HYMN TIME

In these perilous times, it can help to hold onto the old songs.  Here's Horace Trahan.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1213179073765907

THE MAN WHO STOLE YOUR VOTE (NATIONAL RESEARCH BUREAU - UNDATED)

No.  The Man Who Stole Your Vote is not Donald Trump.  Not yet, anyway.

This is a  sixteen-page comic booklet explaining the importance of voting...and the perils of not voting.  The basic facts are true, although some of the underlying conclusions are shaky.

Fred All-American is napping in his easy chair when a masked man comes in and orders him out of his home.  Fred All-American tries to call the police, but the police are with the masked man -- as are the governor and the senator.  All of them owe their jobs to the masked man.

How did Fred All-American get into this mess?  Simple.  He and his wife did not vote that day because the weather was bad.  And the masked man stole his vote, and that of his wife.  By not voting he essentially gave their votes to the masked man; the masked man's vote was then worth three votes -- his, Fred All-American's and Mrs. All-American's.  in fact, only 13 people out of a hundred had come out to vote, which meant that the masked man and 12 others decided for 100 people who would be governor, who would be senator, and who would run for president.  "While all you stay-at-homes sat comfortably your future was decided by a handful of people who went to the polls.!"  And that handful could be a jerk, or a politician (honest or otherwise), or an actual nice guy, or "the dumb blonde in the office" (yeah, the pamphlet went there!).  The fact is that they -- the few that voted -- are now Joe All-American's bosses!  And low voter turnout opens the strong possibility of graft!

And in this case:  "Well, the machine has won again in our town.  Of 100,000people who could have voted in this election, only 13,000 went out to vote!  the candidates [sci] majority was won by a small majority of 3,000 votes.  If just 3,000 and 1 more people had gone to the polls and voted for the opposition, the political story in this state would have been quite different."

So there's a bit to unpack here.  A majority of 3,000 in a field of 13,000 is not a "small" majority -- it means that nearly two-thirds of the voters voted for the "machine."  And when did an extra 3,001 votes ever supported a single candidate or platform?  I gt the point they are trying to make here, but Geez Louise.

The actual point -- a valid one -- is that 87-000 voters gave up their right to choose their government for the next few years.  The people who do vote, right or wrong, are the people who decide.

The booklet then goes on to play fast and loose with numbers to make their point.  In this comic book world, "1 person in 13 voted in primaries, where candidates are selected; 1 person in 8 voted for senator, representative, mayor or governor; less than 1/2 of the registered votes helped to choose their president."  Pay no attention to the numbers they present here, folks; pay attention to the oiint they are trying to make.

YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT.

The Fred All-American wakes up and is determined from now on to vote!

Following the comic book portion of the pamphlet, we get the Eight Commandments for Voters:  Keep Informed, Study the Candidates, Participate, Offer Your Services, Encourage Those with Character, Always Express Your Preference, Stimulate Others to Vote, and Consider It Your Moral Obligation= to Vote.  Can't argue with any of these.

This was one of four pamphlets in the Good Government series published by the National Research Bureau, a non-partisan group.  The other three were The Price You Pay for Graft, If Your Kids Could Vote, and The Next Four Years, each available for purchase for five dollars per fifty copies; for a slight extra fee you could get your name and address imprinted on the back cover of each booklet.

The booklet leaves with this little quote, citing John Nuveen ("investment banker and former WTB* and ECA* official):  "...that 90 percent of Americans are politically illiterate.  And he warns the political illiteracy of America is a greater menace to the world than the ordinary illiteracy of the masses in the path of the communism overseas."

Bottomnline:  your informed vote is important.  Don't throw it away!

*Nowadays, WTB and ECA could mean just about anything.  I imagine in the 50s and 60s (when this booklet was most likely published), they meant something important.

THE CISCO KID: DISAPPEARING BULLET (JULY 22, 1952)

The Cisco Kid and his sidekick Pancho rose into weekly adventure over the airwaves, courtesy of the mutual Radio Network, beginning on October 2, 1942.  Jackson Beck played Cisco and Louis Sonn was Pancho, with Michael Rye announcing.  In 1946 it shifted to a thrice-weekly series on the Mutual-Don Lee reginal network; this time with Jack Mather in the title role, and Pancho being played by, first, Harry E, Lang, then after Lang's death in 1953, by Mel Blanc.  

A far cry from the murderous outlaw in O. Henry's story "The Caballero's Way," the Cisco Kid of radio, film, television, and comic books was the "Robin Hood of the Old West,"

In this episode, a crooked card dealer scams young rancher Bob Hilton out of his belongings.  This leads to violence, with Hilton being accused of murder, and a disappearing bullet.  It's up to Cisco and Pancho to set things straight.

When I was very young, The Cisco Kid held my heart second only to Hopalong Cassidy; as I got a bit older, Cisco easily slid into first place.  It was my considered opinion that, on  television, no one could hold a candle to Duncan Renaldo.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx6L0yPnnc4

OVERLOOKED CAMPY OATER: THE FASTEST GUITAR ALIVE (1967)

 Overheard sometime around 1966:  "Y'know, Mike, what we need is another bad movie movie to foist on the public."  "Great idea, Sam, but what can we do?  All the bad ideas have been taken."  "Yeah, but, what if...what if we combine a bad movie with a really bad actor? Someone who's never been in a movie before?  Maybe someone with a big name in another field?"  "Great idea, Sam!  I guess that's why they pay you the big bucks!  But who can we get?"  [...Meanwhile, in the background, we can hear, ever so faintly, a radio playing the song "Only the Lonely"...]

Even though this is one of the very few bullet-shooting guitar western's ever filmed, it is not a good movie.  A singing southern spy is tasked with stealing gold bullion from the San Francisco Mint to help finance  the Confederacy.  The plot is weak, the writing is terrible, the direction is pitiful, and the acting is on the par of a second grade class play about the importance of the food pyramid.  But Roy Orbison sings seven songs.

Roy should have stuck to singing, which he did afterwards.  This was his first and only film.  To show how unqualified he was as an actor, please consider that he was actually proud of this flick.

Enjoy the songs, if nothing else.

Roy Orbison is THE FASTEST GUITAR ALIVE (1967) remastered sound western free full movie

ERIN'S FAMILY BOOK CLUB -- JANUARY: A GOD IN THE SHED

 How it works:  We each suggest two books, then one is chosen at random.  This most book was suggested by Kaylee's wife, Ivy..

A God in the Shed by J-F. Dubeau  (2017)

Book One of a trilogy.  The second book, Song of the Sandman, was published in 2020, while the third was scheduled to appear in 2025 but was held back, evidently for "editing."

In brief:  The small Canadian town of Saint-Ferdinand has been the scene of multiple murders and disappearances for the last eighteen years.  Police inspector Stephen Crowley thought that would all be put behind him when he apprehended the serial killer, who confessed.  Unexpectedly, the town's horror had just begun...

We go back to 1873 when the "small village of Saint-Ferdinand was little more than a crossroads encircled by a handful of farms and orchards.  All told, a little over a hundred individuals inhabited the region."  One of those individuals was twelve-year-old Nathan Joseph Cicero, who was to be sent to boarding school in the fall and wanted to enjoy his one last summer in the woods surrounding the village.  Cicero is joined by three of his friends and they spend their days exploring the parts of the first that were unknown to local hunters and trappers.  They came across a strange clearing that had absolutely no animals.  In the clearing there was a dark hole in the limestone, framed by a tall oak tree.  Other than the tree, there was no vegetation.  No animals, no plant life, just silence.  But there was something in that dark hole...a pair of strange eyes.  Then a creature emerged.  Small, humanlike but not human, naked but neither male nor female.  Then it spoke to them.  It has evidently never met people before and was eager to make friends.  The four boys spent much of the summer playing with the creature (never named)...tag, hide and seek, and all the other games that young boys were prone to.  They did not seem to be too upset when they saw the walls of the cave where the creature lives were decorated wit the bones and viscera of animals.  (No wonder there were no animals in the area.)  The creature believed firmly in the rules of the various games.  It got upset when one of the boys bent the rules.  It eventually attacked one of the boys for breaking the rules...

We shift back to the present day (although the year is not mentioned) and Sam Finnegan, an old man who lived in a run-down trailer hidden in the woods, has confessed to being the serial killer.  Surrounding his trailer are nearly two dozen old refrigerators and in each is the body of a person who had gone missing from Saint-Ferinand, horribly brutalized and dissected, all with their eyes missing.  their eyes had been placed on sticks, and all of the sticks were facing the cave.  One refrigerator, however, had a body that had not been desecrated:  the body of eight-year-old Audrey Bergeron, a child who had been well-love by everyone on Saint-Ferdinand; she had always been in poor health and her heart seems to have gone out, perhaps before or perhaps after she was place in the refrigerator.

The town is in morning.  Audrey is buried.  On her grave, her parents place her favorite teddy bear.  Later that night, the local medical examiner secretly uncovers the grave, pounds iron nails into Audrey's feet, then pounds large iron spikes into her eye sockets.  He places the teddy bear inside the coffin and reburies Audrey.

The single mother of Penny, a sixteen-year-old girl, is waylaid and butchered one her way home from work.  Penny's best friend is Venus fifteen-years-old and a bit of an outcast because her parents are considered "hippies" in the conservative community.  During the long period of the serial killings, Venus was the only "free-range" child in the village.  Penny goes to live with Venus and her parents while th authorities try to determine what to do with her.  In a corner of the shed in the back of Venus's property is a nest with fledgling birds; Venus sets up a remote camera to capture their activity.  What she also captures is the creature, violent and hateful to all life and all mankind.  The creature now considers itself a "god of hate and death," and has many powers, bit it can only move when it is not observed, as if it is following a child's game of Statue.  The creature pleads to be set free, but Venus is afraid to do so, knowing that she or her family will be harmed.

The creature can influence animals, though, and when they come close he kills them and decorates the walls of the shed with their body parts.  Venus wishes that some teenage bullies would stop harassing her, and one of them is horrifically murdered.  More people are killed and long-held town secrets begin to be revealed.   Cicero, now incredibly old, returns to town with a circus he has formed; a performer in the circus is a fortune-teller who also has old ties to the town and is able to predict the deaths of all the characters, except Venus.  The is a former farmer who is now an artist who paints picture so real they literally come alive.  The medical examiner finds himself jailed for to murder and gets free (of sorts) by mind melding with Penny.  And Inspector Crowley is slowly going mad and begins killing people.  And all long we are told the creature cannot be killed and is promising destruction to the town (and possibly the world).

So there's a lot to unpack here and the author seems to be throwing everything he can into the mix, often without explanation or logic.  Time has not been taken to flesh out some of the important side characters, to the book's detriment.  I hope that much that has been unsaid or is confusing will be made clear in the second volume, but, even so, they could have been handled much better here.

What we have is a book with many flaws, but with a narrative drive that pulls us (sometimes unwillingly) along.  The novel was published by Inkshares, which touts itself as a "reader-driven publisher" whose "books are selected not by a group of editors, but by readers worldwide."  I just wish they has spent more time with a group of editors, then the book may not have been merely readable, but outstanding.

The February selection of Erin's Family Book club is The Fear Index, a "financial thriller by Robert Harris, selected  by Amy's boyfriend Gavyn.

HYMN TIME

With the recent executions/murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti we are now entering an unprecedented phase of a war on the American people and on our Constitution, a war which is attempting to weaponize fear and intimidation.

It seems that now is a good to to remember this song, which started out as a hymn.

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

RUSTY, BOY DETECTIVE #1 (MARCH-APRIL 1955)

"Introducing the three new musketeers of crime detection -- the three most dauntless hawkshaws who ever put a sneakered foot into a murderer's death trap -- only to kick the murderer in the teeth...Rusty, Tubby, and Spunky!  It has been said that a boy can't do a man's job...but the kind of job the Boy Detectives do on law-breakers would arouse the envy of a Sherlock Holmes and a J. Edgar Hoover!  From the beginning, their teamwork and affection for each other welded them into this country's youngest, funniest, and most effective -- for their size and age -- anti-crime unit!"

Rusty is Rusty Adams, a ham radio operator who also likes to listen to the police radio; not sure how old he is but he drives an old jalopy.  Spunky is Spunky Smith, a pint-sized orphan who hopes to get away from his Aunt Sabrina and Uncle Lem  by joining the carnival.  Tubby O'Toole is working for the carnival, bringing water to the elephants.  The three meet and join forces as the Boy Detectives when Mushy and Al, two crooks, attack Knocky, another crook for money Knocky has had hidden. 

This first issue (of six total) details four cases of the young sleuths.

"The Haunted Mill"  The boys investigate a Haunted Mill on the edge of town and encounter a sheet-wearing ghost.

"Mystery Man in the Clubhouse"  An escaped convict hides in the clubhouse and tries to convince them he's innocent of bank robbery.

"Mystery in the Cave"  A two-page text story.  the boys find a half-starved Newfoundland dog and her five new-born puppies in a cave.  They recue her and return her to her owners.

"Mystery of the Indian Arrowheads!"  The team befriends a boy whose land contains arrowheads and a dark secret.

As far as children's detective stories go, these are pretty good.  The issue was written and drawn by Carl Hubbell, and published by Good Comics, a minor publisher which exited for only one year and whose only other title was Johnny Law, Sky Ranger.

FORGOTTEN BOOK: MISS KELLY

 Miss Kelly by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding  (1947)

Miss Kelly is a cat, the sort of cat who would make an admirable person.  She is also probably the only cat who can speak English, although she does not want her owners to find out.  Miss Kelly also had ambitions, although she was not quite such what they were.

"She was two years old, which for a cat means eighteen, and she had never yet met one single other cat who% could both understand and speak Human.  She had come across several dogs who could understand Human fairly well, but not one could say so much as 'Good morning."  She did not see how she could find any really interesting work, young as she was and so very much alone in the world.

"Miss Kelly's mother had been thoughtful and sensitive.  She had taught all her kittens to understand the few Human words most important to know.  The first was cat, so they would know if they were being talked about, then milk and fish and mouse and like and don't like, and others.  Miss Kelly's mother had never said anything about learning to speak the words, though, and when one day her daughter, after long, secret practicing, said very proudly, 'Like fish,' she was greatly alarmed.

" 'Never do that again, child!' she had said.  'It's extremely dangerous.' "

So Miss Kelly kept her kitten/cat mouth shut, even after she found a comfortable home with M0r. and Mrs. Clinton and their two children -- all of whom she loved very much.

Then a vicious tiger escaped from the circus, a tiger so untrainable that it could not be used in any of the wild animal acts.  The tiger 1) hated humans and wanted to kill them all, and 2) wanted to go back home to the jungle.  That evening, the tiger burst into the Clinton's kitchen where the maid and Miss Kelly happened to be.  The door to the kitchen was open to the other room where the two children were.  All three, as well as Miss Kelly, were terribly afraid.  but fear does not stop a cat who knows right from wrong and who is also very fond of her family and, just as the tiger was about to attack the maid, Miss Kelly moved in front of him to plead for their lives.  This struck the tiger as odd, but eventually M1iss Kelly was able to convince the tiger to leave the house with her.  She and the tiger in some  bushes and promised to find some food for him, swearing that she would be back and that she would not abandon him.

But before Miss Kelly could return, the police found the tiger and captured him.  Now miss Kelly was afraid the tiger would think she had abandoned him.  Because the tiger was so uncontrollable, the circus did not want him back, so he went to the local zoo.  Miss Kelly was obliged to go to the zoo (whatever that was, and wherever that was) so the tiger -- who called himself Prince -- would not think she had abandoned him.  But how to get there?  She would have to speak human to get someone to bring her there.

She spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, who were astounded that their cat could talk.  Eventually, though, Mr. Clinton agreed to take Miss Kelly to the zoo, and it was there that Miss Kelly found her calling in life.  She would work to teach animals about human and, in doing so, could help to improve the animals and their live.  Miss Kelly decided to stay at the zoo and, with the cooperation of the Curator, as able to provide a communication bridge between the species, rectifying some of the animals' complaints.

It wasn't easy.  The monkeys refused to believe that humans were capable of anything. The  birds were nervous around a cat but the Eagle helped Miss Kelly calm their fears.  The snakes felt put upon an=d unloved.  The wolves, a fox, and the wild dog all had impossible schemes.  And the lion, the black panther, and Miss Kelly's friend the tiger were all jealous of each other.  But Miss Kelly has found her calling and worked diligently and contentedly., tying to settle the animals' quarrels, explaining away their foolish notions, and working to make them better understand humans.  The Clinton children would come by occasionally to visit, and the Curator had given Miss Kelly come blocks with letters on them to help her learn how to read; it's difficult, but she works with them every day.

A sweet and gentle talking animal story with a sweet and gentle cat...a warm, philosophical children's book that is truly perfect for all ages.  Anthony Boucher wrote of it, "one of those too-rare juvenile fantasies with delightful appeal ton the adult connoisseur."  I had been wanted to read this one for a number of years now, and it finally became available online at Roy Gashan's Library/freeread.

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (1889-1955) began writing romance novels in the 1920s but turned to detective and suspense novels after the stock market crash.  Her work was highly praised by Raymond Chandler.  Her crime novel was filmed twice and was included in the Library of America's Women Crime Writers:  Four Suspense Novels of the 1940s.  Among her other suspense  novels are The Obstinate Murderer, Speak of the Devil, Miasma, Lady Killer, The Death Wish, Nest of Cobwebs, The Strange Crime in Bermuda, Too Many Bottles, The Old Battle Ax, Dark Power, The Unfinished Crime, The Girl Who Had to Die, Kill Joy, The Virgin Huntress, Who's Afraid, and The Widow's Mite, all currently available from Stark House Press, as are four story collections.

THE BIG BOW MYSTERY (MARCH 20, 2006)

Israel Zangwell (1864-1926) was a British author closely affiliated with the Zionist movement.  He was called "the Dickens of the Ghetto," in part because of his influential novel Children of the Ghetto.  His 1908 play The Melting Pot helped popularize the term to reference cultural assimilation in the early years of the twentieth century.  Genre fans recognize his 1882 novel The Big Bow Mystery as pone of the earliest examples of the "locked room" mystery, paving the way for such masters of the form as John Dickson Carr, Hake Talbot, Edward D. Hoch, Paul Halter, and Bill Pronzini.

The Big Bow Mystery has been continuously in print since it was first published and has been the basis of three films, and, of course, the basis of this BBC Radio adaptation by Robert Messik.

"It's 1892 and a man is found dead in a room that is locked from the inside.  But it's not suicide.  A seemingly inexplicable murder brings London to a standstill and pits the city's two greatest detectives against each other."

Produced and directed by David Ian Neville, and featuring John Woodvine and David Holt as the two rival detectives.  Also in the cast are Carolyn Pickles, David Thorpe, and Chris Moran.

Now it's time to test your wits and try to solve The Big Bow Mystery.

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

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: A BIT OF A BANSHEE

 "A Bit of a Banshee" by Tod Robbins  (first published in The Forum, December 1924; reprinted in Current Opinion, February 1925; in Robbins' collection Who Wants a Green Bottle? and Other Uneasy Tales, 1926; and in Robbins' collection Freaks and Fantasies, 2018)

Shaemas O'Shea, poet extraordinaire (he once was paid a penny a word from a New York magazine), was walking along Mulberry Lane in the mad March breeze, thinking, "Well, here I am, clear out of Ireland and all, on a crooked street with the sun being murdered in front of my by the bloody look of the sky, and with never an adventure to lay hand to.  A drab day behind, and a drab night to follow likely enough; and me with never a thought to guide the pencil over the white desert of paper I bought myself," when an adventure popped up in the shape of a girl , prettier than most, plump as a partridge, with eyes as ornamental as they were useful.  She told Shaemas they had to hurry up to receive her mother's blessing, and drew him into a lopsided house where awaited her dying mother and a priest.  The old woman -- the Widow Malone -- was a witch and she wanted her daughter Bridget married off before she died, and since Shaemas was nearby...Well a poet was better than an undertaker or Cohen, the old-clothes man, so he would have to do.  Well, an adventure is an adventure and the priest married the pair, after which the old woman immediately died.

Now, Bridget was the daughter of a witch but she did not inherit her mother's powers.  Instead, the only thing weird about her was that she was a bit of a banshee.  when she encountered a person about to die, she would let off  a banshee howl and six days later that person would die.  It was a good and profitable talent to have; people were always eager to find out when a relative was about to die, none more so than Shaemas O'Shea, whose rich elderly uncle had little to do with him, and him being his closest relative and all.  When Bridget got close to the uncle's house, she let out a howl, which told Shaemas all he needed to know.  Shaemas went to his uncle and offered to work for him, then spent six grueling days doing hard labor for the old man before he died; the uncle was so impressed with Shaemas's industry that he made sure Shaemas was not cut of the will.

The years passed, and Shaemas was now a wealthy landowner thank=s to his late uncle's generosity.  Things were going fine and Shaemas and Bridget had a very comfortable life with each other and with the uncle's property.  And then one day, Bridget began to howl in front of Shaemas.  At least Shaemas has six days to write his immortal poem, "The Lament of Shaemas O'Shea"...

A cute, clever, and amusing story relying on both Irish myth and stereotypes.  I won't tell you how Shaemas avoided death, but will mention that there ws a sequel in  1926, "The Son of Shaemas O'Shea."

Clarence Aaron "Tod" Robbins (1888-1949) was an American writer of horror and mystery fiction.  His most famous story, "Spurs," was a basis of Tod Browning's classic 1932 horror film Freaks.  His novel The Unholy Three was filmed twice, once in 1925  by Tod Browning, and again in 1930 by Jack Conway, both% films starring Lon Chaney.  Other  noted works included the novel The Mysterious Martin:  A Fiction Narrative Setting Forth the Development of Character Along Unusual Lines, ,"and such stories as "Cock-Crow Inn," "Silent, White and Beautiful," "The Toys of Fate," "The Whimpus," "Who Want a Green Bottle?," and "Wild Wullie, the Waster", some which take a sly -- and others, a visceral -- approach to horror.

OVERLOOKED SILENT: THE SEALED ROOM (1909)

Yesterday marked the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe. 

Here's a short silent film based on his "The Cask of the Amontillado" from 1909, directed  by D. W. Griffith and featuring Arthur V. Johnson, Marion Leonard, and Henry B. Waltall.

Actually, it takes more from Honore de Balzac's "La Grande Breteche" than from Poe's story,  but who's complaining?

Enjoy this eleven-minute film from the early days of cinema.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCS2HhFoL5M

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PHIL EVERLY

Phil, (1939-2014) was the younger brother of Don; together, they were one of the most influential musical duos in the last half of the 20th century.  As was often the case with brothers, there were conflicts; the pair split up for a decade before reuniting in 1983.  In 1986, they were the first duo and the first non-solo act to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  They received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the same year.

My sister Linda was a huge fan, but she always preferred the B side of their singles.  To my way of thinking, both sides were pure gold.

"Bye Bye Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvGk9cAjZZ0

"All I Have to Do Is Dream"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbU3zdAgiX8

"Cathy's Clown"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRPQa8IqsPw

"Wake Up Little Susie"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1fImXAeS-s

"Let It Be Me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvA-STM7oJk

"Claudette"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQfkJ9YB8Mw

"Bird Dog"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESSlYHp8wPA

"Till I Kissed You"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm_W0ztUMms&list=PLKu3bME8hBFDLi2CQLOYQuGzs1TEiZnEV&index=4

"Keep a Knockin"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0BTXepywe0&list=PLKu3bME8hBFDLi2CQLOYQuGzs1TEiZnEV&index=5

"Be Bop a Lula"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUiHMIwC_iI&list=PLKu3bME8hBFDLi2CQLOYQuGzs1TEiZnEV&index=11

"Love Hurts"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFE2SnliiV0

"Please Help Me I'm Falling"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNfBC3fzr1E&list=PLKu3bME8hBFDLi2CQLOYQuGzs1TEiZnEV&index=26

"Should We Tell Him"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfycnRWQO0M&list=PLKu3bME8hBFDLi2CQLOYQuGzs1TEiZnEV&index=21

"When Will I Be Loved"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmJg7PpAqxg&list=PLKu3bME8hBFDLi2CQLOYQuGzs1TEiZnEV&index=19

"Crying in the Rain"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_6qQEyCSv8&list=PLKu3bME8hBFDLi2CQLOYQuGzs1TEiZnEV&index=12

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  So much great music...so many great memories.  What's your favorite Everly Brothers song?

HYMN TIME

 The Davis Sisters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR9ogQeEgLw

HOW STALIN HOPES WE WILL DESTROY AMERICA

Here's an interesting (and undated) comic book pamphlet that promotes an economic theory:  that inflation is destroying America.  The cure?  A "pay as you go" government, increase taxes for defense, and cut everything else to the bone.  

I'm no economist, but this all seems a bit simplistic to me, but also a bit truthful at the same time.  Republicans were proud once to say that Reagan brought down the evil Soviet empire, which he did; but it was by accident.  Reagan firmly believed in the flawed Star Wars defense system; for their part, the Russians also believed because Reagan believed it and they began to spend huge amounts of money to counteract it -- so huge, they went  broke and the regime fell.

The solution proposed in this pamphlet does not address the problems of upward mobility, poverty, the income gap, infrastructure, racism, or many of the other issues facing us today.  What is offered here appears to be a limited, white, middle class solution.

Oh well.  It's an interesting take.  And inflation is and has been a major problem; I just don't think it is the end-all and be-all.

What do you think?

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=97412&comicpage=&b=i

FORGOTTEN BOOK: HE DONE HER WRONG

He Done Her Wrong:  The Great American Novel and Not a Word in It -- And No Music, Too by Milt Gross (1930)

American copyright law is a strange hybrid critter.  Originally, works place in copyright could be protected for a period of fourteen years, with the option of a fourteen year renewal.  Authors, publishers, and most readers (I assume) feel strongly about protecting an author's work and income for a reasonable period, and it was soon realized that a maximum of 28 years might deprive and author or his heirs of a reasonable income.  So the law kept changing, helped, in no small part, by influential corporate interests hoping to keep a cash cow afloat, or in this case, a cash mouse.  Disney (and other companies) began exercising their lobbying muscles and the laws keep changing.  Today, any work published in 1978 or after is protected for a period of 70 years after an author's death; any work published before 1978 is protected for a period of 95 years.  Thus, works published in 1930 became part of the public domain as of January 1, this year.  This applies not only to boos, but film and musical works also.

That is why Max Allan Collins was able to publish The Return of the Maltese Falcon this month without fear of legal reprisals; although it should be noted that the copyright here applies only to the magazine version -- evidently the copyright on the book itself expires next year.  That is also why Nancy Drew is now in the public domain, as well as A Farewell to Arms, The Sound and the Fury, All Quiet on the Western Front, A Room of One's Own, A High Wind in Jamaica, Laughing Boy, The Seven Dials Mystery (a new televised version appeared this month on Netflix..coincidence?), The Roman Hat Mystery, and films such as The Cocoanuts, Broadway Melody, Disney's Skeleton Dance (as well as the first Mickey Mouse cartoon in which Mickey speaks -- Mickey himself is already in the public domain), The Holiday Revue of 1929 (featuring the song "Singing in the Rain"), Hitchcock's Blackmail, and the film version of Showboat.  For music, there's "Ain't Misbehavin'," "Bolero," :"An American in Paris," "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," "Happy Days Are Here Again," "Am I Blue?," and sound recordings of "Rhapsody in Blue" by Gershwin, "It Had to Be You," and "California Here I Come."  This year also saw the characters of Popeye and Tin-Tin enter the public domain.

And He Done Her Wrong, an early graphic novel by cartoonist Milt Gross, coming just one after the publication of the first wordless American novel, Lyn Ward's God's Man, which I covered on this blog earlier.  It 's a Perils of Pauline-type of novel and is considered an important precursor to today's graphic novel, drawn in Gross's typical cartoon style.

Here's the plot, from Wikipedia:  "The narrative of He Done Her Wrong centers on a young country man who falls in love with a barroom singer.  A jealous villain tricks the couple and takes the singer to New York.  After a chain of humorous occurrences (presented primarily as slapstick comedy) the protagonist is reunited with his love and discovers that he is the son of a rich industrialist.  While the protagonist and his love settle down and raise a family, the villain is cornered  by the angry fathers of five women with whom he has fathered children, ultimately driven into a life of unhappiness."

Doesn't sound like much, does it?  But when I first read the book in 1963 as a Dell paperback, it knocked my socks off.  Sadly, copy of the book went walkabout many years ago.  I was interested in reading the book again a few years ago, but could not find a copy online, and any copies for sale were more than I wanted to pay.  But now the book is in public domain and is available at the Internet Archive; they jumped on it -- I believe they added the book on January 2.

Now you can enjoy it, too:

https://archive.org/details/he-done-her-wrong/page/n9/mode/1up

Milt Gross (1895-1953) was noted for his cartoon style and his Yiddish-inflected English dialog.  His first comic strip, Phool Phan Phables, began when he was 20.  Several other short-lived comic strips and his first animated film followed.  His first real success came with Gross Exaggerations (originally titled Banana Oil, and later titled The Feitelbaum Family, and then Looy Dot Dope.)   He was noted for his use of "Yinglish," (Nize Ferry-tail from Elledin witt de Wanderful Lamp, for example); probably his most successful book was Nize Baby. 1926.  Other books included Hiawatta witt No Odder Poems, De Night in de Front from Creesmas, Dunt Esk, and Famous Fimmales with Odder events from Heestory.  In 1931, Gross began working for the Hearst syndicate, drawing various strips, including That's My Pop!, which went on to become a radio show.  He suffered a heart attack in 1945 and went into semi-retirement; his last book was I Shouda Ate the Eclair (1946), in which Mr. Figgis nearly starts World War II by refusing to eat an eclair.  He continued to draw, however, with much of his appearing in comic books, including the short-lived Milt Gross Funnies.  He died from a heart attack on November 29, 1953 while returning from a cruise to Hawaii.  

ESCAPE: THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ (JUNE 23, 1947)

F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous story was the basis for the third episode of the CBS radio show Escape; this was the first of three script adaptations of the story used in the program over the years.

In this modern fairy tale, there is a mountain in Montana that consists of one solid, large diamond.  One family is determined to keep it a secret, while slowly extracting diamonds from the mountain to become the richest family in the world.  A fantasy of greed, power, and fate.  Not the oddest Fitzgerald story -- I'd give that title to "Benjamin Button" -- but one that has captured the imagination of the public since it was first published in The Smart Set Magazine in June 1922.

This episode was produced and directed by William N. Robson from a script by Les Crutchfield.  Featuring Jack Edwards. Jr., Danny Merrill, and Linda Mason.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvCLWtn7-cE

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: MR. SMITH KICKS THE BUCKET

"Mr. Smith Kicks the Bucket" by Fredric Brown  (first published in Street & smith's Detective Story Magazine, August 1944 as "Bucket of Gems Case:"; reprinted under the current title in Four-and-Twenty Bloodhounds, edited by Anthony Boucher, 1950 [abridged UK edition:  Crime Craft, 1957]; in The Saint Detective Magazine, September 1957 [and in that magazine's Australian edition, May 1958, and its UK edition, June 1958]; and in Carnival of Crime:  The Best Mystery Stories of Fredric Brown, edited by Francis F. Nevins and Martin Harry Greenberg, 1985)

Fredric Brown (1906-1972) was one of the most original writers in the mystery and science fiction genres of the  mid-Twentieth century.   His novel, The Fabulous Clipjoint, won an Edgar Award for best novel in 1948; many of his books in both genres have gone on to be considered classics.  His most popular detective characters were Ed and Am Hunter, a young man and his uncle who went on to open a detective agency, but early in his career, Brown had another character -- the efficient and somewhat colorless Henry Smith, an investigator for the Phalanx Insurance Company and the protagonist of six short stories from 1941 to 1947, with a seventh appearing in 1962.  This was the fifth in the series.

Thorwald is the program manager of the radio program sponsored  by the Jewelers' Mutual Co-operative Association, Bucket of Gems,  show whose gimmick is to dramatize the history of a famous gem in each episode; the writer of the best essay on the topic of one of the gems will receive a prize -- a bucket of gems.  Smith gains entry to the program manager by displaying a replica of the Kent ruby, which is insured by Phalanx.  Smith is there to sell Thorwald on a policy to insure the contents of the "bucket of gems," or the actual stones used in the program,  should they be stolen.  Thorwald does not think he needs insurance because of the guards and heavy protection he has already arranged.  But the Kent ruby is valued at $100,000, in part because of its bloody history, and the Phalanx policy covers only $30,000 of that -- should that gem be stolen, the program owners would be out $70,000.

Of course the Kent ruby is stolen.  From a room containing only Smith Thorwald, two private detectives, two police officers, and Carmichael, the collector who owned the ruby.  No one has left the room, so where is the ruby?  It's up to Smith to solve the case in his quiet and assured manner...and he does literally kick the bucket.

A skilled reader of detective stories and an expert on jiggery-pokery should be able to solve the case as easily as Smith did, but the fun is still there.  Brown specialized in the odd, the weird, and the seemingly impossible.  I think you will enjoy this one.

The September 1957 issue of The Saint Detective Magazine is available on-line.  For those interested, it also has some great stories by Leslie Charteris, Aaron Marc Stein, August Derleth, Louis Golding, Richard Hardwick, Richard /Sale, Sax Rohmer, and Charles E. Fritch,

OVERLOOKED FILM: FANTOMAS (1947)

Fantomas was a fictional master criminal  created by French writers Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre in 1911.  This extreme villain was lone of the  most popular characters in French crime fiction and appeared in 32 novels by the pair, with an additional eleven novels  by Allain alone.  He appeared in at least thirteen films from 1913 to 1967; only one of which was made in America -- a 20-episode 1920 serial that was truncated to twelve episodes in its French version.  Fantomas appeared in four episode in a French television production in 1980, and a French film provided the character for a Czechoslovakian television show from 1979 to 1981.  There was an unproduced film adaptation planned for 2010.  A new Fantomas film and a series are now scheduled for 2027.  Fantomas has appeared in French, Mexican, Polish, and American comic books.  At least two short stories and one novel have been written by other hands.

Fantomas was lauded by the French avante garde elite, including Guillaume Apollinaire and Rene Magritte.  He has been the subject of countless pastiches, parodies, and homages -- two unauthorized appearance appeared in French plays, one pitting him against Nick Carter, the other against Sherlock Holmes.  Critic Kim Newman has suggested that he was the basis for Blake Edward's Pink Panther.

In the 1947 film, Fantomas (Marcel Herrand), thought dead, returns to prevent the marriage of his daughter Helene (Simone Signoret)to the newspaperman Fandor (Andre Le Gall).  He does this in the most ,logical way possible -- by killing the mayor who% to have married the couple.  He tops this off by demanding a billion dollars in gold or he will kill one million Parisians.  Fantomas is  not on=e to make idle threats; he has a death ray.

What follows is a cat and mouse game between Fantomas and Inspector Juve (Alexandre Rignault).  But who is the cat and who is the mouse?  There's a lot of back and forth and a lot of peril, and the film ends -- as many of the Fantomas capers do -- with the villain presumed dead...until the next time, I'm sure.  And Helene and Fandor finally get married, so yay for true love.

Directed  by Jean Sacha and scripted  by Jean-Louis Bouquet and Francoise Giroud, from a novel by Allain -- most likely Fantomas Attaque Fandor (1926).

English subtitles have been added to the print linked below.

Enjoy one of the most dastardly villains ever to appear between printed pages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOd_fIp3Dco

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TWO "TEX"es

 First off, Mary Louise Cecilia "Texas" Guinan (1884-1933) was an American entertainer, producer, entrepreneur, and bootlegger.  She was a star on the New York stage (she once accidently shot herself during a performance of Simple Simon Simple) until her involvement in a weight-loss scam made her pull up stakes and move to Hollywood and the film business.  She was one of the first female directors in the United States, forming her own production company in 1921.  In her acting career, she had gravitated toward westerns and was soon called "the female Bill Hart."  She never let the facts get ion the way of a good publicity story.  With Prohibition also came the rise of the speakeasies; in 1923 she was hired as a singer at the Beaux Arts club and was paid $50,000.  Here. she had found her true calling and soon she was emceeing a full floor show.  Her catchphrase "Hello, Sucker!  Come in and leave your wallet on the bar" drew in the wealthy and the elite.  Her club was frequently shut down by police, only to reopen soon in a new location and under a new name.  She opened the Texas Guinan Club in New York and the Del-Fey Club in Miami.   In 1926 she served as hostess at the 300 Club in New York; visitors included Al Jolson, Jack Dempsey, and the Prince of Wales.  During the Depression she tried to take her show overseas and found that she was on England's "barred aliens" list, and that she was  banned in France.  All this made for good publicity and she launched a satirical revue Too Hot for Paris and took it on the road.  During that run, she contacted amoebic dysentery during an epidemic traced to tainted water at the Chicago World's Fair.  She died from it in Vancouver at the age of 49 -- exactly one month before the repeal of Prohibition.  The "Queen of the Speakeasies" was no  more. Among her pallbearers were bandleader Paul Whiteman and writer Heywood Broun.  The Whoopi Goldberg character from Star Trek:  The Next Generation was named in her honor.

Here's Texas Guinan in a brief dance number:

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

Woodward Maurice "Tex" Ritter (1905-1974) was an early pioneer of country  music, with a 30-minute program of cowboy songs on Houston's KPRC.  He moves to New York where he appeared in the Broadway production of Green Grow the Lilacs, which was the basis of the musical Oklahoma!.  In 1931, he starred in New York City's first broadcast western on WOR.  Ritter  oved to Los Angeles in 1933 and was featured in 70  movies as an actor (78 on movie sound tracks).  Ritter had been th8e first artist to sign on to the fledgling Capitol Records in 1942.  He sang the theme song during the opening credits of High Noon, which went on to win an Oscar for Best Song.  He died of a heart attack at age 68; his son, actor John Ritter, died in 2003 of an aortic dissection, now known to be hereditary; it is  now believed that that was what also killed his father.

"The Ballard of High Noon"

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

"Streets of Laredo"

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

"Rye Whiskey"

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

"I Dreamed of a Hill-Billy Heaven"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyGGDCz6ry4

"I'm Wastin' My Tears on You"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HTL9svifT0

"You Two-Time Me One Time Too Often"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXmgP1owWkk

"Jealous Heart"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X59EWHhRbYE

"Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcysz2BhGx8

"The Deck of Cards"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKMKrIqGG44

"The Men in My Little Girl's Life"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuVzvNgR97M

"The Wayward Wind"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvP3ryvOwfo

"Pecos Bill"

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

"Green, Green Valley"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq7QSmn_79Q

"Comin' After Jinny"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDnrQRin5yA

"When the Work's All Done This Fall"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3YiHI_yzzE

"Barbra Allen"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn3opZQtuUA&list=PL7VfgzbSxy-I1xK_ysxUNdxolSILFZ_Gw&index=9

"Billy the Kid"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2pfWXL5-ls&list=PL7VfgzbSxy-I1xK_ysxUNdxolSILFZ_Gw&index=8

HYMN TIME

 St. Stanislav Girls' Choir of the Diocesan Classical Gymnasium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYzPR0nwcmY

CAPTAIN TORNADO, #51: THE SULTAN'S TREASURES (MARCH 1952)

Captain Tornado was a British comic book that reprinted the French comic strip Capitainr Toranade, which ran from 1948 to 1954.  The strip was written  by Jacques Jacquemont and drawn by Claude-Henri Julliard.  Forty-two issues were published by L. Miller & Son, Ltd, from 1952 through 1955 (numbered 50 through 91)

Captain Tornado is not to be confused with an earlier comic book hero.  That Captain Tornado was a sea captain who led a professor and his 18-year-old daughter in a flight in the professor's experimental rocket, intending to go to Jupiter.  Something happened and they ended up stranded on a strange jungle planet inhabited by three different (I want to say Barsoomian) races.

Nope.  Our Captain tornado is a sea captain from centuries before rockets ships and trips to Jupiter.

Around the waters of Guadeloupe, about a dozen French boats have disappeared without a trace.  Tornado sails The Vulture to the area to investigate.  Tornado is warned by a local shaman/sorcerer to avoid "the hunchback" and "the skull."  When a pirate ship flying the Jolly Roger is spotted, Tornado goes in chase,  following the mystery ship to an island with a large rock in the shape of a skull prominent; the pirate ship swings around the island and disappears. 

Rani, the daughter of the native chief, tries to warn Tornado about Wobi, the sorcerer who had tried to warn Tornado away.  Wobi is in cahoots with the dastardly Carlos Rotta, who has captured the missing ships and has hidden them in a secret grotto.  Tornado wanders through the maze that is the pirate's hideaway and is soon overcome by strange fumes.  Did I mention that the island is volcanic?  He recovers in time to see that Rotta has captured Tornado's ship and her crew.  Meanwhile, Rani has managed to free Tornado's crew and they rush to overcome the pirates.  As Rotta is about to shoot Tornado, one of Tornado's crewmen shoot him and Rotta plunges off a cliff.  Kerplunk!   But there's still the problem of the hunchback -- remember him?  The hunchback sics an enormous gorilla on Tornado, but the stalwart captain lures to giant ape to a spot directly under some massive stone columns, and Petit Louis, Tornado's mate, drop the column on the gorilla.  Splat!  But the hunchback and Wobi escape in a boat.  Ah, but remember that the island is volcanic?  For  no reason other that to tie up loose threads, the island blows up and a massive rock lands on the bad guys' boat,  Crunch! and Splash!

In the second story, Tornado is on the frigate Le Vigilante out of Marseilles and sailing toward the den of Sousse Hassan, the Black Pirate.  They are attacked by two pirate ships.  They sink one, but the crew of the second overrun Le Vigilante, which begins to take on water and sink, while the barbarian pirate Ali jumps overboard, swearing vengeance.  Now, Tornado and his men have taken over the second pirate ship.  Le Vigilante sinks, taking most of the pirate crew it.  The remaining pirate crew put up a fight but are  no match for Tornado's men, nor for Petit Louis' gun ("Take that...you badly washed monkey?").  that leaves Ali, who draws his sword on Tornado.  Bad  mistake, engaging in a sword fight with a Frenchman.  There is only one surviving pirate and he leads Tornado and his men to Hassan's "redoutable fortress."  Fight!  Fight! Fight!  Stab!  Stab!  Stab!  /Battle!  Battle!  Battle!  Big explosion! Ka-Boom!  Even though Tornado's men are outnumbered ten to one, you know who won.  There only remains the epic final battle between Tornado and Hassan, giving Tornado the chance to utter the hero's declaration, "...because there is a Justice in this world and you'll be punished for all your evil-doings!"  The  Hassan takes a nosedive off a tall building.  Splat! (again).  The sultan's treasure is loaded on Tornado's ship and he "joyfully" sets sail.

Wow!

And the artwork is pretty good.

Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=58235

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE VENUS PROBE

The Venus Probe by "David St. John"  (E. Howard Hunt), 1966

The race is on.  Kennedy vowed to place an American on the moon by the end of the decade.

Now, leading scientists, specialists in a variety of fields and from various countries, have died over the past months.  But where are their bodies?  One, supposedly buried in an avalanche.  Another went deep-sea diving and never came up.  And so on and so on.  It's enough to make the CIA suspicious.  And when the CIA gets suspicious, it's time to send in Clandestine Services agent Pete Ward, David St. John's wannabe James Bond.

It helped that people wanted to stop Peter's investigation before it even started, coincidently giving Peter a starting point when an attempt was made to kill him.  Or was it?  Could the attempt have been made on another well-known scientist at whose home Peter was staying?  Could it have been an attempted kidnapping and not an attempted murder?  No matter.  Peter is off and running, first to Montmartre, where the supposed widow of one of the scientists had a strip act in a local club.  The trail leads Pete to the foot of the Andes, then to the Alps, and finally to the middle of the Pacific Ocean where the Russians have constructed a huge underwater city housing the missing scientists.

Going by the specialties of the scientists alone, Peter and his boss (whom Hunt based on his friend, Richard Helms) figured the Russians kidnapped the men to help them with a secret project to put a man on the moon.  But it was not so.  The Russians were planning to send men on a one-way trip to Venus because the international publicity and prestige would be so much greater.  When I say they panned to send men to Venus, I meant they were planning to send the six scientists (there were seven, but one of them died) to out sister planet.  I haven't bothered to check what state the scientific knowledge of Venus was in 1966, but knowing what we know about Venus today, it was a pretty dumb plan.

Anyway, lots of bodies throughout the book, and lot of beautiful women anxious to bed Peter (he succumbs only once and tried to be virtuous the rest of the tine), and many narrow escapes from death for our stalwart hero.  At least Peter needed time to recover from his various injuries, which was convenient because that pushed to climax of the book to just before the scheduled launch to Venus.  And yes, there were explosions.

It all sounds so silly to put it on paper, but the book was a pretty good read in a "willingness to suspend one's disbelief" sort of way.  Hunt (1918-2007) did spend too much time, I thought, in going through the intricacies of the spy-guy business, but I'm willing to forgive that because that was Hunt's primary business for more than two decades.  I was bothered by the continuous footnotes explaining what various initials and acronyms for different spy and government agencies were.  There were some aspects of the CIA culture displayed that were just not believable, but they made for some decent background.  And Peter Ward himself was even more over the top than 007, with his love and knowledge of fine food, wine, tobacco, and creature comforts. but he was also presented as a widower who appears to be devoted to his sister and her children while trying to keep his spy-guy job a secret from his brother-in-law.

This is one of those books where you go along for the ride, ignore the inconsistencies, and pass an enjoyable evening lost in the make-believe world lethal and dumb Russians and noble and brave heroes.

Peter Ward appeared in nine paperback originals under the St. John pseudonym.  (Where did Hunt get the "St. John" pseudonym,? I hear you not asking.  Hunt's two sons were named Howard St. John Hunt and David Hunt.  I have no idea where Hunt got his other pseudonyms -- "P. S. Donoghue," "Robert Dietrich," "Gordon Davis," and "John Baxter."  Hunt published 73 books in his lifetime; a final boom under his name -- a memoir  -- was entirely ghost-written when Hunt became too ill to work on the book.  Hunt's early books received acclaim and he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1946.  In 1949 Hunt joined the CIA, specializing in covert actions; over the years, he was involved in various CIA plots and was one of the architects of the Bay of Pigs invasion and served as one of the White House "plumbers" in the Watergate affair.  Most of his writing after joining the CIA was in the thriller and spy genres.  A supposed deathbed confession to his two sons implicated Lyndon Johnson, Cord Meyer, David Atlee Phllips, Frank Sturgis, and others in the assassination of John F. Kennedy; Hunt was known to be in Dallas on that day.

Despite writing dozens of books in the broad genre of the mystery novel, Hunt was never a member of the Mystery Writers of America.  (I asked back in the Watergate days.)

The "Cigarette-Smoking Man" from the X-Files television series was based partly on Hunt. 

Hunt was good friends with William F. Buckley, who Hunt had hired for the CIA.  Buckley was godfather to three of Hunt's children.  H refused to write an introduction to Hunt's ghost-written memoir because of hints that LBJ was involved with the Kennedy assassination; Buckley relented after a revised manuscript came through "with all the loony grassy-knoll bits chiseled out."

DETECTIVE RADIO: THE HAUNTED HOTEL

 With equal parts Gothic horror, paranormal mystery, and psychological suspense, The Haunted Hotel:  A Mystery of Modern Venice, an 1878 "sensation novel" by Wilkie Collins, has gained considerable traction over the past 147 years.  This short novel, first serialized in Belgravia Magazine, June-November 1878, then published that same year in book form with Collins' My Lady's Money, The Haunted Hotel was viewed as a minor, mid- to end-career work by the famed author of The Moonstone, The Woman in White, and "A Terribly Strange Bed," despite having remained in print for nearly a century and a half.  The Haunted Hotel is also something unique among the books and stories by Collins:  it has a true supernatural element, rather than one that could be explained rationally.  Today, it is considered "a classic ghost story that will leave you questioning every shadow."

In this ghostly tale of murder and insurance fraud, young Agnes Lockwood was engaged to Lord Montberry when the scheming Countss Narona "steals" him from her.  The countess marries Montberry and they honeymoon in Venice in a palace turned haunted hotel, where Montberry takes ill and dies.  Agnes travels to Venice to Venice to find out what had happened and becomes embroiled in a chilling mystery where "ghostly apparitions and chilling visions reveal a tragic past."

Neither the best nor the most complex story by the author, still it remains great fun.

Detective Radio dramatizes timeless detective and mystery stories of the past.  I'll probably link to more episodes in the future.  This episode first aired on February 22 of last year. 

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdHBi8czFv8

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: GHOST IN C-MINOR

"Ghost in C-Minor" by Richard Sale  (first published in Detective Fiction Weekly, June 12, 1937: reprinted in The Saint Detective Magazine, January 1956 as "The Ghost of a Dog")

The detective pulps (and their readers) loved series characters and one of the types of series characters they loved was the wise-cracking report, and few were more popular than Richard Sale's Joe "Daffy" Dill of the New York Chronicle, the hero of sixty stories in Detective Fiction Weekly (later Flynn's Detective Fiction) from 1934 to 1943.

It's just after quitting time and Daffy is about to take his lady love, Dinah Mason, out to dinner when the Old Man stops him and places a "speed Voltex with an expensive synchronizer, lens Tessar, also expensive, and a focal shutter with speeds from one-tenth to one-thousands of a second" in Daffy's hands, and instructs him to take a picture of a ghost.

It seems that eight years before, noted actress Gloria Canova, wife of big game hunter Walt Nurbeck, vanished without a trace, along with her devoted cocker spaniel, neither Gloria nor the dog were ever seen again.  At the time Nurbeck was on an African safari.  It was an impossible disappearance -- she entered a room with witnesses at both entrances and just vanished.  The following day, the m6aid reported seeing the ghost off the dog while a "Satanic" organ was heard playing a ghastly tune.

Reports of Gloria's ghost walking the halls and of music coming from a nonexistent organ led the "Old Dark House" gaining a reputation as one of the area's most haunted homes.  For eight years, the house has been empty.  Then, the night before, Walt Nurbeck decided to put the rumors to rest and spent the night in the house.  He claimed to have seen the ghost of the cocker spaniel and that he could see right through the beast...and that there was spectral organ music coming from somewhere.  Nurbeck, a good friend of the Old Man, asked him to sent his best reporter out to try to get a photograph of the spectral dog.

Daffy does not believe in ghosts.  Neither does Gloria.  Nor does Captain Bill "Poppa" Hanley of the New York Homicide Bureau.  All three decide to check it out.  It may have been a coincidence, but the date was Friday the thirteenth...

I hope I am not spoiling your pleasure by telling you that there was a logical explanation for all this, but getting to that point is half the fun.

Richard Sale (1911-1983) was a prolific short story writer (over 400 short stories), novelist (including Not Too Narrow, Not Too Deep, filmed as Strang Cargo, with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable) , screenwriter, and director.  During the 1930s he was one of the highest ;paid of the pulp writers.  In the 1940s, he moved into screenwriting -- among his screenplays were Suddenly, Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (which he also directed; it was co-written with his wife, Mary Loos), The Oscar, and White Buffalo.  

The June 12, 1937 issue of Detective Fiction Weekly can be found here:                                 https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/PU/DFW_1937_06_12.pdf

The January 1956 issue of The Saint Detective Magazine can be read here:    https://archive.org/details/the-saint-detective-magazine-v-05-n-01-1956-01 

OVERLOOKED FILM: RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE (1925)

Today is Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas, a sacred time for many in the world.

Today sadly, is also the anniversary of the 2021 Capitol insurrection, a sacred time for a few demented yahoos living under those rotten logs kin the swamp, and which our president denies he had a  hand in -- denying it so much he pardoned all the "patriots" who had been convicted.

Today is also the birthday of Tom Mix (born Thomas Hezikiah Mix, 1880-1940), the first major western movie star, with 291 films to his credit, the vast majority of them silents.

Guess which will be the focus of this Overlooked Film post?

Mix was the second actor to play Jim Lassiter, the hero of Zane Grey's 1912 novel Riders of the Purple Sage; William Farnham played the role in 1918..

Texas Ranger Jim Carson's sister, Millie Erne (Beatrice Burnham), and her daughter, Bess (Seessel Anne Johnson as Bess as a child; Marian Nixon as the older Bess), have been kidnaped by dastardly Lew Walters (Warner Oland).  Walters also killed Millie's husband.  Carson quits the Rangers, adopts the name Jim Lassiter, and vows to find his siter and niece.  

Lassiter spends years in his quest, finally ending up in  Cottonwood, Arizona, at the ranch of Jane Withersteen (Mabel Ballin).  There, he rescues Jane's rider, Bern Venders (Harold Goodwin) from being flogged for a crime he didn't commit.  There's a band of rustlers who have been raiding Jane's ranch and Lassiter and Bern go after them, wounding and capturing the gang's female leader, and ...son a gun! it's young Bess, all growed up!  Bess and Bern fall in love and leave the valley to get married.  (Justice can be strange in Old Arizona.)  Jane then tells Lassiter that his sister had died after searching for her child, who had (once again) been kidnapped.  Lassiter also learns that Walters is now a local judge and is calling himself  Dyer.  Lassiter goes to town, plugs the Judge/Walters, and goes on the run with Jane and her adopted ward, Fay (Dawn O'Day).  They end up inside Sunrise Valley, where they have blocked off the only entrance so the posse cannot touch them.  The end. 

Look closely and you might see a young Gary Cooper in an uncredited role.

You don't have to look that closely to see Tony the Wonder Horse as Lassiter's horse.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aogO0I8zvvU&t=3s

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAM PHILLIPS

 Sam Phillips (1923-2005) was a disk jockey, radio station owner, and the man who forever changed American popular music through his founding of Memphis-based Sun Records and Sun recording studio, which brought to the forefront such artists as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and Howlin' Wolf.

Here's just sone of the great music Sun gave us:

"Rocket 88" - Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats (considered the first rock and roll record; written and featuring a 19-year-old Ike Turner; and is the Bette Page in the clip?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbfnh1oVTk0

"Call Me Anything, But Call Me" - Big Memphis Ma Rainey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGPbSXPTMqE&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=17

"Straighten Up Baby" - James Cotton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vnoOv_EeUs&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=45

"Beggin' My Baby" - Little Milton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wX12aT0Cr8&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=35

"That's All Right" - Elvis Presley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zejweh3Wjrk&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=65

"Drinkin' Wine Spodee-O-Dee" - Malcolm Yelverton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzmC9f2CwYs&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=66

"Let That Juke Box Keep on Playing" - Carl Perkins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfQniRGGRBU&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=85

"So Doggone Lonesome" - Johnny Cash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVnBB_Utkek&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=101

"Blue Suede Shoes" - Carl Perkins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o2pVYkNnBo&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=104

"Ooby Dooby" - Roy Orbinson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a45z_DLE5YE&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=118

"Crazy Arms" - Jerry Lee Lewis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ricp8I7nquE&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=151

Flyin' Saucers Rock & Roll" - Billy Lee Riley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIe1lW5MwXI&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=153

"My Bucket's Got a Hole in It" - Sunny Burgess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7XGrPx8etQ&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=202

"Fool, Fool, Fool" - Dickie Lee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MivA_C2to2o&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWReizP5t33K4lUdBOPOTDG&index=225

"I've Got a Woman" - Howlin' Wolf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9n5X1FxwJo&list=PLr6GeNhq5MoInxg3l2S2p3_2ZSNCy8sm4&index=16

"School Days" - Charlie Rich

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB-54tWBNRI&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWWYca7A21znhYPuBil_Sga&index=10

The Million Dollar Quarter - an impromptu jam session with Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash -- Wow!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAbbQl2pr5s

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KEN HOUSE!

 My younger brother turned mumblely-mumble years old today.  A whip-smart MIY-trained computer engineer, Ken is the type of brother many of wish we had -- kind, compassionate, funny, talented, athletic, almost as good-looking as I am, and second only to me in being an international sex symbol.  And the sumbitch can sing and play instruments, unlike someone we know who has a totally no musical talent other than turning on a radio, and that with great difficulty.  Nos, sadly, very sadly,* he's fighting the biggest challenge of his life as he fights Alzheimer's.  When he was first diagnosed, his first reaction was sadness, followed by acceptance.  Que sera, sera.  This, because he is Ken, was followed by a fierce determination to live his best life as long as he could.  In this he is supported long-distance from Arizona by hos eldest daughter Lizzie, and back home, by his beloved wife Carmen and his youngest daughter Julie, and Tom, her husband; added to the mix are his two granddaughters, Lily Maria and Emma, both of whom are capable of bringing so such joy to him.  I'm  not sure how much they will remember as they get older, but I hope the memory of "Bumpa" playing with them, singing to them, and reading to them will remain with them.  The future does not bode well for Ken, who% is also getting frailer, but as long as there is a spark of Ken within him, and beyond, we will stand by him, love him, and cherish all that he has given us.

It seems like every day I read about some possible advance in the detection of Alzheimer's, in determining the cause of this terrible disease, and in promising experiments and treatments in delaying or, possibly, stopping this  miserable scourge.  Whatever is happening today is happening too late for Ken, but hopeful steps are being made and I sincerely hope -- and I know that Ken also hopes -- that people in the not too distant future will never have to suffer as he has.  But we are also at a time where self-serving, low information, anti-science, and callous people are influencing our government, our health cafe system, and our very lives.  Because of this we are inches away from losing our herd immunity to infectious diseases and very close to taking major steps backward in vital research.  I weep.  but I also hope that we, as a people, will soon wake up.

HYMN TIME

Ricky Skaggs & Patti Loveless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98jNS8MmEqw

MICKEY FINN #7 (OCTOBER 1945)

Mickey Finn, created by Lank Leonard, was a newspaper comic strip that ran for over four decades, from April 6, 1936 to September 10, 1977.  The title character is Michael "Mickey" Aloysius Finn, an Irish-American police officer in Port Chester, New York.  Leonard based the character on real-life Port Chester policeman Mickey Brennan after he watched Brennan help some children cross a street.  Mickey is a big, kind lunk of a guy, also willing to help out.  He was later promoted to detective, although crime in Port Chester might involve a penny-ante burglar, usually.  (Exception:  as this issue opens, Mickey and his partner Tom have captured a kidnapper.)

Mickey has a girlfriend, Kitty Kelley, and lives with his widowed mother and her "cigar smoking, derby-wearing, blarney-sprouting brother," Uncle Phil Finn.  (Why Mickey's maternal uncle has the same last name as him is beyond my pay grade.)  Uncle Phil, a proud member of the Goat Hill Lodge of the Ancient Order of American Grenadiers, was the strip's break-out character, especially in the Sunday strips; when I was reading the strip in the Fifties I often wondered why it wasn't titled Uncle Phil.  Phil eventually became a local alderman and sheriff.  The strip often focused on humor, with occasional drama.

Mickey Finn was popular from the get-go, eventually appearing in over 300 newspapers.  The comic books contained reprints of the newspaper strip with all dates, signatures, and copyright information removed.  The issue before us reprints strips from October-November 1938 and January-February 1939.After capturing Dixie Dixon, the kidnapper of "Sunny" Bright, Mickey takes the boy home with him, hoping to adopt the young boy.  But it turns out that millionaire Mortimer Mintmore is a relative and is claiming Sunny, much to the dismay of the Finn household.  Will Mickey be forced to give up Sunny?  SPOILER:  Of course not.

Flossie, the girlfriend of Mickey's partner, Tom, loses her job and decided to apply to be a policewoman.  Flossie can pass the physical part of the test, but can she pass the mental?  uncle Phil decides to try to help her.

Uncle Phil decides to enroll Sunny in fancy private school,  Sunny's teacher is the pretty Miss3 Forward (apt name!); she decided to set her sights on Mickey despite Mickey being in love with Kitty.  Mickey si too naive to see what is going on, so it's up to Flossie to set things straight:  "Lissen Goldilocks!  you can't kid me!!  -- just remember that he's engaged and lay off him!  Or I'll pit a dent in your pan that only a plumber could fix!"  Flossie is very diplomatic.  In the meantime Flossie is concerned that she and Tom will not be able to afford a house after they get married, so Uncle Phil cons her into one of his get-rich-quick schemes... Then, a department store offers to foot the bill for a wedding for Tom and Flossie, as well as new furniture for their home if thy agree to get married at the store as a publicity stunt.  tom is reluctant but Flossie is a force of nature, and the issue closes out with their wedding...and with Uncle Phil being clocked on the head with a shoe.

Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=85287

NO FORGOTTEN BOOK TODAY

 I watched television instead.

BOOKS READ -- 2025 REPORT

 I am not the best at keeping records, but it appears that I have read at least 264 books in 2025.  The true number is higher because I know there were some books that for some reason I never recorded.  Not that we are having a contest, but I completely out-sku2nked the other members of my family:  Christina came in at 67 (six! seven!...which made thirteen-year-old Jack ecstatic); Erin came in at 124 (she reads thick, heavy books); and Jessamyn came in at 175.  No reports in yet from Kaylee or Amy, but both tend to read a lot and may have come close to reaching my number; Amy, however, will read a book three or four times if she really likes it and she is always concerned about whether she should count each reading.

So who did I read this year?  Just about everyone, but some authors deserve mention.

• Michael Crichton.  I read 18 of his books, finishing his complete published ouvre, including four he wrote as "John Lange" and one he co-authored as "Michael Douglas."  I prefer his thrillers but I was also impressed with his crime novel The Great Train Robbery.
• James Lee Burke, 11 books, finishing up all of his published books and collections (that is, until February, when the new Dave Robicheaux comes out).  For consistent excellence, it's hard to beat Burke.  I couldn't pick a favorite -- is it possible to have an 11-place tie for first?
• Joe R. Lansdale, 8 books.  I still have three or four of his titles on Mount TBR, and there are a gazillion of others out there -- the man is anything but not prolific.  I have long held there is something in the water in East Texas and Lansdale continues to prove me right.  Sentimental favorite:  In Waders from Mars, a sweet science fiction-y children's story about interplanetary ducks bent on conquering Earth, based on a story Lansdale's son Keith told when he was five.
• Terry Shames.  The first six books in her Samuel Craddock series.  I am late to the party on this.  Craddock and his central Texas small-town neighbors are addictive-forming.  These remind me a lot of Bill Crider's Dan Rhodes series, even though there are large differences.  Currently there are six more books in the series and I'll be getting to them post-haste.
• Stephen Spotswood.  The five books in the Pentecost-Parker series.  Once again, I was late to the party.  A fun, feminist tribute to Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.  Although set in the 1940s, the two main characters reverberate in today's world.
• Christopher Golden.  5 books, including the mammoth Stephen King Tribute anthology.  I've been a fan of Golden since the beginning.  The man write exquisite horror, nail-biting suspense, readable tie-ins (something not that easy to do), and unusual fantasy.  Way back when, he wrote the YA Bodies of Evidence series that is still one of my favorites.  My top pick for this year would be Blood of the Four, a magnificent epic fantasy co-authored with Tim Lebbon
• Manly Wade Wellman.  Five books (kind of).  The gentleman from North Carolina could do it all -- science fiction, fantasy, mystery, western, historical, history (both Civil War and regional), biography,  comics (he wrote the very first Captain Marvel comic book story).  This year I finally got a copy of A Double Life, a very rare paper back adaptation of the Ronald Colman film.  I also managed to get five of the six volumes in the Winston-Salem in History series that Wellman either wrote or co-wrote.  I had ordered all six, but the dealer cancelled one of the volumes.  That book, Winston-Salem in History, Volume One:  The Founders now remains the only Wellman book I have not read.  (Maybe, there had been a rumor of a small-press publication of a heavily revised short story, but I have never been able to confirm if it, or the publisher, actually existed.)
• John Creasey.  Only four books this year.  I have at least fifteen others on Mount TBR.
• Fritz Leiber.  Four books, all collections.  Two more collections await me.
• Murray Leinster.  Four books.  There are still two of his westerns I have not read available on Internet Archive.  I am going to have to search for the ten or so older novels of his, some published in England and never reprinted (**sigh**).
• Budjette Tan.  Four graphic novels.  My find of the year.  Tan is a Filipino comics artist who draws on the legends of his country for his Treme, about a young woman who uses her contacts with supernatural creatures to solve murders.  Amazing artwork, fantastic storytelling, and a unique setting make this series an absolute winner.
• "Kenneth Robeson."  How is it I only read four Doc Savage novels this year?  Gotta do better in 2026.
• Lee Goldberg.  Four books.  A writer who can do no wrong.  I've read all his fiction and started in on his non-fiction, hoping to complete it next year before the new Eve Ronin comes out.
• Hard Case Crime.  I don't have a count on how many I read this past year, but I can report that I have read everything they have published except for two books I hope to finish this month; I had hoped to get them done before Max Allan Collins' Return of the Maltese Falcon comes out on January 6 (yes, it is pre-ordered), but that does not seem likely.  Also, I am catching up on the Hard Case Crime graphic novel line, having read eight of them this past hear.

Coming up for 2026:  many books by John Creasey, Lawrence Block, Donald E. Westlake. Lee Goldberg, Christopher Golden.  Hoping to dig out my copy of Agatha Christie's "Mary Westmacott" novels.  I also have two books by John Dickson Carr and two by Shirley Jackson I want to get to.  There are a few Erle Stanley Gardner collections still on Mount TBR and, surprisingly, some Mickey Spillanes.  I'm currently on page 150 of Joe Hill's new doorstop novel, and that makes we want to get to his two early novels I have not read.  And I am getting an itching for more books by James Herbert and Charles L. Grant.  There are only four books by Rex Stout that I have not read, all early novels and all long out of print and very expensive, but I can hope, can't I?

And some time, dammit, I am going to read Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas, which I have started at least four times in the past and have had to put down for various reasons.  Maybe this year?

THE ADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN: MURDER TO MUSIC (1951 LIVE KINESCOPE)

The Adventures of Ellery Queen ran on the Dumont Television Network from October 19, 1950 to December 6, 1951, and then on ABC from December 16, 1951 to November 26, 1952 for a total of 93 episodes.  Richard Hart originally played Ellery, but he died of a sudden heart attack in January 1951 and the role was taken over by Lee Bowman, who continued throughout the series.  Florenz Ames played Ellery's father, Inspector Richard Queen.

The program was shot in Kinescope before a live audience.  As such, a n umber of episodes are now lost and many are degraded."Murder to Music" was the eighth episode of Dumont's second season.

"An ambitious young pianist won't let anyone prevent her from making her debut, even if it means murdering the conductor's wife."  Also in the cast were Jerome Cowan and Rolfe Sedan.  Rex Marshall served as the announcer.

Directed by Don Richardson, one of 20 episodes he did for the show.  The script was by Helene Hanff, who penned eleven episodes of the show; she was best known for her book 84, Charing Cross Road.

It's time to match wits with Ellery.  Is there a better way to ring in the new year?

https://archive.org/details/theAdventuresOfElleryQueen-MurderToMusic1951