tired or tense, to encourage a smile when he’s feeling blue, to give him massages, and generally cater to his needs. In return for their loving attentions to him, Elvis’ girls get the special, sweet, Southern-style treatment he always accords to members of the fair sex, as well as all the pretty clothes, expensive gifts, new hairdos and other nice things in life they could wish. He’s even been known to personally see to the outfitting and coiffuring of a particular favorite, much as if she were a life-size Barbie doll to dress up in beautiful clothes. These girls’ only fear is that—and usually sooner than later— Elvis will tire of them and have a fresh…" That’s where my partial clipping ends but….brrr! Doesn’t that sound as though El had a harem of personal concubines to you?
Anyway, Elvis didn’t have any real chart action during the mid-sixties at all, his pioneering music and style taking a backseat to his movie bankability. Then, after his legendary 1968 comeback special, "Suspicious Minds" and "In the Ghetto" were released to great acclaim. There followed a brief return to the top forty with a series of enjoyable, mostly non-movie related singles sung in a variety of (overproduced) styles. "Rubberneckin’" was a fair rocker and one of the few songs in Presley’s legendarily bad last acting film, CHANGE OF HABIT (with Mary Tyler Moore as our hero’s love interest…and a nun!) The flip side was a tearjerker story song, "Don’t Cry Daddy" which ultimately got more airplay. "Kentucky Rain" was a catchy song co-written by future country/pop hitmaker Eddie Rabbit. "I’ve Lost You" wasn’t particularly memorable but "The Next Step Is Love" became a favorite with me and features a great lead vocal (and waaaay too much backing vocals!). "Mama Liked the Roses" and "The Wonder of You" were another double A-side with both getting lots of play at first. The building, pompous show stopping splendour of the latter eventually won out. "Patch It Up" and "You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me" were probably past the end of this brief run as neither actually appeared on radio much. Presley continued to turn out singles from this point to ever-diminishing returns until his untimely death in 1977, after which his final release, the less than stellar "Moody Blue" topped the charts for obvious reasons.
What would things have been like if Elvis had been allowed to grow up and live something close to a "real" life? We’ll never know. The boy who changed music forever was himself held back from evolving by being given anything he ever wanted. Eventually everything he ever wanted , along with no one willing to say the word "no" to him, killed him at an age younger than I am now! I think there’s a lesson there somewhere.

Movies That Fell Through the Cracks # 5 (and last for now)

I adore Goldie Hawn. From BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE straight on to THE BANGER SISTERS, she has remained a favorite. I did NOT like her ditzy blonde on ROWAN AND MARTIN’S LAUGH-IN so I didn’t care for her Oscar-winning CACTUS FLOWER as it featured THAT Goldie. One of my absolute favorite films of the seventies is FOUL PLAY, Colin Higgins’ brilliant Hitchcockian comedy featuring Ms. Hawn, Dudley Moore and a great mainstream debut for Chevy Chase (that he never really has been able to live up to since). I also saw PRIVATE BENJAMIN, arguably Goldie’s best film, twice. In between these two popular hit vehicles, however, came LOVERS AND LIARS.
LOVERS AND LIARS, or more accurately VIAGGIO CON ANITA (literally Travels With Anita) is a fairly forgotten sex comedy featuring Italian hunk of the moment Giancarlo Giannini. I saw it several years later cut up on local TV. Hopefully, it made at least a bit more sense uncut. Did we even see it uncut in the US? One IMDB review mentions jarring jumpcuts during Goldie’s scenes of passion, the implication being (as I said yesterday) that R rated Italian films from the seventies are safe bets for naked breasts…except when the American censor (or the superstar actress’s agent perhaps) gets to them. I think it’s safe to presume that this was probably shot before FOUL PLAY and released afterwards as her career was in just a bit of a lull during that period. What’s it about? Who remembers? Like I said, it’s a romantic Italian sex farce. For some those are very much an acquired taste. For those that love them—or Goldie Hawn--- I understand that you can sometimes find LOVERS AND LIARS in the video bargain bins of America.

Movies That Fell Through the Cracks # 4

As a film buff since childhood, I long ago developed an affinity for foreign (ie: non-American) films from Eisenstein to Truffaut to Wim Wenders. In 1973, one of my favorite foreign films was LE AMAZONNI - DONNE D'AMORE DIGUERRA aka BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS. It was an R-rated picture and I had to choose what R-rated pictures I wanted to see carefully as this usually involved getting one or more of my parents to take my fourteen year old self to the "under seventeen not admitted without parent" showing. (Okay, Okay! I know there were ways around that but hey, I was an honest kid!) My criteria generally included A) the likely overall entertainment value of the movie and B) the expected amount of large naked breasts that would be on view. I found myself often surprised by the former and generally disappointed in the latter. Through trial and error, however, I quickly learned that foreign films were almost always a good bet for naked ladies!
BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS wasn’t really all that far removed from one of those Italian "Hercules" movies that saturated the market in the early sixties wake of Steve Reeves. Starring Lincoln Tate as Zeno and Lucretia Love—Look at the ads dummy, I am NOT making that up!--- it features a tribe of largely bare chested warrior women fighting men. I don’t recall anything else about the plot quite frankly. Tate’s IMDB listing says little about him but he seems to have started out on American TV so he may have followed the Eastwood route to "stardom."
To me, the ads were the most fun. Note that the girl in the ad gives a very distinct impression of being…Raquel Welch! It doesn’t exactly look like her but it also looks like no one in this movie and the pose even echoes Welch’s then-recent triumph in ONE MILLION YEARS, BC, of which the fur-wearing black and white poster was still everywhere in those pre-Farrah days. Note also that, in each case, the paste-up department at the local newspaper has worked overtime (with a black magic marker from the look of it)to roughly obscure a bit of cleavage deemed too shocking for the hometown market. In my case, that just underscored the fact that there were probably lots more of those shocking things on view in the movie! I named BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS as one of my top ten movies seen that year…and I haven’t seen it anywhere since.

Movies That Fell Through the Cracks # 3

Gene Wilder was a major star (one of my personal favorites!) after YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN in 1974 enabling him to write and direct his own vehicles just like his mentor, Mel Brooks. If he wasn’t as talented as Mel Brooks, what did it really matter? THE ADVENTURE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES’ SMARTER BROTHER and THE WORLD’S GREATEST LOVER were still funnier than most other movies of their day. Around 1980, it looked like Gene could do no wrong. That’s where SUNDAY LOVERS comes in. Actually, I haven’t seen it so I shouldn’t talk that way. Hmmmm….according to my records I have seen it. Was it really that unmemorable? This was one of those combination features so popular in Italy in the sixties. This particular one was a French/Italian/British/US co-production. That kind of warning should NEVER be ignored! Four completely unrelated short sex comedies. Wilder starred in "Skippy," the American thirty minutes. Then-current 007 Roger Moore was in director Bryan Forbes’ UK segment with international favorites Ugo Tognazzi and Lino Ventura rounding out the other two sections. Other than the unusual fact that the Moore segment was written by Anthony Newley’s longtime lyricist Leslie Bricusse there’s not much else to say about this little seen and less remembered sex comedy anthology. Gene Wilder still had a couple of hits in him but this was the start of his career downslide. Too bad.

Movies That Fell Through The Cracks # 2

This one's not quite completely forgotten. I found several "collector's" sources for it and at least a little info on IMDB. In 1975, though, SODOM AND GOMORRAH-THE LAST SEVEN DAYS was expected to revolutionize the adult film industry before it flopped big time. At nearly a million dollar budget, it was reportedly a DeMille sized biblical epic with sex. Never having seen it, I can't say for sure but I'd bet part of the reason it flopped was that it also supposedly had comedy( including a talking chimp)...and science fiction! At age 16, never having seen an adult film, that's what appealed to me. There's a freakin' space ship in this ad! This was a period when being an adult filmmaker didn't mean just pointing the camera at couples rutting by the pool. Some of these folks actually aspired to serious low-budget, independent film-making that simply emphasized sex. Heck, the pictures were actually advertised in family newspapers (which is where I clipped this one).The ill-fated Mitchell Brothers (one would later murder the other) had earlier struck gold with BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR, a pretentious, artsy porn film starring Marilyn Chambers and this epic was to be their masterpiece. Million bucks or not, I have a sneaking suspicion that this poster was way better than the picture itself. The spaceship in biblical times was done a few years later by Monty Python in LIFE OF BRIAN. Wonder if they got the idea from this one?

Movies That Fell Through the Cracks # 1

To inaugurate this new occasional series, we have a movie that seems to have COMPLETELY fallen through the cracks. I have never seen this picture and I have no reason whatsoever to believe it was particularly good but nothing deserves to be completely forgotten. LET’S GO FOR BROKE was released in 1974. I swear it was. I recall saturation radio advertising! It is NOT, however, listed in IMDB nor in Michael Weldon’s two Psychotronic books which list everything else I’ve ever noted as not being in IMDB. Of the folks associated with it, star Christa Helm is listed (as "Christ" Helm) but only for a cheesy horror film (directed by DEEP THROAT’s Gerard Damiano) and a WONDER WOMAN guest appearance (some time after which, apparently, she was murdered). There are several "Chitras" listed but without this film among them. Jacqueline Mayro, an unusual name so probably the same person, appeared in numerous things including the classic Mary Martin TV PETER PAN but not this picture according to IMDB. Neither the writers nor the director show any other credits. From the ad, as well as my recollection of the radio spots, it’s a female James Bond kind of thing, undoubtedly shot on an ultra-low budget, possibly on an island somewhere. With its PG rating, there probably wasn’t much T&A but nonetheless this was probably released as drive-in fare (by whoever. There’s no studio credit on the ad either!) I was going to a lot of movies in 1974 but, at 13, I couldn’t drive so drive-in flicks often escaped me. Still, I remember the cool-sounding radio ads and I wish I had seen it. It was probably pretty bad but, at a time when IMDB regularly lists the most obscure straight-to-video releases in actors’ credits, LET’S GO FOR BROKE doesn’t deserve to be so completely and utterly ignored! If any of you saw it, feel free to tell us more about it. Thanks. UPDATE: I found a recent bit on the Web that indicates that Christa Helm's daughter was working on a book about her mother and that the TV series CELEBRITY JUSTICE was (is?) doing a piece on her tragic stabbing murder. It mentions her appearance on WONDER WOMAN, throws in a STARSKY AND HUTCH but still doesn't mention what must have been her biggest break, the starring role in LET'S GO FOR BROKE!