HYMN TIME

The Chick Wagon Gang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPfSyy6Ils0

CAMERA COMICS #1 (OCTOBER 1944)

Question:  You have a product you want to shill.  What do you do?  For many companies and organizations the answer is simple:  put out a comic book to lure your customers in at a young age.  (Well, it seemed to work in the 40s.)  Anyway, that seems to be the idea behind Camera Comics, issued by U.S. Camera Publishing Corporation, which published nine issues of the title from 1944 through 1946 == the first three on a monthly basis, the final six on a quarterly basis.  Camera Comics straddled that fine line between a comic book, a general interest magazine, and a trade publication.  Because it began in 1944, most of the comic story scripts had to do with the war effort for the first few issues; later intrepid newspaper photographers and whatnot tackled other threats such as criminals and corruption.

After a full-page ad for Everybody's Photo Course (for just twenty-five cents, kids!), we come to out first story, about The Gray Comet, "a daring danger-seeking member of the Army Air Force."  His plane does not carry a gun; instead it carries a camera because The Gray Comet does recon over enemy territory.  "He's been largely responsible for most of our bombing success...He's just about the greatest guy who ever lived!"  Take that, you Nazis!  In this adventure, he's off to locate enemy rocket bombs.  [SPOILER:  He does.] 

You'd think they would give us a breather after all that excitement but, no!  We hop straight into a story about Sergeant Art Fenton of the Signal Corps, whose job it is to go in on the first wave on D-Day "to get the pictures to tell the world what the American really did!"  [SPOILER:  He does.  But we will have to wait until the next issue to see what happens to Art Fenton when he gets close to the Nazis!]

But it's not just Nazis.  There's also the Yellow Peril, and the Japanese are drawn in the most yellow-ish peril-ish manner possible in the tale of George Ferguson, ace newsreel cameraman, in San Francisco in the days before Pearl Harbor when the city was a hotbed of spies and saboteurs.  George stumbles upon a Japanese agent who uses a trained crow to fly over restricted areas and take photographs.  When  George puts the kibosh on that deal. the spy tries to get murder-y.  [SPOILER:  George prevails.]

In "Pick Your Target" we have the lowdown on how "modern photography and modern planes combine against the Axis in a nard to beat team!"

Then comes a two-page text article devoted to "you photography hobbyists."   This issue discuss EQUIPMENT, METHOD, and RECORDS.  Next issue they will discuss the parts of your camera, speed, and selection.

You never know where Kid Click is going to show up.  This time Kid Click and his trusty camera is on the job at the local war plant where Nazi spy activity is unchecked -- but not for long!  The police have no clues as to who is behind the spy ring so the Police Chief calls Kid Click on the case, because that would happen in real life.  But Kid Click gets caught by the bad guy and is about to be tossed into a room full of acid when the police arrive.   How did the police know where to go?  Because Kid Click was able to write a message backwards on a roll of film.  Kid Click was also able to figure that the bad guy's glass eye was actually a miniature camera, enabling him to get information without throwing suspicion on himself.  [SPOILER:  The police decide to continue to use Kid Click's services to fight crime and spies and stuff; Kid Click agrees, as long as they don't tell his mom because she would worry.]

Bob Scott, U.S. N. Crash Photographer and his buddy Tom Hayes are stationed abo]ard one of the Navy's biggest aircraft carriers.  Their job:  To record on film all the action and adventure that is part of their Navy lives; their duties with the Pacific Fleet bring them daily face-to-face with death, especially since they are inside ENEMY TERRITORY!  [SPOILER:  The Japanese are no match for the U.S. Navy -- at least until next issue.]

Ole 'Prof, bald, bearded, and cranky is not happy with the jitter buggin' music that is coming from his radio, so he captures some of those pesky insects to try to figure out how to get them to stop.  But the bugs still have a lot of "jitter juice" left in them and they inject it into Ole 'Prof and now he's a hep cat.  [SPOILER:  Don't expect a realistic story; the jitter bugs look like the gremlins from an old Disney cartoon.]

Then, in rapid succession, a one-page diagram on How To Make an Automatic Timing Switch, reprinted from U. S. Camera magazine, and a one-pager on "Fotofacts" on Aerial Photography, followed by a back page ad for War Bonds (HASTEN THE DAY of final unconditional surrender).

Future issues would reduce the number of comic stories and increase the number of articles about photography and advertisements.

It's time to get your patriot on and get your cameras clicking!

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=7723

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE JOHNNY MAXWELL TRILOGY

The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy  by Terry Pratchett  (omnibus of three novels published by The Science Fiction Book Club, 1996; contains Only You Can Save Mankind, 1992, Johnny and the Dead, 1993, and Johnny and the Bomb, 1996)

Johnny Maxwell is the hero of three YA books by Pratchett.  We first meet him when he is twelve and going through Troubling Times -- his father has lost his job and his parents are arguing constantly and are about to break up.  He lives in the English town of Blackbury, outside of London.  Johnny is a strange kid; surprisingly normal and thus does not fit into any of the school cliques.  He thinks a lot and is slow to react and often thinks he is stupid, especially compared to his friends, who hang out together because they have no one else to hang out with.

Johnny's best friend is Wobbles, so named because he is fat and wobbles when he walks.  Wobbles is an electrical and computer genius who pirates video games and gives them away.  Bigmac is one of the three young skinheads in the town.  He wants to be tough but is asthmatic.  He dreams of guns and weaponry and wants to join the army, b ut he does not like bullets.  Bigmac is not a criminal, per se, but he does have a habit of taking cars that the owners have left the keys in; he considers he is doing a favor for the car owners by running the vehicles properly, and he almost always returns the cars in one piece.  Bigmac lives in a rundown housing development with his criminal older brother and his brother's vicious dog.  The local police always have they eyes on Bigmac.  Bigmac is a genius at mathematics.  Yo-less is a West Indian who lives with his mother, a nurse.  Yo-less is a straight arrow and wants to be a doctor.  He does not go in for the stereotypical black talk and never greets anyone by saying "Yo," hence his nickname.  He seethes inside at racial discrimination.  And then there's Kirsty, who alternatively calls herself Sigourney, Kimberley, Klytemnestra, and Kasandra (she does not like her given name).  Kirsty is an over-achiever and is very good at it.  She is highly intelligent and has poor people skills.  She looks down at Johnny with pity, while he finds it easy to talk to her because she just doesn't listen.  Kirsty can be highly dangerous to anyone who calls her "Missy" or "Little Lady."  with this motley group what could go wrong?  Almost anything.

It's the mid-90s and Johnny is trying put a pirated copy of a video game that Wobbles has given him.  In Only You Can Save Mankind the alien ScreeWee have destroyed almost all of Earth's defensive fleet.  There is only one starship left and you are piloting it -- you are the only thing that stands in the way of the ScreeWee's total destruction of the Earth.  You are Earth's Last Hope!  It's a tricky game and Johnny gets killed every time he plays.  But because it is a game, he lives again each time he plays the game...until he is killed.  But Johnny is getting better at it.  Then a message flashes across his computer screen:  WE GIVE UP.  What?  Is this some sort of strange twist built into the game?  The messages continue.  WE SURRENDER.  DON'T KILL US.  It turns out the ScreeWee in the game are real, and -- unlike Johnny -- if they are killed in the game, they don't come back; they are just dead.  And the Scree Wee, who are actually not the rampaging killers the game makes them out to be, don't like that.  The ScreeWee, reptilian creatures from a matriarchal society, resemble giant newts, or perhaps large snakes with arms, and now that they have surrender to Johnny, he must provide them safe passage back to their home world, many light years away.  But his is a computer game and there are many other players out there, all determined to kill the ScreeWee and save Earth -- and one of the most determined players is Kirsty...

Now reference is made of this in the second book, Johnny and the Dead, although it is a given that strange things happen whenever Johnny is around.  Johnny, Wobbles, Yo-less, and Bigmac are walking through an old cemetery in town when Johnny spots a strange man outside of a tomb.  The man .is a long-deceased Alderman for the town and he and Johnny begin a conversation.  Johnny's friends cannot see the man and wonder why Johnny is talking to thin air.  The dead Alderman, Thomas Bowler, is surprised he can communicate with the living because that has never happened before.  Bowler is curious about what has happened in the town since he had passed away.  Johnny doesn't know much about current or past events (hey, he's only twelve or thirteen, cut him some slack), but he decides the best thing would be to drop off a local paper at Bowler's tomb the next day so the Alderman could catch up.  It just so happened that a large developer has just gotten approval from the Council to buy the cemetery, with the intention of ripping up the graveyard and putting a large factory.. This does not sit well with the Alderman, nor any of the other denizens of the cemetery.  They insist that Johnny, who is the only person they can communicate with, put a stop to this plan.  Things get complicated.

{By the way, the dead are not ghosts.  They are emphatic they are not ghosts -- which seems to be a dirty term to them.  They are just the dead.  Johnny's friends come up with other words to describe them:  "post-senior citizens," "breathily challenged,"  and "vertically disadvantaged."  there is one actually ghost in the cemetery, however, the grumpy Mr. Grimm.)

Johnny and the Bomb is a time travel extravaganza, taking place a year of so later.  The local bag lady, Mrs. Tachyon wheels a shopping trolley (cart) filled with black bags  and her very nasty cat, Guilty, throughout the town, as well as through various past times.  Mrs. Tachyon has always been very old, very disheveled, and not quite right in the head.  She makes no sense when she talks.  Johnny and the gang come across a bunch of upset trolleys and bundles in a parking lot; one of the bundles is wearing trainers --it's Mrs. Tachyon and she has had an accident.  An ambulance comes and takes her away, leaving Johnny with Mrs. Tachyon's trolley and all of her bundles.  Johnny takes the trolley (complete with Guilty) to his house to hold it until Mrs. Tachyon gets better.  The bags in the trolley move.  It turns out that the bags are filled with time.  The Johnny reached into a bag...

Now Johnny and his friends are in the past -- in 1941, on the very day when a German bomb hits the town (the Germans were aiming for a different town, but they got lost), killing nineteen people because for some reason the air raid signal didn't work.  Johnny cannot stop the bomb, but perhaps he can save the people doomed to die.  The problem is that the police do not like the look of Bigmac and he has all of these late 20th century devices that look like they might be spy thingabobs.  And Yo-less is black and people keep calling him Sambo.  And everybody dismisses Kirsty because she's a girl.  And Wobbles is wobbling and looking for someplace safe.  Johnny and the gang make it back to their present but Wobbles isn't with them, because Wobbles stayed in 1941 and eventually became the richest man on Earth.  Johnny and his friends have to back for Wobbles (and to try to save people from the bomb blast).  This time they decide to go back dressed in clothing appropriate for the time,  but somehow Bigmac ends up wearing a German military outfit and Kirsty is wearing and outfit that is totally inappropriate for her fourteen-year-old age.  As usual with Johnny's adventures, things get complicated.

The books are funny.  The books are exciting  And there are important messages buried close to the surface in Pratchett's satire.   All three books are winners and highly recommended.   They should not read as Discworld-lite, but as Discworld-different.

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO: CHRISTMAS SHOPPING (DECEMBER 14, 1944)

 'Tis the season...for laughter...and Christmas shopping.

Let's see how Bud and Lou are handling things...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEjbcauy1Ac

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: LOST KEEP

 "Lost Keep" by L. A. Lewis  (first published in the collection Tales of the Grotesque:  A collection of Uneasy Tales, 1934; reprinted in an expanded edition of that collection, 1994)

For many years little was known about the author.  Leslie Allin Lewis (1899-1961) published just one book, a collection of ten stories in "The Creeps Library" published in London by Philip Allen in 1934; an eleventh story appeared in Christine Campbell Thomson's anthology Terror by Night that same year.  Copies of Tales of the Grotesque, while being a highly collectable book, were rare and remained out of print for sixty years until editor Richard Dalby began a friendship with Lewis's widow, who on her death bequeathed the literary copyright of Lewis's work to him.  Dalby finally was able to re-issue the collection, with the addition of the eleventh story, from small publisher Ghost Story Press in 1994.

Despite his friendship with Elizabeth Lewis, she remained guarded about her husband's personal details.  He writes, "I quickly realized he had suffered much tragedy and mental anguish (with brief references to padded cells and suicide attempts) throughout his life."  He had been a Squadron Leader in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I and came out with the belief that aeroplanes had souls.  He also believed in demonic creatures and elements, evil creatures trying to break through to our world; Lewis also claimed to have personally witnessed such creatures..  He was invalided out of the RAF in the early 1940s and destroyed all of his remaining work during a fit of manic depression.  Facing permanent unemployment and deteriorating physical and mental health, Lewis eventually became blind and suffered from myocardial disease.  He was 62 when he eventually died from a heart attack.  his eleven stories that have survived are masterpieces of the fantastic imagination.

"Lost Keep" features Peter Hunt, a seventeen-year-old orphan living in abject poverty in a shabby rooming house.  His only relative, an aunt as poor as Peter, has just died and Peter could expect nothing from her estate.  It turns out that she did have one thing to leave him.  Shortly before her death, she asked the hospital matron to retrieve a small locked box from her safety deposit.  There was note from her telling Peter to "make use what Fate wills of its contents."  Inside the box were three items:  a samll scale model of a stone fortress, a folded sheet of paper, and a dark lens that was almost impervious to light.  The note, it turns out, was from his deceased father..  The scale model of the fortress, it seems, had been handed down for generations from parent to child over many, many years.  It was not known how old it was or its exact origins, but legend had it that the model held a secret that could be rediscovered by any with "the wit or fortune to combine glass and facsimile with understanding." but (the note continued) none has been able to solve the riddle.  And, by the way, there is also a supposed curse on the model for whoever does discover its secret.  The lens, being completely black, opened no secrets when Peter used it to examine the model.  But the little facsimile was cleverly made and may get a decent price from a dealer of  curios...

As Peter looked closer at the model further using the lens, he felt a great heat , and then the lens cracked -- but only the outer portion of the lens, which, it turned out was made of several layers of glass.  He removed the outer shell of dark glass, and the model began to appear larger and larger, then blackness... And he woke within the keep, which had now become greatly enlarged and sat on a high cliff overlooking an endless sea,  He wandered through the castle, scaling its turrets, looking for a way to get back to his rooming house.  After a while he began to get hungry and thirsty, but there was no food or water available...

We shift to the rooming house, where his landlady is talking to two policemen.  Peter had gone to his room with a package some forty-two hour before.  when he did not appear for breakfast and di not show up at his work, she began to get concerned.  There was no answer at the door and the door was locked from the inside.  She and another boarder broke in, but Peter had vanished with no means of leaving the room.  The landlady and the police were baffled.  then there was a groan from the bed, and Peter was suddenly there, wan and demanding food and water...

Flash forward fifteen or twenty years.  Peter is now very rich.  He has a large house, a country seat, three cars, a large staff of servants, and a charming (but neglected) wife, and a young son.  It turned out that, when he visited the Lost Keep the very first time, he still had the magical lens in his pocket and eventually used that to return to the real world.  He had the ability to visit the Lost Keep and return anytime he wanted as long as he had the lens on him.  He also was able to bring others with him to the deserted fortress and cold leave them there as his prisoners until they did what he wished or starved, and what he most wanted for for them to sig over property and wealth to him; and, of course, he then let them starve.  For years, there were mysterious unexplained disappearances but no provable suspicions fell on Peter.

And it was almost as if Peter forget there was a curse on the fortress and whoever solved its riddle...

A disturbingly creepy story that could have become very trite if left where his landlady and the policemen were puzzling over Peters impossible disappearance, but Lewis carries it an eerier conclusion.  In the end we know that Peter is going to get his but we have no idea how fitting Fate could be.

This is the first story I've read by Lewis.  I'm looking forward to read the remaining ten.

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: THE REBEL: JOHNNY YUMA (THE FIRST EPISODE, OCTOBER 4, 1959)

 Nick Adams played Johnny Yuma. a young Confederate soldier and aspiring writer who wandered the West following the Civil War, fighting injustice with his revolver and his dead father's sawed-off shotgun.  The show ran for two seasons on ABC, ending on June 18, 1961, for a total of 76 episodes.  The title song was sung by Johnny Cash, although series star Nick Adams released a single of the show's theme in 1960.  Despite being a ratings success, the show was cancelled after two seasons because of the network's new "counter-programming" format; it was replaced by a variety show starring Steve Allen, which died after only four months.

In the pilot episode, Yuma returns to his hometown in 1867, two years after the war, only to find that his father, the local sheriff, had been killed by a gang led by Dan Blocker, which had taken over the town.  The episode was directed by Irvin Kershner and written by series producer and co-creator (along with star Nick Adams) Andrew Fenady.  Also featured in the cast are John Carradine, Jeanette Nolan, Strother Martin, and Harry Bartell.

One of my favorite television shows from way back when.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4SJ3J-V5To&t=112s

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JEAN RITCHIE

American folk singer Jean Ritchie (1922-2015) was often referred to as "The Mother of Folk."  The youngest of fourteen children who grew up in Viper, an unincorporated area in Kentucky's Cumberland Mountains, she came from a family dedicated to performing and preserving Appalachian music and tradition.  Her family provided many songs for noted musical collector Cecil Sharp, and Jean herself recoirded for Alan Loman  and, later, for The Library of Congress.  As a young child, she had already learned hundreds of traditional songs orally and later travelled extensively to research and add to her repertoire.  She performed on stage with the Weavers, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Oscar Brand.  She had a significant influence on Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, and Judy Collins among others.  Responsible for the re-emergence of the Appalachian dulcimer in folk music, she was also the person who popularized the song "Amazing Grace."  Although most associated with traditional music, she also wrote and performed topical songs.  Her clear, unvarnished voice has echoed over the decades to please fans young and old.  She was given the folk Alliance's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, and was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship -- the highest honor given for folk and traditional arts in the United States -- from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002.

"Barbara Allen"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihit0mpmz7o

"Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1JhPX2M6nY

"Amazing Grace"  (with Doc Watson)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBBCDpYKV1g

"With Kitty I'll Go"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch1EPCIKTuU

"Hangman"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnfNGmDiYt0

"One I Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hSXKhrmSHw

The L and N Don't Here Anymore"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1CNua_KWRM

"Nottamun Town"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGU1yR3wPlw

"Cherry Tree Carol"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB0ItQFsZlQ

"Let the Sun Shine Down on Me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdVH9eUL3HY

"Go Dig My Grave"  (with Doc Watson)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGrcOqcbzYk

"Cedar Swamp"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP4WiPlHL6A

"Careless Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBJJZ96epbg

"Old Virginny"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjj6CzxBRY8

"One More Mile"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9b78HHhYm8

HYMN TIME

Because December 7 is the Day That Will Go Down in Infamy, here's Kay Kyser & His Orchestra with a Frank Loesser song from 1942.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUOPvtVZwo8

THE MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN #32 (AUG.-SEPT. 1954)

This one has an interesting past.  Comic historian Don Markstein considers this to be "America's first on-going comic book series to fall squarely within the horror genre."  In this case, Frankenstein refers to the monster itself rather than its creator.  Created by Dick Briefer, he first appeared in Prize Comics #7 (December 1940); and continued as a feature in Prize Comics until 1948, when the title switched to a western format.  In the beginning, the character was a rampaging monster, but turned into a Nazi-hater in 1943.  By 1945, Briefer changed focus and Frankenstein was written and drawn just for laughs, becoming the "Merry Monster," cavorting with Dracula, the Wolf Man, and other monsters in a small town.  Also in 1945, he achieved his own title, Frankenstein, which included a humorous version of the creature's origins.  The title continued until February 1949, the last few issues retitled The Monster of Frankenstein.  Again, there was a switch in focus halfway through the run; according to Markstein, "A total of 33 issues were published, 17 containing  1940s hilarity and 16 with 1950s gore.

In this issue:

• "The Battle of the Monsters"  Frankenstein is washed shore on a tropical island following a shipwreck.  The evil natives attempt to kill him by pitting him against first a giant crocodile. then a man-eating lion, booth of which he easily defeats.  They then lead him to an active volcano where two stranded white persons have been chained as a sacrifice to the gods.  He free them, the volcano explodes, raining lave and death upon the natives, and Frankenstein and the two survivors head out to sea in a boat, where the two are rescued.
• "The Beautiful Dead"  Frankenstein is on the run from angry townsfolks.  He dashes into a building for safety.  It is a storage building for mannikins with sheet-covered bodies lying on tables.  He climbs on a table and pulls a sheet over himself.  While waiting for the mob to disperse, he examines the other bodies and discover one of a beautiful woman.  Something compels him.  He must have this body to keep.  He takes the mannikin and hides in an abandoned house deep in the woods.  There, while Frankenstein is out doing something, dunno what), two bums break in, looking for shelter.  They are surprised to see the beautiful woman and even more surprised to see that she is a wax figure.  They light a fire and the figure melts.  when Frankenstein discovers this, he goes on a rampage.  Later he goes out foraging for food but all the animals manage to avoid him.  He spies a large bird resting atop some electrical wires.  He reaches for the bird and is electrocuted.  When his body is found, he is dead (or so they thin).  Now his body rest on a table in a different room, covered by a sheet, among many others of the dead.  He awakens and checks out the other bodies in the morgue and, lo and behold!, there is a body of another beautiful woman!  He steals that corpse and hides her in another abandoned house, coming back one day to find to his horror that this beautiful woman's body has started to rot!

Also in this issue is the story of man who, using information found in rare and occult books, managed to find and resurrect the body of the Greek god Zeus, who for some reason had been  buried in Zion National Park.  Zeus, BTW, a a blond giant who speaks English.  Go figure.

There's also a couple of text stories, one of which gives a nod to the television show I've Got a Secret.  And a nifty advertisement for those socially inept on how to find romance, specifically books titled How to Get Along with Girls, How to Get Along with Boys, and How to Write Love Letters, all for the low price of 98 cents each!   Alas, I was not the target audience for these in 1954; at that time all I knew about girls was that they had cooties.

Anyway, enjoy this odd little trip to the past:

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=97271

FORGOTTEN BOOK: TOFFEE TURNS THE TRICK

Toffee Turns the Trick by Charles F. Myers  (first published in Fantastic Adventures, February 1949; issued as a chapbook, date uncertain; included in Toffee:  The Complete Adventures, 2002)

Not a book, per se, although it has had a separate publication as a chapbook before being bundled up with the other nine adventures of the dream girl who became all too real in a 2002 omnibus.  "Toffee Turns the Trick" stands at about 20,000 words.  Marc Pillsworth was too busy with his advertising career to have much of a social life, but while he was sleeping he did have an active dream life.  And that dream life included the gorgeous Toffee, who fell heavily for the derring-do man of action that his dreams allowed him to be.  The more he dreamed, the more real she became, until one day he woke up and found her by his bedside.  His dreams somehow had made her real, and the Thorne Smith-ian misadventures of Marc and Toffee began, full of mildly risque hints and classic screwball antics and misunderstandings.  To add to the mayhem, Marc Pillsworth was happily marriage -- despite what his subconscious may say.

And what kind of dream girl was Toffee?   "...a slender gold-sandaled foot [...] was neatly attached to a really top-notch leg.  The leg swung gracefully into view and was instantly joined by various other notable appointments; another exquisite leg, for instance, a body if disquieting shapeliness and a pert young face.  As an almost needless bonus there were also two vivid green eyes, a full red mouth and a plethora of gleaming titian hair.  Together, these dazzling bits of merchandise added up to Toffee, blither mistress of the valley of Marc Pillsworth's subconscious mind."

An inventor named Culpepper has come up with a product called Fixage, medicinal pills that. while not promising immortality, will arrest physical deterioration, while perhaps adding twenty years or so to an individual's  lifespan, or so Culpepper claims.  Culpepper has not been able to get anyone interested in backing him, most likely because his claims are too wild, so he has come to Marc's agency with a proposition:  help him find financing and Culpepper will cut Marc in for twenty percent of the profits.  It's Marc's job to sell things to the public, not to manufacturers, so he brusquely shoed Culpepper the door.  but the inventor was not one to give up quietly -- he left a bottle of the Fixage pills with Marc...just in case.

The encounter with Culpepper left marc with a bad headache, and he was due for a tense meeting with a soft drink account.  Marc's secretary gave him a glass of water and some aspirin to help with the headache.  But there was no aspirin in the office, his secretary (not the brightest) had given him two pills of Fixage, and according to the instructions on the Fixage bottle, the dosage should be one pill every six months.

Then Marc blacked out, going deep into his subconscious where Toffee began to be concerned.  He woke up, bringing Toffee with him.  For the moment, all seemed to be okay.   then dizziness hit him and he closed his eyes.  Opening them, he saw Toffee was gone, replaced by an eight-year-old girl.  Toffee, for her part, saw Marc as a geeky young boy, with big ears and a face full of freckles.  Fixage not only arrested Marc physically, it somehow reversed his age.  Because Toffee was actually a part of Marc's subconscious, she, too, became much younger.  And the important meeting with the soft drink people was scheduled in just a few minutes.

Much more happens in the madcap Toffee way.  Rest assured all ends well, but a heck of a lot happens along the way.  Luckily for Marc, his wife was away, looking after an ailing relative; otherwise Toffee's presence would have compounded the trouble even more than it actually did.

.

Charles F. Myers (1920-2006) after publishing fantasy stories under his own name, became best-selling suspense novelist and screenwriter Henry Farrell, author of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Awful About Allan.  He won an Edgar Award for co-writing the screenplay Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (based on one of his short stories).  Several of his novels were filmed, and he wrote the original screenplay for What's the Matter with Helen?  

Unlike his suspense stories, the Toffee tales are pure fun from a day long gone:

• I'll Dream of You (Fantastic Adventures, January 1947)
• You Can't Scare Me! (Fantastic Adventures, March 1947)
• Toffee Takes a Trip (Fantastic Adventures, July 1947)
• Toffee Haunts a Ghost (Fantastic Adventures, November 1947)
• The Spirit of Toffee (Fantastic Adventures, November 1948)
• Toffee Turns the Trick (Fantastic Adventures, February 1949)
• The Shades of Toffee (Fantastic Adventures, June 1950)
• The Vengeance of Toffee (Imagination, February 1951)
• No Time for Toffee! (Imagination, July, 1952)
• The Laughter of Toffee (Imagination, October 1954)

SUSPENSE: THE MYSTERY OF THE MARIE CELESTE (JUNE 8, 1953)

One hundred fifty-three years ago today the brigantine Mary Celeste was discovered abandoned off the Azores.  She was in seaworthy condition, under partial sail, with her lifeboat missing.  Her provisions remained ample, her cargo intact, the personal property of the captain and crew undisturbed,   No trace of any of the ship's personnel was ever found.  The mystery caught the imagination of the public and stories and theories of what had happened abounded.  Arthur Conan Doyle was one who fictionized the incident in his story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement," but named the vessel the Marie Celeste; over the years that spelling took hold and it is by that name that most persons now call the mystery ship.

To mark this anniversary, I thought it would be interesting to see how Suspense, that most venerable of old-time radio thrillers, handled the legend.  [Note, however, that the program got the date wrong, claiming the abandoned ship was discovered on December 9, rather than on December 4.]

This episode was directed by Elliott Lewis and scripted by Gil Dowd.  Van Heflin starred, backed by Joseph Kearns, Jeannette Nolan, Paul Frees, Dan Herlihy, Hal Gerard, and William Conrad.

Enjoy this episode...and wonder what really happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX6e5DQJMUg

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE MAGIC OF THE CANNIBAL

Achmed Abdullah (1881-1945) was a popular novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter in the early and mid-twentieth century.  Today, he may be best remembered as the screenwriter (and later novelist) of The Thief of Bagdad and the screenwriter of The Lives of a Bengal Lancer.  He ws a compulsive mythomaniac concerning his background, claiming his birth father was a Russian Grand Duke and cousin of Czar Nicholas Romanoff (he wasn't), and that he attended Eton College and Oxford University (he didn't) -- but the claims made good publicity.  He also variously claimed his full name was either "Achmed Abdullah Nadir Khan el-Durani el-Iddrissyeh" or "Alexander Nicholyevitch Romanoff."  Most of his writings were in the romance, adventure, and fantasy genres.  "The Magic of the Canniibal" in a rare volume of stories from the "Creeps Library" published by Philip Allan of London; to my knowledge, the story has never been reprinted.

The Magic of the Cannibal

by The Sheikh A. Abdullah

(from Mysteries of Asia, London:  Philip Allan, 1935)

Ever since the gangway was lifted at Colombo, and I saw a tall, sunburnt visage of a middle-aged Englishman under a particularly worn topee, I had thought that I knew the man.  Constantly I had come up face to face with him when the steamer ploughed its way through them open seas towards Aden.  Beyond a side glance the curious and aloof man defied acquaintance.  But something fascinated me about my fellow-passenger.  He had almost an occult influence on me; till, one night when the stars hung in bunches like giant and glowing pieces of the moon from the sky, that enchanting scene so gripped me that my coffee cup slipped from my hand.  It rolled over the railing and fell into the lap of someone sitting in his deckchair.  The man woke up with a start, as if from a trance, and as I hastened to apologize, my eyes met the same mysterious, silent man who, I thought, had been making an extra effort to avoid me.

After profound apologies, I resolved to take the opportunity.  "Pardon me," I said, "but have we met before?"  The man looked up.  "Yes," he grunted, 'yes, perhaps we have met in the moon."  That grunt of his -- a little mannerism as it was -- flashed a host of memories.  It emboldened me.  "We have met in the moon, old boy."  I spoke half-humorously.  "Come, come, Charlie, do you forget that Pathology class room?"  He had stiffened ever so slightly, then he gave it up, and the whole association of our undergraduate days was recounted.

He has failed twice in his finals.  The professor had been hard on him, he thought.  The War came on, he served in the army, and then, after a little love affair, went to the East to lose himself.  But now he was returning.  He did not want to know any of his old haunts.  Whether Muriel had gone to Canada or had married someone else he did not care.  He just wanted to spend a quiet summer in England after a dreadful time in the wilds of Ceylon.

Not till the steward was putting out the lights did we realize that we were on the wrong side of the deck, where the ladies slept.  But Charles Munro, besides being a good all-round cricketer, and a mimic of his national bard, was also a good story-teller.  What he began to tell me of his experiences in the back of beyond interested me so much that we went to the men's side of the deck.  Within ten minutes we, too, brought our mattresses on the deck, and I was once again listening to him.  "You did not stick long to your botanical researches?"  I asked.  "Well," he said, with that Scottish drawl which was characteristic of him.  "Well, you see, I got into a sort of a man-eater's business."  "Man-eaters!  Good heavens!  You were not amongst the cannibals!"

It transpired that he had qualified in some way or other in pharmacology in Kandy, and to do research he had sallied forth to collect some herbs, which the native thought would cure malaria.  One day he set out in search of those uncharted regions of the island, which even the aeroplanes have not been able to penetrate.  Charlie was desperate, he did not care what happened to him.  He would be a discoverer, an explorer of the herb that would free mankind from fever.  But now I must let him use his own words.

"Desperately," he said, "I wandered on, the terror of the jungle was on me.  It was unnerving and paralyzing my volition.  I was indeed lost in these endless and pitiless leagues of enveloping greenness without hope of exit or rescue.  Fool that I had been not to take the advice of my shikari!  I did not know Ceylon, I had not bargained for such conditions as I now found myself in.  Beaten, exhausted, I floundered on mechanically, my rifle feeling heavy as the beam of a house on my tired shoulder.

"Suddenly I heard the baying of a hound in the distance.  The sound, menacing as it was, aroused my flickering hopes.  It would, if followed up, lead me out of the labyrinth in which I was weakly floundering.  Again, the deep baying sounded on the calm evening air, then. as if the whole of Hades had broken loose, it was succeeded by a chorus of such infernal barking and yelling as I had never heard before.  The furious din checked my progress, I halted and listened.   Would it be safe to proceed in that direction?  It would certainly not be safe to stay where I was, and the hubbub, threatening as it sounded, would at least lead me out of my present perilous position -- to land me in a worse one, perhaps.  Well, I had come to the end of my tether and had no choice.  I 'faced the music,' and pressed on in the direction of what seemed to be pack of hounds let loose and hot on the track of their prey.

"Then, suddenly, I stopped dead once more, for the awful thought had occurred to me that I myself might be that 'prey,' the object of that clamourous quest.  Even as I halted, I noticed that the jungle had grown less dense.  Pressing forward, I emerged all at once into the bright sunshine and in view of a strange enough picture.

"In a clearing between jungle and jungle, an island of plain between two seas of forest, stood the most incongruous building it has ever been my lot to see -- yes, actually stood, for this was not fiction but actual autobiography.  Think of a medieval tower cast out of England or Normandy into the midst of a Cingalese landscape!  On one side of it stood a long, low building, evidently kennels, and issuing from this I beheld a pack of some twenty large hounds of a breed I was quite unable to place.  No two of them were alike, and I judged them to be mongrels between the bloodhound and other large breeds, at least many of them had undoubted bloodhound characteristics.  I have seen such dogs in the Portuguese towns of India, and I have reason to believe they had been brought from Pondicherry.

"Behind them stood a curious figure, a white man in stripe pyjamas, the trousers of which were tucked into long, laced-up field-boots.  He wore a solar topee, so that at that distance I could not see his face.  But I was not occupied at the moment with personal idiosyncrasies or appearances.  The hounds, sighting me, gave a full cry, and came at me like a speckled wave.

" 'Look out!' I yelled, raising my rifle, 'if your dog attack me I shall shoot -- and it won't be at the dogs.'

"Their master heard, even at that distance, and snapped out an order.  Instantly the brutes came to a stop, whimpering and whining like a horde of disappointed wolves.  I walked slowly towards the man with the solar helmet, and now I could see his eyes -- curious eyes they were, eager, strained, and bloodshot, the restless eyes of a debauchee, it seemed to me.

"'It's late for hunting,' I said, 'but your hounds have got me in a fix.  I was lost in the jungle.'

" 'Several people have been lost there,' he replied in strange but cultivated tones, although with a srong foreign accent.  'That's why I have the dogs out.  They have...er...rescued me from a few wanderers."

" 'That's a queer house of yours, if you'll excuse me for saying so,' I ventured, 'quite like the ogre's castle in a fairy tale, isn't it?'

" 'The ogre's castle,' he repeated.  'You think so?  Well. you're all in, I expect.  You had better come inside and lie down for a bit,' and turning and whistling to his dogs he led the way to the tower.  Within, it was comfortable enough, and evidently had been made suitable to tropical conditions.  The ground floor was the living room, two airy bedrooms composed the second storey.  As to the third, I only saw it once.

"I learned that my host's name was Kreimer, or so I shall style him.  He was a heavy cumbrous-looking man of an obviously lazy habit, about fifty, perhaps, fleshy and unwholesome.  His only servant was a Cingalese, a creature of quite extraordinary suavity.

"But I was in case to quarrel with circumstances, and after an excellent supper of curry which might have been cooked in the best club in Calcutta, I was shown my room, and slept like a man in a legend.  And while I slept I dreamed -- nor were my dreams pleasant.

"They were rather chaotic and indescribable, those dreams of mine, but their central motif seemed to be a horrible, unnerving sensation of constant rustling, to which the baying of the hounds played a menacing accompaniment.  Rustle, rustle, the weird sound continued throughout the night, like the leaves of a windswept wood in June, and, even though I slept, I had a sensation of the nearness of bodiless presences which filled me with vague unrest.  I awoke unrefreshed and almost as weary as I had been the night before, but I washed and dressed, and, descending, put the best face on things I could.  Kreimer was in the living-room, and what I saw him do I did not like.

"At first I though he was drinking a glass of wine.  But when I drew closer, I saw to my horror that it was not wine.

" "Good morning,' he said affably enough, as he finished his drink.  'You seem surprised at the nature of my refreshment, but it's doctor's orders.'

" 'Indeed,' I said, most inadequately, wishing myself for some instinctive reason a thousand miles away from this man.

" 'Yes.  I find fresh blood wonderful as a morning pick-me-up,' he continued almost carelessly.  'Ever tried it?"

" 'Good gracious, no!' I retorted, suddenly angry, I know not why.

" 'But you drink milk, don't you?' he asked, as if surprised, 'and what is milk but white blood?'

"I made no reply, and we sat down to a breakfast of kedgeree and coffee, well served by his Cingalese man-servant.  how it was I accepted his invitation to stay for a week I cannot say.  the man had a strange fascination about him, and I have always been strangely attracted by odd personalities.

" 'This is a wonderful spot for a cheetah.' he said, as he lit a cheroot.  "I course them with the hounds.  Suppose we try our luck before tiffin?  Youi won't need a gun, it's all dog work.  Better start at once while its reasonably cool, if you don't mind.'

"He had touched me on one of my weak spots.  Of course, cheetah are not hunted that way at all, but I was keen to see a new method.  So in ten minutes he had routed out the dogs, and was waiting for meaty the door.

" 'By the way, Sahib,' he said, looking at me strangely, 'the dogs aren't used to you, and I admit they're a trifle uncertain with strangers.  Suppose you walk towards the jungle and watch the proceedings from cover.  My man and I will drive them in the opposite direction, and as it's all flat country hereabouts you'll get a capital view of the sport when we rouse one of the spotted fellows.  What do you say?'

"I looked at the hounds, leaping, snapping, and snarling, and he didn't have to ask me twice.  So, while he and his man held them on the leash, I made for the wall of trees about a quarter of a mile away.

"I had gone perhaps a couple of hundred yards when I heard the yapping and whining change suddenly to the noise of a pack in full cry.  Surprised that they had already roused a cheetah, I turned.  The pack, with baying heads and tails high in the air was rushing in my direction!

"For an instant I stood sock-still, incapable of believing I was their quarry.  But a second glance sufficed to make it certain.  The brutes were running towards me as if possessed, and Kreimer was waving them on with haloos and hunting cries as a man might a pack of beagles.  With a sudden oath of terrified anger, I put down my head and dashed in the direction of the jungle at top speed.

"Well for me was it that I was a sprinter in those days and in good form.  One stumble, one false step, and I should have been done for.  I had more than two hundred years to make, and those brutes were not more than half that distance behind me when my warning came.  I ran like a man who feels death clutching at his windpipe, sobbing, cursing, in a surge of frightful anger.  My heart rose in my throat and half-smothered me like the grip of an enemy.  By the time I made the sheltering trees I was all in, merely reduced to a smashed and crumpled pair of lungs, drawing like broken bellows.  With the last of my frenzied strength I shinned up a tree and stared down at the howling demons below me, leaping and frothing like maddened wolves.  In another two minutes Kreimer came up.

" 'A thousand apologies, my dear young ma,' he shouted, 'the brutes got jut of hand.  I simply couldn't restrain them.'

"'You devil,' I sobbed, 'didn't I see you driving them on, you infernal murderer!'

" 'You're mistaken, I assure you,' he said, simply looking at me queerly. almost hungrily, noe the less; 'I was shouting at them to keep them back.'

" 'Tell your man to take them to the kennels,' I said, 'for I have something to say to you.'

" 'Certainly, he'll take them back,' he replied with a great show of willingness, and gave the necessary orders.  At a words, the hounds, which seemed to be absolutely under the domination of the Cingalese, trotted away behind him to the kennels.  When they were at a reasonable distance, I descended and faced Kreimer.  but I faced a man with a revolver in his hand.

"He might have bristled with revolvers, but I was instantly at his throat.  Then a strange thing happened.  As I seized him, he crumpled up like paper in my arms, and slipped to the ground.  I fell heavily on top of him.  His white face stared into mine.  I knew he ws dead as I looked into the glazed eyes.

"The heart had given way suddenly like a broken piston.  Horrified, and shaken, I called loudly to the Cingalese.  At the third cry he came running to me.  He bent over the face of the dead.

" 'This is no marvel,' he said calmly.  'He was a bad man.  The gods have slain him out of the sky.  Maybe some demon of the forest...' and he looked at me fearfully.

" 'Help me to carry him to the house,' I said, and without another word we bore the body back to the strange tower which it had so lately inhabited.

" 'Yes, he was a bad man,' babbled the Cingalese sententiously.  'He hunted other men...'

" 'What are you telling me?' I gasped, overcome with horror.  'Do you mean to say the man was a...a...madman?'

" 'No,' he replied gravely.  'He made me his slave and I had to obey.  Strangers lost in the jungle cam hither; and he hunted them with his hounds, and then...'

" 'And then what?' I asked, but received no reply.

"The thing seemed incredible.  Entering the house, I went through Kreimer's papers.  The man was a Russian, a landowner, from the Crimea.  His diary showed that he had undergone the experience of a terrible famine.  Perhaps that had...but such surmises are better left unwritten.

"I resolved to remain in the castle until such time as some official came our way.  Someone from the Woods and Forests Department would surely pay us a visit before long, I felt assured.  I had nothing to fear.  Kreimer had attempted my life and his death was due entirely to mishap, for I had scarcely touched him.  My conscience was clear.  and, moreover, it was impossible to communicate with the authorities from that jungle-surrounded place.

"We buried Kreimer that evening in the compound, and I made up my mind to shoot every one of those hounds the next morning.  That night I slept not at all.  I was conscious of the same rustling in my bedroom, a weird sound as of bodiless things moving in the darkness, so I rose and lit the lamp and smoked and read until dawn, when I fell at last into an uneasy dozing.

"And now comes the most dreadful part of my tale.  How it happened, I do not presume to be able to say, but, after a few days, I had no inclination to quit Cain Castle, as I came to call the strange tower in which I found myself.  At first it was something resembling curiosity which detained me there, that and a resolve to await the coming of someone in authority to whom I could relate the truth of what had happened to Kreimer.  But, after  few days I began to feel with growing horror and dismay that I was becoming attached to the place, that, indeed, it held a weird kind of fascination for me.  I grew tolerant even of the hounds, and felt more disinclined to destroy them.  After all...

"It was on the fourth day, I believe, that I began to experience a new phase of this particular obsession, for that is the only word I can discover for it.  The horror with which I regarded the place and everything connected with it had entirely disappeared, and I found that not only could I tolerate Cain Castle, but that I had even a relish for the tower and its surroundings.  No longer did I dread the rustling noises in the darkness of the night.  I felt on the other hand something almost companionable and friendly in it.

"My conscience seemed numbed and clouded.  I began to feel as though my very personality were undergoing an alteration.  I remember now with horror the ghastly change which crept over me in that accursed place, but, at the time, if the reader will believe me, I experienced nothing of the nausea with which I now regard the unnatural metamorphosis which I saw gradually creeping over me, the new and vile character which invaded and enveloped my ego like a demonic possession,

"It is difficult for cold Northern people to realize the nature of the strange and occult influence native to an Eastern environment, and I sometimes think that it is well that they are so favoured.  Little by little the influence, the horror, grew upon me.  Soon I was a child in its grasp.  I walked about like a man in a trance.  The Cingalese saw the change and spoke warning words full of enigmatical meaning.  He might as well have spoken to the walls around us.  Some dark power immeasurably mightier than man had me in its grasp, soul and body.  The baying of the hounds had become as music to me, and, curiously enough, they now displayed no unfriendliness, but leapt with joy at their fences when I appeared, fawning on me and licking my hands.

"One cloudy morning, dark, hot, mercilessly tropical, with the threat of thunder in the air, I rose, duller than ever in mind, and conscious of a craving which I could not describe to myself, a wild hunger which was yet not the nature of ordinary hunger, for the excellent breakfast the Cingalese placed before me remained untasted, arousing only nausea.  Like a beast I stalked about the house, mooning from window to window.  Ha, what was that?  The hounds were baying wildly.  Something within me, something unthinkably wild and savage, leapt tigerishly at the sound.  I looked towards the jungle.  A man in a white drill suit was staggering out of it, evidently in the same predicament as that in which I had found myself some ten days before.  Then he seemed to disappear.

"I rushed upstairs to the top storey of the tower, the better to get sight of him and his movements, springing up the crazy stone steps like a panther.  A wild-blood-lust possessed me.  I experienced the overpowering joy and triumph that the great bests must feel at the sight of their prey.

"Behind me the Cingalese cried and babbled.

" 'Sire, sire, go not up there,' he pleaded.  'There is something there...something unholy.'

"The upper storey of the tower consisted of two rooms.  So far I had only entered that on the opposite side, a room full of books, guns and hunting tackle.  That which looked toward the jungle was locked.  now, in a frenzy of passion, I threw myself against it.  The crazy lock parted, and I was propelled into the place with terrific force.  Stumbling to the cob-webbed window, I gazed through it with distended eyes, panting like a tiger behind bars.  Ah, now I caught sight of the little white figure once again!

"The hounds!  How they yelled!  My impulse was to descend and turn them loose, to hunt, to capture, and then...even now, after many years, I turn sick and faint at the bare recollection of the ghastly desire which filled me with a tempest of longing.  to seize, to tear, to bite -- yes, to bite, rich and deep!

"Something rolled dismally at my feet -- turned and rolled on the rotting boards.  I looked down.  A human skull circled slowly on its fleshless dome at my feet!

"Then revulsion, horror, loathing, descended on me like a quenching flood, burning out the fires of the abominable ardour I had felt.  I knelt beside that grim relic, my face buried n my hands, quivering with shame and self-aversion, a spirit newly escaped from some awful pit and limbo of ancient deviltry in which I had languished for days of half-realized abandonment.  What had I nearly become?  With a cry I gazed around me.  The room was literally stacked with human bones, the horrid trophies which Kreimer, the man-demon, the cannibal, had garnered there as momentoes of his unspeakable orgies.

"Nearly beside myself, I rushed below, through the compound and towards the now recumbent figure at the verge of the jungle.  I had scarcely run more quickly when pursued by the hell-hounds on the day of the unspeakable Kreimer's death.  The Cingalese followed me.  We raised the fallen form of the Englishman who lay there.  We carried him back to the tower, and poured brandy down his throat.  In a little he revived somewhat and told a story similar to my own.

"For days he lingered between life and death, but through our unremitting care he progressed favourably and was at last able to leave, with proper instructions from the Cingalese as to his road and destination.  He was a well-known botanist who had lost his comrades in the jungle. but his name I shall not mention here for the best of reasons.

"Two days later I was myself on the road to civilization, accompanied by the Cingalese.  But before I went, I loaded every rifle and revolver in the tower -- and then I entered the kennels and did what I had to do there quickly and mercifully.  When the last of the demon-dogs had yelped out its life, I turned to the tower.  The Cingalese and I gathered all the dry timber in which we could lay out hands, shavings, paper, and, heaping it in the lower story, I set it alight.  In a couple of hours nothing remained of Cain Castle but the blackened walls.

"When I returned to Colombo, I set inquiries on foot, and revealed in outline the history of the place.  It had been built by an eccentric Englishman of means in the early part of the nineteenth century, an astrologer, who had retired to that remote district so that he might the better devote himself to the study of his mysterious art free from disturbance or interference.  For at least a generation it had lain vacant and practically ruined, until, some two years before the opening of my story, it had been found and renovated by Kreimer.  The mysterious disappearances of explorers did not arouse any especial remark, as it was thought they had perished inn the neighbouring jungle, which possessed a particularly bad reputation as a wilderness easy to lose oneself in.  At the same time, it seems peculiar that the very considerable number of people who had gone missing in that particular locality during Kreimer's tenancy of the accursed tower had not aroused suspicion."

When Charlie finished, I felt that I could not sleep.  the very waves of the ocean seemed to be full of yelping, barking dogs.  But he was asleep in no time.  He needed it more,

OVERLOOKED FILM: DOWN TO EARTH (1947)

 Rita Hayworth plays the goddess Terpsichore in this kinda-sorta sequel to 1941's Here Comes Mr. Jordan, minus the Robert Montgomery character and switching Roland Culver for Claude Rains in the Mr. Jordan role.  Hanging on for the sequel, though, are Edward Everett Horton (as Messenger 7013) and James Gleason (as Max Corkle).

Terpsichore is miffed when she learns that, on Earth, Broadway producer Danny Miller (Larry Parks) is producing a musical comedy, Swinging with the Muses, in which the muses are portrayed as man-crazy tarts vying for the affections of two Air Force pilots who had crashed on Mount Parnassus.  How dare a mere mortal make fun of the Muses, and especially Terpsichore?  She gets permission from Mr. Jordan to go to Earth and set things right.  On Earth, she is to be Kitty Pendleton, and she soon gets Max Corkle as an agent and lands a role in Miller's musical.  Miller cannot help falling in love with Kitty Pendleton (she is a goddess, after all) and soon allows her to convince him to change the direction of the show from a musical farce to a high-minded ballet.  

Of course the play fails on the road and Terpsichore/Kitty has no idea why.  In the meantime, there are gangsters (are there always?) who are invested in the play's success and threaten Miller if he does not return to the original concept...

It's a cute movie, a bit overblown and not helped than many of the stars could not sing and had to have their voices dubbed.  Anita Ellis dubs Hayworth's singing voice, Hal Derwin dubs Larry Parks, and Kay Starr dubs Adele Jergens, who plays the New Terpsichore in the musical.  Third billing goes to Marc Platt as Eddie, Miller's sidekick.  Platt (1913-2014), whose birthday is today, was a ballet dancer, choreographer, and occasional actor -- he played one of the brothers in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and lived to the ripe old age of 100.  Also featured in the cast were George Macready (Gilda, The Big Clock, Detective Story) and William Frawley (I Love Lucy, My Three Sons, Miracle on 34th Street).

Directed by  Alexander Hall, who also directed Here Comes Mr. Jordan.  Scripted by Edwin Blum (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Canterville Ghost, Stalag 17), Don Hartman (Road to Zanzibar, My Favorite Blonde, The Princess and the Pirate), based on characters from the 1938 play It Was  Like That (also known as Heaven Can Wait) by Harry Segall (Monkey Business, Four Jills in a Jeep, Angel on My Shoulder), from which Here Comes Mr. Jordan was based (that film was scripted by Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller).  Here Comes Mr. Jordan was remade in 1978 with Warren Beatty.  The 2001 film Down to Earth with Chris Rock was actually based on Segall's 1938 play and not the 1947 film.  The 1943 film Heaven Can Wait has absolutely nothing to do with any of the above.  Are we clear now?  There will be a quiz after class.

A Hollywood goddess portrays a Greek goddess...what could be more appropriate?

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5tYHHwTXPI

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARY MARTIN!

Mary Martin (1913-1990) was a noted actress and singer who originated the roles of Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, Peter Pan in Peter Pan, and Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music.  She had a photographic memory and was a great mimic -- traits that stood her well throughout her career.  She married at sixteen and had her first child, Larry (who was perhaps best known for portraying J. R. Ewing on the prime-time soap Dallas) ten months later.  She opened a dance studio, teaching her own moves, and then one in Mineral Springs, Texas, where she would also sing each Saturday.  While in California singing in San Francisco and Los Angeles, she learned that her studio had been burned down by a man who did not believe in dancing.  She stayed in Los Angeles and began a round of auditions; she was soon to be known as 'audition Mary."  During one audition, she caught the attention of Oscar Hammerstein and her career began to take off.

Mary Martin won four Tony Awards and an Emmy.  She received the Donaldson Award in 1943 for One Touch of Venus, was inducted into the National theatre Hall of Fame in 1973, and was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989.  She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one for recording, one for radio).  In her hometown of Weatherford, Texas, there is a statue of Peter Pan dedicated to her; it was donated by the Pater Pan Peanut Butter Company.

Those of us of a certain age fondly remember sitting cross-legged in from of the family television set, watching her amaze un in Peter Pan.  (Those who don't remember are mere whippersnappers who lost on out something special during childhood.)

"My Heart Belongs to Daddy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZa7uvmJ1U8

"The Waiter and the Porter and the Upstairs Maid"  (with Bing Crosby and Jack Teagarden)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4aprOD1Jx8

"Pound Your Table Polka"  (with Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkDIxX36R80

"I'll Walk Alone"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhpqYW4sjUE

"Almost Like Being in Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGKiGrTO8OM

"Go to Sleep, Go to Sleep, Go to Sleep"  (with Arthur Godfrey)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bCG-Zw_Mws

"Do-Re-Mi"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENOqIAWcjJg

"My FavoriteThings"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28wViKM_Sig

"The Sound of Music"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfjgdbKt5hE

"I Won't Grow Up"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ_M0Z1Janc

"I've Gotta Crow"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMurEg-U6HA

"Neverland"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWPySGv6AJE

"I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il1t9FqmLS8

"Some Enchanted Evening"  (with Ezio Pinza)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drHTYCRVoYQ

"Happy Talk"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQBjVq3Jexg

"Speak Low"  (with Kenny Baker)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ohc5vCrrWo

"I Enjoy Being a Girl"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2hMTEx52e0

A medley with Noel Coward (Get Out Those Old Records - They Didn't Believe Me - 'S Wonderful - Time on My Hands - I Didn't Know What Time It Was - Anything Goes - Dancing in the Dark - Ballerina - I Won't Dance - Papa, Won't You Dance with Me?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei-MmuLn3MU

A medley with Ethel Merman  (some oldies but goodies)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpmEiWCsaR8

From 1980, Larry Hagman tries to keep up with his mother

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poP6N_wGaE4

So much talent in one person...

HYMN TIME

 Odetta & Tennessee Ernie Ford.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaTTm2F57pc

DANNY KAYE'S BAND FUN BOOK (1959)

I was never a band geek because I just did not have the talent.  My sixth grade trombone lessons lasted maybe a month and a half, and Miss Libbie, my piano teacher, refused to tech me after the first (and only) year of lessons.  (I was also clumsy and uncoordinated so athletics was out, also.)  But I always admired the band kids inn high school because they seemed to have a lot of fun.

I was a little bit too old in 1959 to be the target audience for this promotional comic book from Bundy Band Instruments, fine purveyors of school musical instruments. Plus, I was never a big Danny Kaye fan (was his nose actually as big as they have drawn it here?).  And, to my everlasting non-concern, I have never seen The Five Pennies.  Ah me, so many missed opportunities in my life...

I wonder if the target audience of this "Fun Book" for kids actually thought it was fun? 

What do you think?

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=97242&comicpage=&b=i

FORGOTTEN BOOK: NOBODY TRUE

 Nobody True by James Herbert  (2003)

James Herbert (1943-2013) was a bestselling British horror writer whose books sold more than 54 million copies and have been translated into at last 34 languages.  At one time he was considered the British Stephen King, who presented him with the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award in 2010, the same year he was awarded an OBE.  He burst onto the publishing scene with the visceral The Rats (1974), which would eventually be followed by two sequels and an original graphic novel set in a post-nuclear future.  The Rats was followed by The Fog, an eco-disaster novel, and then by The Survivor, a ghost story.   Herbert's 23 novels covered the wide range of horror, and many in very original ways.  (His final novel, Ash, has Princess Diana and her secret son living in a Scottish castle with Lord Lucan, Muammar Qaddafi, and Robert Maxwell; talk about pushing the boundaries.)  Six films, two BBC radio programs, and a computer game have been based on his work.

Nobody True is an afterlife story, and a ghost story without a ghost, and a serial killer novel, and a mystery thriller all rolled up into one.  James True is a successful advertising art director and a partner in one of London's most up and coming firms.  He is also a murder victim who did not happen to be there when he died.

James, you see, is subject to out of body experiences (OBEs), of which he has little control and has spent much of his life trying to explain.  

After one such experience, he returns to his body and finds that he has been brutally murdered and mutilated.  His death is strikingly similar to a series of vicious killings that have recently terrorized the city; the M.O. is not exact, though, and there are questions whether he was an actual victim of the mad killer, but the similarities include things that have not been made public.  Not a ghost -- because he is not dead -- James must negotiate the world and his home without being able to make any sort of mental or physical contact.  As he roams through his past, uncertain of his exact future, he discovers that much of his life has been based on lies.  His father, his mother, his wife, his best friend and business partners, even his beloved daughter -- none are whom he had thought they were.  Then he discovers that the actual serial killer has decided to target his wife and daughter and he is unable to prevent or stop it in any way...

At its heart, this is a novel of growth and acceptance.  It's a tricky read because James at times is a very unlikable person and a bit of a dim bulb, but the narrative sweep soon takes over, bringing the reader to  a somewhat trivialized conclusion.

Not one of Herbert's better books, but still a very worthwhile one.

CASEY, CRIME PHOTOGRAPHER: HOLIDAY (NOVEMBER 25, 1948)

Casey, Crime Photographer was a CBS radio mystery program that ran from July 7, 1943 until November 6, 1950, and was then revived for sixteen months a little more than three years later, from January 13, 1954 to April 22, 1955, for a total of 434 episodes -- most of which are lost.  Over the length of the series, the show's title changed several times, from Flashgun Casey to Casey, Press Photographer to Crime Photographer to Casey, Crime Photographer, then back to Crime Photographer.  The role of Casey was originated by Matt Crowley, but Staats Cotsworth took over the role in February 1944.  Jim Bsckus also played Casey, briefly.. 

Created by mystery writer George Harmon Coxe, Jack "Flashgun" Casey was a crime photographer for The Morning Express, often accompanied by reporter Ann Williams.  Casey hung out at the Blue Note Cafe and often related his experiences to Ethelbert the bartender.

The "Holiday" in this episode is Thanksgiving, and Casey and Ann have plans:  first a movie, then Thanksgiving dinner at the Ritz, followed by a play.  Before taking in the movie, they stop by the Blue Note, where Casey runs into Biff Connors, an old acquaintance.  Biff had been one of the best safecrackers in the business, but had gone completely straight after his last jail term.  Biff is being pressured by a couple of hoods to crack a safe for then, offering Biff first $5000, and when he refused, $10,000.  After Biff refused a second time, they let him known that they could frame him for a parole violation and send him back to jail.  From Biff's description, Casey recognizes the pair as agents of Nick Reynolds, the "Big Boss" of the city's underworld, one who thus far has proved untouchable to law enforcement.  Because Biff was offered a specific sum and not part of the loot, Casey figures that the safe does not contain valuables; rather, it must contain incriminating evidence against Reynolds, most likely from Monty Summers, who is rumored to have the goods on Reynolds .  Casey tells Biff to try to get as much information abut the job as possible, and then get back to him.  Casey and Ann would skip the movie, and if Biff did not get back to him before their scheduled dinner at the Ritz, Casey would get back to Biff in the morning.  Biff got back to Casey early; he had to do the safecracking job that evening at midnight or his wife and kid would be harmed.  there goes Casey and Ann's plans for a relaxing holiday.

This episode was directed by John Dietz and written by Alonzo Deen Cole.  Jan Miner (best remembered as Madge the Manicurist from the Palmolive soap commercials of the 60's and 70's) played Ann Williams; also featured was John Gibson as Ethelbert.  Bill Cullen was the announcer, who managed to insert himself into the script to shill for Toni home permanents and Toni shampoo in a conversation with Ethelbert.

Have a great Thanksgiving, and may it be free of safecrackers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G75S9WkzPCg

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: TWO GENTLEMEN AT FORTY

 "Two Gentlemen at Forty" by August W. Derleth  (from 10 Story Book, July 1931; never reprinted)

I'm a big fan of August Derleth's writing.  A major contributor to the weird fiction magazines, co-founder of the small press Arkham House, as well as two other publishing houses, the man most responsible for enduring the legacy of H. P. Lovecraft (and the one sometimes vilified because of his interpretation of the Cthulhu Mythos), an important early science fiction and fantasy anthologist, major regional novelist and historian, creator of the Sherlock Holmes-like Solar Pons, noted poet and literary icon, founder and editor of three magazines, educator, gadfly, active in local politics, and larger-than-life personality with enormous appetites, Derleth was both respected and reviled by those who knew him.  A complicated man, cocky and self-assured,  Derleth was also apparently gender-fluid, although overt homosexuality seldom entered his writing.  He and childhood friend Mark Schorer would engage in exhibitionistic (although not homosexual) behavior when they were in their early twenties. He entertained and many high school students in his hometown of Sauk Prairie, Wisconsin and there are hints that the word "entertained" had several meanings.  When he finally married, at age 44, it was to a 15-year-old girl.  When he won a Guggenheim Fellowship (among his  sponsors were Sinclair Lewis and Edgar Lee Masters), he used the money to bind his vast comic strip collection, rather than using the money for travel as it was intended.

But above all, the man could write when he set his mind to it.  The first book in his Sac Prairie Saga, Place of Hawks, is an astonishing collection of four novellas that displays a sure literary hand astonishing for a writer so young.  His ten-volume young adult series about the Mill Creek Irregulars could stand against the best of Mark Twain.  His prose meditation Walden West has drawn comparisons to Anderson's Winesberg Ohio, Wilder's Our Town, and Masters' Spoon River Anthology.  His Gus Elkins short stories display a vision of rural America that is both compelling and humorous.

"Two Gentlemen at Forty" was one of only three stories Derleth published in 10 Story Book, a small under-the-counter magazine that was published from 1901 through 1940; "under-the counter" because it often featured nude photographs or risque drawings of women.  The editor of the magazine from 1917 until its demise was the legendary Harry Stephen Keeler (who deserved far more than this brief mention).   I find it surprising that the magazine published this story.

In brief, Peter Austin has invited Michael Bourne, a best-selling novelist whom he had not seen for nearly two decades, to his home for drinks.  We learn that austion had been carrying a torch for Bourne all these years.  In fact, he has placed an old photograph of the two of them together on his mantel.  While Austin was out of the room making drinks, Bourne discovered another photograph of Austin and another man in a drawer -- a photograph that had obviously been on the mantel until the two met that evening.  Bourne also had been carrying feelings for Austin over the years.  But Bourne was married to Marsala, and he broke it off with Peter because he could not face telling her that they two had kissed twenty years before.  The story ends with the two parting without resuming their relationship and Bourne feeling he had done the right for Marsala by breaking it odd with Peter.

That's it.  Just a simple sketch or vignette about a lost, albeit forbidden relationship.  Touching, but little more.  A story unlike any other I have read by Derleth (and I have read over a hundred books by him).  

I'm not sure what to make of this little tale, but I'm glad I read it.

OVERLOOKED "SYNCHRONIZED SOUND" THRILLER: SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN (1929)

One of the things I am thankful this week is the ready availability of cheesy old movies.  (Well, they don't have to be truly cheesy, but it helps,)

Not cheesy, but pretty much over the top is Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen's Seven Footprints to Satan, based on the popular novel by fantasist A. Merritt.  Christensen was noted for his earlier films, including Haxan (1922), a classic horror essay film that looks at the historical roots and superstitions surrounding witchcraft.  Christensen went to America in 1924 and began working for RKO; in 1927 he moved to Warner Brothers where he made four films, one of them Seven Footprints to Satan, which was co--written with an uncredited Cornell Woolrich.  By this time, Christensen had had enough of Hollywood and moved back to Denmark.  After a decade of directing for the stage, he went back to making films -- four of the, to be exact, all of them flops.  Time. however, has rescued Christensen's reputation; he is now considered to be one of the great Danish silent film makers.

Seven Footprints to Satan is not a great movie, far from it.  It is entertaining for those who approach it in the right mood.  One who did not was Abraham Merritt, the author of the 1928 source novel.  Merritt was at first "overjoyed" that the story would be turned into a film; his opinion changed when he "sat through the movie and wept.  The only similarity between the book and the picture was the title.  the picture likewise killed the booksale [...] for people who saw the picture felt no impulse to thereafter to read the book."    Reviews of the film were not flattering, from "pure hokum" to "just a hodgepodge mystery story" to "one of the poorest" of the "so-called mystery-drama-thrillers yet released."  One reviewer did say, "People will no doubt enjoy this picture provided they don't take it seriously.  It is one of the wildest mystery trapdoor melodramas that has been produced in many a moon."

The film starred Thelma Todd, a former Miss Massachusetts who was gaining notoriety in Hollywood in the silents.  In 1928 and 1929 alone she made twenty films, and, unlike many other silent film stars,  easily bridged into the talkies and became one of the most bankable talents in Hollywood.  She opened Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe, a nightclub/restaurant that catered to show-business people and unfortunately brought some underworld types.  Reportedly, Todd and her boyfriend would not sell the restaurant to the gangsters, and on December 16, 1935, she was found dead in her car inn her garage,  The case of death was listed as suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.  She was 29.  Needless to say the death of "Hot Toddy" was remained controversial to this day because of rumored corruption in the Los Angeles County's District Attorney's office.

Todd's co-star in Seven Footprints to Satan was Creighton Hale, who had recently starred in The Cat and the CSheldonanary, and was therefore considered bankable by Christensen.  Bad publicity (a bitter divorce and abandonment of his children, who were later adopted by his ex-wife's second husband) helped his career go into sharp decline after the introduction of talkies and he ended up with mostly uncredited bit parts.

Before James Kirkham's (Creighton Hale) planned African expedition, his girlfriend (Eve Martin) Thelma Todd) is worried that one of her father's guests plan to steal a valuable ruby.  At Eve's home, the jewel is exhibited but then mysteriously disappears.  Jim and Eve are kidnapped and find themselves in an dark, eerie mansion ruled by a person who calls himself Satan.  They are pursued and tormented by a host of strange characters, and are warned about "The Spider" (Sheldon Lewis), an evil force within the house.  They find themselves at a masquerade ball people by mysterious strangers.  Jim then finds the missing ruby in his pocket and he is accused of theft and of kidnapping Eve.  Satan's minions try to get Jim to sign a confession, which he signs after they threaten to torture Eve in front of him.  Jim and Eve are reunited as he must take the challenge of climbing the Seven Steps, which could lead to his death.

Aiding in this confusing plot are William V. Mong (as Professor Moriarty), Laska Winter (as Satan's Mistress), DeWitt Jennings (as Jim's Uncle Joe and Satan), Nora Cecil (as the Old Witch), Angelo Rossitto (as the Dwarf), Kalla Pasha (as Professor Von Veide), Cissy Fitsgerald (as the Old Lady), Harry Tenbrook (as Eve's Chauffeur), Sojin Kamiyama (as Sojin), Ivan Christy (as Jim's Valet), Thelma McNeil (as the Tall Girl), William A. Boardway (as Party Guest), Dan Crimmins (as Hair-Pulling Lunatic), Dora Dawson (as Satan's Chosen One), Charles Gamora (as the Gorilla), Dorothy Iving (as Girl), Inez Marion (as Maiden), Arthur Millett (as Guest at Party), Constantine Romanoff (as Guest in Room 13), Loretta Young (yes, THAT Loretta Young, as the uncredited Flailing Victim), and Symona Boniface, Tom Amandares, Edna Mae Cooper, Dorothy Irving, Adolf Faylauer, Louis Mercier, Julian Rivero, Edgar Sherrod, Louis Stern, Dick Sutherland, and Ellinor Vanderveer (as Satanists). 

See if you can make sense of this film, and see if you (like me) will enjoy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5UyhGmnnMg

TEXAS RANGERS

 Today marks the 190th anniversary of the legendary Texas Rangers.  In 1821, Stephen Austin brought 300 families to the Spanish province which is now known as Texas.  Within two years, there were 600 to 700 people in Texas, living close to the Gulf of Mexico with no regular army to protect them, so Austin organized a group of civilians to provide protection, calling the "Rangers," because their duties compelled them to range over the entire country.   By 1835, a "Permanent Council" was created to run the government; one member, Daniel Parker, offered a resolution on October 17th to create a corps of Texas Rangers -- to consist of 60 men:  25 to range and guard the frontier between the Brazos and the Trinity, 10 to work on the east side of the Trinity, and 25 to patrol between the Brazos and Colorado; these men were assigned to protect against Indians until the Revolution was over.  

On November 1, the "Permanent Council" (which was not permanent) presented to organization for approval, and on the 9th, G. W. Davis was commissioned to raise 20 more men for this new service. The newly formed General Council passed an ordinance providing for three companies on November 24, 1835, 56 men to a company, each commanded by a captain and first and second lieutenants, with a major in overall command.  Again, their writ was to protect settlements from incursions by Indians, while Sam Houston and his army were fighting Santa Anna's troops.  During this time, more companies were added, and through 1840, most of the Rangers' actions were to protect against Indians.

The Reconstruction  period from 1865 to 1873 was a dark time and the Rangers were rebranded as the "State Police" and was charged with the enforcement of the carpetbagging laws.  The citizenry of Texas were not happy.  The carpetbag rule ended in 1873.

In 1874, six companies were reorganized to be stationed strategically over the state.  This service was known as the Frontier Battalion and were given policing powers; previously the service was a semi-military organization.  During this period, the Ranger Service held a position between a military organization and a policing organization, adapting from one to the other, acting as detectives and policemen when faced with outlaws, trains robbers, and highwaymen.  The rangers were not curbed by city or country boundaries and were called in when a case was considered tom great for a local agency.

Today the Texas Ranger Division is a part of the Texas Department of Public Safety.  The Texas Rangers conduct major violent crime, public corruption, cold case and officer-involved shooting investigations and oversee the department's border security and tactical and crisis negotiation programs.  They are a technologically sophisticated operation.

Over the years, the Texas Rangers have become part of the myth of the Old West and has been seen through the lenses of popular fiction, films, and television.  They have been compared with four other world-famous law enforcement operations:  the FBI, Scotland Yard, Interpol, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Legends have grown about Rangers of the past:  Big Foot Wallace, "Rip" Ford (whose initials stood for "Rest in Peace"), John B. Armstrong (who arrested John Wesley Hardin), Captain Bill McDonald, and Frank Hamer (who opened fire on Bonnie and Clyde) -- some were heroes, some were most likely not, and some probably a mixture of both.  But over the years, the Texas Rangers amassed a reputation for toughness, integrity, and dedication.

Here's Tex Ritter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DuSs_Qzt90

and Marty Robbins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rYBPJBtph8

and Larry Bastian:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CaMgoynXE8

and The Blan Scott Band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0MQasrpkF8

and, here's the pilot episode for a suggested series from 1955, The Texas Ranger, starring Dennis Morgan, Harry Shaanon, John Doucette, and Strother Martin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbkNxVjqnSI

and, a very bad joke:  A cowboy wrapped himself in brown paper.  The Texas Rangers arrested him for rustling.

HYMN TIME

 Red Sovine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uwZbrZZmhk

MOON GIRL AND THE PRINCE #1 (FALL 1947)

Who knew junior high school history teachers could be so sexy?  EC Comics did when they introduced Moon Girl, a.k.a. Claire Line, whose costumed superhero outfit was distinctly inappropriate for a junior high teacher in 1947.  She also did not git the mold of the teachers I had in junior high a dozen years later.

The character was created by Bill Woolfork and Sheldon Moldoff for an appearance in The Happy Hoolihans #1 (Fall 1947) and was immediately rushed into her own title, this time with Gardner Fox doing the writing while Moldoff continued with the artwork.  The Moon Girl comic had a few title changes over its twelve issue run.  With issue #2, the title became simply Moon Girl; for issues #7 and 8, the title was Moon Girl Fights Crime!; it then changed again for the final four issues to A Moon, A Girl...Romance -- but Moon Girl only appears in one story, and that in issue #9; the remaining issues tried to cash in on the burgeoning popularity of romance comics.  The comic book's numbering was then transferred to Weird Fantasy #13 (transferring a book's numbering to new title was common and done for accounting reasons).

Moon Girl retains credit as being one of two comic books that paved the way for EC's noted horror comics.

Moon Girl ("Princess of the Moon") was, you guessed it, a princess in her native land of remote Sarmakind.  She had a magic moonstone that made her invincible in battle.  This made her verklempt and saddened because there was no male she could not defeat.  She could never marry a man who was not better than she on the battlefield.  So when Prince Mengu from another kingdom (and a true son of Hercules) came to woo her, she beat him up and sent him away.  But the heart knows what the heart wants, and Moon Girl felt very guilty.  Mengu traveled to America, where he became a gym teacher named Lionel Manning.  Moon Girl tracked him down, became Claire Lune, and got a job in the same school.  There, they joined to fight crime and wear tight costume.

Take my word for it, if you were a young comic book reader in 1947 this would all make sense.

Alas, costumed heroines and comic book publishers can be fickle.  With issue #2, Mengu was dropped from the title and his role in the series became severely reduced.  C'est la vie...et amour.

This first issue contains four stories about Moon Girl:

• "Moon Girl and the Prince"  (the origin story)
• "Invaders from Venus"  (Venus is ruled by women, all of whom have healthy bosoms and gorgeous gams; the queen sends some female warriors to Earth to capture men who will replace their planet's weak stock; thin a role reversal Mars Needs Women)
• "Satana, Queen of the Underworld"  (Satana wears a low cut tight black dress and a cowl with a hood that has horns, so you know she's evil.  Moon girl and the Prince spoil her plans, but she gets away.  She will return!)
• "Smuggler's Cove"  (The Navy has sent the submarine Excelsior to check out a small group of islands where a a gang of smuggler's is thought to have their base.  The baddies drop a depth charge on the sub and it is not heard from again.  The daughter of the sub's captain is one of claire student and she is distraught, so Moon Girl decided to lend a hand.)

As always, we need a willing suspension of disbelief.  If you can handle that, I think you will enjoy this issue.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=60147

FORGOTTEN BOOK: BLOOD OF THE FOUR

 Blood of the Four by Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon  (2018)

The book is only seven years old and the authors are both very popular writers, so can this book be called "forgotten"?  Perhaps, both Golden and Lebbon are prolific authors and sometimes things get lost in the mix.  Forgotten or not, Blood of the Four is worth the attention of any fantasy fan.

Quandis is a large island kingdom in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by two rings of smaller islands.  Beyond those rings are unknown lands...and pirates.  Despite this being an old world and Quandis being n old kingdom, technology has not had a foothold here; ships still use sail, although cannons exist, modern weapons do not, technology remains medieval, at best.

The capitol of Quantis is the city of Lartha, ruled by a royal family of the descendants of "The Four,"  the god-like beings of millennia earlier.  The Four may have been merely sorcerers or may have been actual gods.  They control magic and the elements.  They came to Quantis after the Fire and introduced their people to the island.  The actual deeds and qualities of The Four are lost in myth and legend but a state religion has grown around them.  The rulers of Quantis are rulers because they have the Blood of the Four, and are supposedly direct descendants.  The current ruler is Queen Lysandra, and her children are Aris (the oldest and the direct heir, as well as being Lysandra's favorite), Phela (the scheming daughter who has secretly gathered information on all around her), and Myrinne (the youngest daughter, gentle, And pledge to marry the warrior Demos Kallistate, the scion of one of the five powerful famileis of Quantis).  Lysandra at one time had been a decent queen but she has now become addicted to spiza, a powerful, mind-altering drug, capable of making its users very erratic and paranoid..  Lyysandra has also taken on a secret lover, the married Linos Kallistate, father of Demos.

There is a slave class in Quantis -- the Bajumen, considered property without any rights.  Every Bajumen has had a brand placed on their hands to indicate their status.  Lysandra, unnder then influence of spica, decides that Linos was about to betray her.  She orders Lonos killed, and his family taken prisoner, and sold into slavery, and Clan Kallistate Hall destroyed.  And so it was done.

Phela realizes that her mother was losing control and soon the crown will be turned over to Aris, a wastral, a weakling, and a bully.  She orders Shome,  the head of  the Silent, a fanatical group pf assassins loyal only to Phela, to kill Aris.  (The Silent are the most efficient killers in the kingdom.)  Shome finds Aris in bed with three Bajumen slaves and kills all four, saving the most gruesome death for Aris.  Phela manages to blame the assassination on rogue Bajumen plotting against the crown.  In a rrage, Lysandra decrees that all Bajumen be executed.  The royal Guard and the Silent begin going through the city, from house to house, and summarily executing Bajuman; over 700 were killed the first night.  The spica is having a grave effect on Lysndra,  She is week and erratic. and Phela helps her mother on the way by smothering her with a pillow.  

Now Phela is queen.  Now she has to hold onto her power.  Now she has to increase it.  And the way to do that is to tap into the magic of the ancient gods.

There are many other threads in the novel.  Daria is a Bajumen who had been thrown into the sea when a child, only to be rescues by sailors and eventuually be promoted to admiral of the Quantis fleet.  He brother Blane has been accepted as a novice in the church of The Four, while plotting to free the Bajumen, and not realizing he harbors a hidden magical power within himself.  Demos and Myrinne plot to be run away and be together.  The old priests try to protect their church and call forth the Phage. a group of ghost warriors for protection.  The five Clans of the city are nervous and don't know what to do.  The Bajumen in the inner and outer rings of islands are rising up against Phela.  Deep in the bowels of the city are monsters.  Also deep under the city are the sarcophagi of The Four, leaking magic.  No one knows the true power or the origins of The Four.  And people are getting killed, many of them are those the reader does not want to see dead.

An epic fantasy, detailed and well-told.

Christopher Golden is the author of many New York Times best-selling novels of suspense, horror, fantasy, and mystery, as well as numerous tie-in works for various media franchises.  Tim Lebbon is a British author of horror and dark fantasy.  He has won the British Fantasy, August Derleth, Scribe, and Dragon awards.  He has published at least four dozen novels, including eight with Golden.  Both authors are worth checking out.