William Bendix for Popsicle-1948

November Highlights From Booksteve's Rarities

A couple days early but here's some excerpts from the big November Update at BOOKSTEVE RARITIES at: http://oldtimeradiotapes.homestead.com/StevenSiteHome.html

****Please note that shipments at this time are likely to suffer delays due to the Megastorm.****

MOE HOWARD ON THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW (1973)

That's right! Moe Howard of the Three Stooges made three guest appearances on THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW in 1973. This DVD includes all three of those filmed interviews and wait till you see the pie fight in the June 8 interview! Also included are the September 11 and November 28 interview. Great fun!

MA AND PA KETTLE: The Complete Series

All ten classic movies (including The Egg and I) starring Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride, the hillbilly duo who had their hands full with a ramshackle farm and a brood of rambunctious children. Country charm in this multi-disc box set. Digitally remastered!  $25.00

 

SHERLOCK HOLMES: The 1964-65 TV Series

Douglas Wilmer stars in this British TV series as the titular Sherlock Holmes, a sharp-witted master of disguise with an unparalleled gift for logic and deduction. (Peter Cushing would take over for Wilmer in subsequent seasons.) Mysteries include "The Man with the Twisted Lip," "The Beryl Coronet," "Charles Augusts Milverton," "The Retired Colourman" "The Disapperance of Lady Frances Carfax," "The Speckled Band," "The Illustrious Client," "The Devil's Foot," "The Copper Beeches," "The Red-Headed League" and "The Six Napoleons." Four DVD box set.  $20.00

MISSION MARS (1968)

Stars Nick Adams and Darren McGavin. Three American astronauts who land on Mars discover the body of a frozen Russian cosmonaut and a mysterious talking orb. 

THE LIEUTENANT: The Complete TV Series

The complete 1963-64 TV series starring Gary Lockwood and Robert Vaughn. This eight disc set in two box sets (volume one and volume two) contain every episode digitially remastered. A marine-corps drama set at Camp Pendleton (near San Diego, California) proving ground for men who pride themselves on being United States Marines. From the lowliest recruit to the highest-ranking General, the men of Pendleton symbolize the utmost in rigorous training and military perfection. Lt. William T. Rice (Gary Lockwood), late of Annapolis and now in charge of a rifle platoon is no exception... This short-lived series was written by Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, and featured an amazing cast of future stars. $45.00

Also, no less than EIGHT rarer than rare disks of Lynda Carter TV appearances from the late seventies. Go to the NEW ADDITIONS page at the above link to check them out!

Shazam in TV Guide

Back when the SHAZAM TV series premiered on Saturday mornings in 1974, TV GUIDE had this brief piece showing how a man could fly! Sorta...

Radio Industry Trade Ads-1939-45

Terry and the Pirates Ads

Found, along with many other fascinating clippings, here: 

http://www.thejumpingfrog.com/?page=shop/category

Break Announcement

Here, as with all of our blogs except 1974, we'll be taking a brief break of a week or two in an effort to try to catch up on a few paying gigs that have fallen behind in recent health scares and other unavoidable distractions. 

As always, we'd appreciate any financial support you'd care to make at the Paypal button on the right if you like what we do here and at our other blogs. Thanks for your continued support as we sail into our 8th year!

Mother Goose Goes Hollywood-1939

From PHOTOPLAY

Batman Annual Extras

Books By the Banks 2012

BOOKS BY THE BANKS is an annual book festival held in Cincinnati and it's tomorrow! In spite of all best intentions, I've never made it down before but I'm planning on spending at least a little time there tomorrow with my protégé, author Dee Sutter (See bottom of the page for Dee's first book!).

Do You Like Hitchcock?

DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? Since the answer to that question has been a resounding "yes" since the early seventies, I wanted to give this 2005 TV movie a try. I'm glad I did. In the tradition of Stanley Donen and Brian DePalma, this time its Italian horror master Dario Argento's turn to "do" Hitch. In his case, he takes it one further and makes the master director's films an integral part of his own.

The basic plot is that a nebbishy young man overhears two women meeting and discussing STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. He recognizes one as a neighbor known for fighting with her mother. When the mother turns up dead, he begins to suspect that the two young ladies have decided to act out the classic Hitch plot! His investigations offer some genuine suspense and some wonderful photography, all set to a lush musical score. 

Toward the end, it becomes a bit unlikely as the plot quite literally begins to reenact REAR WINDOW but even then it does so with great aplomb. There's an anticlimactic ending and an opening sequence that's interesting and creepy but seems to go nowhere. Being a TV movie, there's less violence than one might expect from Argento but that actually adds to the Hitchcockian feel. Being a cable TV movie, though, there IS some nudity. All in all, DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? is a worthy addition to the ranks of CHARADE, DRESSED TO KILL and LAST EMBRACE.

The End of Galexo?

Here we have what may well be the last of the BATMAN strips from 1972 introducing GALEXO...or at least the last ones we're likely to see based on the comment at the end of the first tier. For those unfamiliar with the story here, search "Galexo" here on this blog to catch up.

Thanks as always go to Todd H. for his great contributions in this quest!

Four-Color Logo

If you haven't yet seen it (and why not?) here's the new logo for our Rondo Award-nominated blog, FOUR-COLOR SHADOWS. Recently, we've posted stories there by the likes of Alex Toth, Creig Flessel, Samm Schwartz, Bob Powell, Dick Briefer, Jack Cole, Bill Dubay, Steve Ditko, Mort Drucker, Dave Berg and Klaus Nordling. Check 'em out and let us know what you think! New posts daily!

Joe Flynn Redux

Issues 2 and 3 from Dell's early sixties McHALE'S NAVY comic, like many Dell TV tie-ins, were drawn from photos of the various actors to ensure their likenesses. In this case, however, the artist was apparently handed exactly one photo of actor Joe Flynn who played the blustery Captain Binghampton on the show but he made the most of it.

Congrats to Brittany Rose!

Longtime readers will remember my BRITTANY ROSE AND ME photo blog. Well late last evening, Brittany Rose became a mother, making me effectively, for lack of a better term, a God-grandfather/uncle. Mother, father and new daughter doing fine out in Iowa.

Seems a lifetime ago when Brittany walked into my life. literally. She was out shopping with her mother and her brother and they had wandered into my bookstore at age 19. Ten years ago. Her mother asked if we were hiring. I said yes. She said her daughter was looking for a job. I looked at the girl and asked her a question. Her mother answered. I asked another. Her mother answered again. I finally looked at her mother and asked, "Can SHE talk?"

I interviewed her but didn't hire her. I don't remember why.

But I remembered her name. I never remembered the names of people I interviewed. Six months later, though, when I was once again hiring, I remembered her hame and called her again. This time I hired her. In her interview she told me she had major self-esteem issues. I said, "We can fix that.""Better people than you have tried," she said. "Ah, but they weren't me," I replied.

When I left the company about a year later, she was not happy. On my last day, she barely said a word to me. I finally caught her alone in the back room and asked what was wrong. She admitted that she was upset I was leaving. I explained that I'd stay in touch. She complained that everyone always says that but never does it. I reminded her that I'm not everyone.

We stayed in touch. I even ended up coaching her on some writing projects and, in a memorable afternoon, helping her dye her hair purple. But then she got engaged and moved to Columbus to attend OSU.

We stayed in touch.

A couple years later, her mother passed and she came back down. Although far from in the best of moods due to the circumstances, it was so good to see her again. After that, though, things went further downhill with her engagement ending and her eventually leaving college. She needed a job. I was once again managing a bookstore and I was once again hiring. I hired her.

Beyond that, she had nowhere to live as she came back from Central Ohio so she lived with us for a few weeks until she found an apartment she could make her own.

Somewhere in there, I snapped a photo of her...then another...and before you knew it we were doing actual photoshoots, eventually resulting in a few thousand photos of her! She thanked me for helping to increase her self-esteem when she didn't think it was possible.

In time, we both lost our jobs but she became a licensed massage therapist and found Thomas. When he was offered a job in Iowa, she went with him, they married and...well, there she is...along with little Caliana Rene.

At important moments like this, I can't help but reflect on the seeming randomness that led to this moment. If she hadn't come in the store that night, if I hadn't remembered her name, if she had stayed in school, if...if...if...

In the top photo above, the first shot was taken in 2003. The second in 2009. In the second photo, the left image was taken in 2006, the right in 2008.

Things change.

Congratulations to Brittany and Thomas and welcome to the world, Callie!

The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics!

In the late 1940's and the early 1950's a learned, well-meaning but misguided psychologist named Fredric Wertham was the public face behind a movement to get rid of what he considered dangerous children's literature. Namely, crime comics and horror comics. The US Government got involved and brought even more publicity to the situation. In order to forestall government intervention, various comics publishers banded together to create The Comics Code Authority which effectively put an end to the gory, sick and disgusting horror comics that had dominated the first part of the decade. The more literate EC suffered the same fate as the fly-by-night gore-fests. Now, though, through the auspices of Craig Yoe, Clizia Guzzoni and Steve Banes, you can once again read the comic books that your parents and grandparents couldn't!

Starting with DICK BRIEFER'S FRANKENSTEIN, Yoe Books has put out three full, hardcover volumes of four-color creepiness. This week, though, we also saw the debut of the new bi-monthly comic book HAUNTED HORROR!

  

Most of these books are available at your local comics shop or can be ordered from Amazon. HAUNTED HORROR has gotten rave reviews and issue two, seen below, is on the schedule for December!