Life-Size Tonto
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Pulp Gallery: DOC SAVAGE 7, 8 & 9 (1933)
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Overlooked Films: THE SHADOW - Unaired TV Pilot (1954)
Presenting... The Case of the Cotton Kimona, a 1954 TV pilot so lame it was never aired. In this radio-like incarnation of the Shadow, Lamont Cranston is a criminal psychologist and Margo Lane appears to be both receptionist and girlfriend. As on the radio - unfortunately - the Shadow is nothing but a disembodied voice. Tsk tsk.
More (and no doubt better) Overlooked Films at SWEET FREEDOM.
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THE LONE RANGER (1956): Lobby Cards
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Comic Gallery: ELLERY QUEEN meets Norman Saunders (1952)
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Forgotten Books: LONE RANGER Big Little Books
1939
1937
1938
1939
1939
A few of the many. More to come!
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Comic Gallery: MARCH OF CRIME (1951)
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Pulp Gallery: THE SPIDER 13, 14 & 15 (1934)
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Comic Gallery: FRAZETTA does Ghost Rider (again!)
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Films I've Overlooked: Little Caesar (1931)
Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, both released in 1931, have become linked in the public consciousness as the first great gangster films, and also as the breakthrough performances for two iconic gangster stars - Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney.
I saw and yapped about The Public Enemy a few months back (HERE), and figured it was time I had a look at Little Caesar too. There are similarities, sure, in scenery, supporting characters, dialogue, and the fact that both leads - while uncompromisingly bad - are somehow likable. But what struck me most are the differences.
Most of those differences, I suspect, are due to W.R. Burnett. While Public Enemy was based (supposedly) on an unpublished novel by a couple of street thugs, Little Caesar was based on the work of a talented novelist. And it shows. Public Enemy drives its moral home by hitting the viewer over the head with a club (I'm guessing this is part of the reason that novel went unpublished). The saga of Little Caesar unfolds with far more finesse. Public Enemy, at times, is maudlin, while Little Caesar is clever and smart.
In releasing Little Caesar, First National-Vita phone (essentially a Warner Bros company), seemed of two minds. Though Douglas Fairbanks Jr. had second billing, he got most of the attention on the movie posters. Most moviegoers must have expected this to be a love story with a crime element, rather than a crime story with just a touch of love. Actually, though important to the plot, Fairbanks got relatively little screen time, while Robinson was rarely out of view. (By the time of the 1954 release - below - Robinson unquestionably the star. The French, though - at bottom - got the message the first time.)
Caesar Enrico Bandello (Robinson) and his pal Joe Massara (Doug Jr.) begin the film as small-time hoods. Rico dreams of being a big-time hood, while Joe just wants to be a dancer. Both get their wish, putting them on very different paths. Joe wants to leave the gang life behind, but Rico - mostly out of ego - refuses to let him go. While Joe tries to dance his way to redemption, Rico just goes from bad to badder. When one of his gang mates listens to his ma and decides to confess his sins, Rico guns him down on the steps of a church. As you might expect, things do not end well for Rico.
The fates of the two anti-heroes is another defining difference between this film and The Public Enemy. Cagney, too smart for his own good, goes out in a melodramatic blaze of violence. Robinson, not as smart as he thinks he is, goes out in far more ignoble - but more realistic fashion.
Bottom line: Little Caesar plays out like a novel, while Public Enemy is a comic book.
More Overlooked Films at SWEET FREEDOM.
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FREE FOR KINDLE - Last Day!
My friend and long-time critique group partner Kassandra Kelly has just released this eBook, aimed at folks with a yen to paint with wax. Now, I'll admit I don't know jack about encaustic art, but I know good writing when it see it - and there's plenty in this book.
If you happen to be artistically inclined, or know someone who is, you, he or she ought to hop over to Amazon and grab this book before the end of its free promo period. Tomorrow, the price goes up to $7.99. To an encaustic artist, of course, I'm sure it's worth way more than that, but hey - FREE is a very good price.
Here's the review I posted on Amazon, and every word is true:
COMPREHENSIVE, INFORMATIVE – AND A GREAT READ!
If you’ve ever dabbled in encaustic art, ever WANTED to dabble in encaustic art, or just want to know what the heck it is—this is the book for you.
This step-by-step manual is not only a thoroughly-researched guidebook to the creation of encaustic art—it’s also a heck of an entertaining read.
The focus here is helping you to DO-IT-YOURSELF, and ON THE CHEAP, everything from acquiring tools, equipment and materials, to using them safely and wisely—helping you produce works of art that will be around long after we’ve all turned to dust.
It’s clear that Kassandra Kelly has learned by doing, through trail and error and trial again, and she’s passing her secrets on to you, to save you time, money and a whole lot of frustration. And the writing is all so clear—and conversational—that you almost forget you’re reading. It’s like she’s standing right there next to you, explaining the finer points and guiding you every step of the way.
But hey, that’s what you’d expect from a book titled Encaustic Materials Handbook. The bonus is that Kelly’s prose is so entertaining—and so informative. Did you know that the Egyptians used encaustic methods to create portraits for mummy cases? Or that pieces of encaustic murals survived the destruction of Pompeii? You will after reading this book. You’ll also be party to the secrets imparted by Pliny the Elder before he was fried to a crisp on Mount Vesuvius. And you’ll know how the encaustic process is related to the production of such widely divergent products as soap and hockey pucks.
Trust me. You’re going to LOVE this book.
Click HERE to "buy."
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Davy Crockett Rides Again! (in AHMM)
Mr. Crockett, for those who missed the first tale, is Tennessee State Representative David Crockett, and a direct descendant of old You-Know-Who. He'd be a happy man if not for the little voice constantly yapping in his head - a little voice claiming to belong to Old Davy himself. In the new story, Dave and Davy attend a black powder shooting match on the outskirts of Memphis, and encounter a rifle trumpeted to be Davy's famous "Old Betsy." Is it really? You'll have to wait and see.
If this Dave and Davy concept sounds oddly familiar, you may have been exposed to one my Crockett westerns, in which the spirit of Old Davy bedevils his grandson, a strapping young giant striving to mind his own business in the Old West. Two of those westerns are readable online, HERE and HERE, and a third appeared in the anthology A Fistful of Legends, available HERE. I've written two more of those yarns, and hope to make them available someday soon in an eBook with the stout and wolfish title Too Many Crocketts.
Meanwhile, here's a pic of someone who looks (except for the suit) strangely like me, with Davy's new favorite person - Linda Landrigan!
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Forgotten Books: FREDERICK NEBEL's Fifty Roads to Town (1936)
Frederick Nebel, best remembered for his work in Black Mask and Dime Detective, had three hardcover novels published during his lifetime. I reviewed the first two, Sleepers East (1933) HERE, and But Not the End (1934) HERE. Are you ready for the last? Well ready or not, here we go…
Like the first two books, it has a large ensemble of characters, making it difficult to pin down a protagonist. Two of the major characters are Edwin Henry, a henpecked salesman of fire protection equipment and assorted sundries, and Peter Nostrand, an adulterer hiding out from the cuckhold who’s determined to kill him. Nostrand’s hideout is a secluded “camp,” (actually a well-appointed cabin) and Henry blunders in, hoping to make a sale. When he’s set to leave, he discovers a flat tire and a flat spare. Next thing you know a big storm hits, and they’re snowed in together.
The setting appears to be the Maine woods, an area Nebel became familiar with after settling in a 200-year-old farmhouse near Ridgefield, Conn. Most of the action takes place either in the cabin or in an ancient hotel called the Outpost House, where we meet . . .
- Beryl Moore, a fun-loving but tenth-rate torch singer trying to reach Canada, where a job awaits.
- Allenby, the county attrorney who takes charge of the search for the missing Henry, and
- Edna Henry, the henpecked, who’s come to berate Allenby and everyone else in sight for not finding her husband fast enough.
There are many more characters, at least three of them with their own points of view, but these are movers and shakers of the story. Nebel makes them all come alive, and gives each a distinct personality.
Compared to Sleepers East, which was both happy and sad, and But Not the End, about folks trying to deal with the stock market crash, this is a fun book, and I'm pretty sure Nebel had fun writing it. When Henry’s disappearance catches the attention of the press, the search turns into a circus, with a famous aviator flying circles over the landscape, and a grandstanding guy with a sled-dog team pretending he cares.
It's not too surprising that Fifty Roads to Town is the only one of Nebel's novels to be reprinted between paper covers. An abridged version was published as a Mercury Book digest in 1940. The other edition shown here (a hardcover) was published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape.
Fox released a film version in 1937, which I have not seen, but it sounds like they turned it into a light-hearted (possibly even romantic) comedy. Don Ameche starred as Nostrand, who is hiding out to avoid testifying in a friend’s divorce, and Ann Sothern, his no-doubt romantic interest, is a character who’s not in the book at all. The novel, though laced with satire and humor, is not a comedy.
More Forgotten Books at pattinase!
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Comic Gallery: CRACK COMICS featuring "The Clock" (1940)
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Pulp Gallery: THE LONE RANGER 1 & 2 (1937)
The Grosset & Dunlap novel The Lone Ranger and the Mystery Ranch was based on this story.
This one was the basis for the G&D book The Lone Ranger and Tonto.
More Ranger pulps next week!
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SHADOW COMICS 7, 8 & 9 (1940-41)
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Overlooked Films: THE LONE RANGER Serial (1938)
The 1938 Republic Serial The Lone Ranger, marking the Ranger’s first appearance on the movie screen, is officially a lost film. No complete version of it (at least in English) is known to exist.
Our heroes. Johnny Depp, er, I mean Chief Thunder-Cloud, and ??
I’ve seen two of the three, and thought both were pretty dang good. The one I haven’t seen is the new DVD, because at $24.95 it’s about $20 over my DVD budget.
So why is this serial so rare? For some goofy reason, Republic was compelled to destroy their existing prints after their license on the character expired. For the same goofy reason, their follow-up serial The Lone Ranger Rides Again is also “lost.” Fortunately, a few mostly complete foreign language editions survived.
A 1938 gum card recreating a scene from the serial.
If that’s not crazy enough, the short version known as Hi-Yo Silver not only survived, but has since fallen into the public domain, and turns up on all sorts of cheapie collections. I found mine on Volume 37 of the Echo Bridge “Great American Western” series.
Fighting crime and injustice until they're blue in the face.
Unable to re-view that VHS version, I popped Hi-Yo Silver into the DVD player and got a pleasant surprise. It, too, is a pretty good movie. The story is somewhat choppy, as you’d expect when nearly five hours of story is crammed into 69 minutes, but most of the really important stuff is there, and the sound and picture quality is great. Several of the cliffhanger sequences made the cut, so you get a lot more thrills than in the average feature-length oater. And the central story from the serial comes through pretty well.
Another 1938 gum card.
The maybe-Rangers.
Top to bottom: George Letz, Lee Powell, Herman Brix, Hal Taliaferro, Lane Chandler.
More Overlooked Films, as usual, at SWEET FREEDOM.
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Pulp Gallery: THRILLING WONDER STORIES
1941
1936
1940
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When Detective Comics were DETECTIVE Comics
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Forgotten Books: More LONE RANGER Big Little Books
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More Pages to Explore .....
