FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE COBRA

The Cobra by "Maxwell Grant" (Walter B. Gibson)  (from The Shadow Magazine, April 1934; reprinted in The Shadow #7:  "The Cobra" & "The Third Shadow" from Nostalgic Ventures, May 2007)

The Shadow has some competition!  A rival crime fighter, the costumed vigilante known as The Cobra, has been going after the criminal gangs of New York.  The Cobra appears to be far better -- and far deadlier -- than The Shadow in fighting crime, and The Shadow's reputation is taking a hit.  Who is this newcomer who appears out of nowhere and shoots to kill without hesitation?

As The Shadow investigates, he must also deal with both the criminal gangs and the police who are after him.  Also out to put paid to The Shadow's career is The Cobra himself.

The action is fast and furious, the guns blazing.

This is one of the stories in which The Shadow is just The Shadow; his various alter egos -- Kent Allard, Lamont Cranston -- do not appear, nor do his various assistants.  It's just The Shadow versus his various foes, although Commissioner Weston and Detective Cardona are in the background hoping The Shadow will prevail.

I'm a fan of the pulp character, although I much prefer other pulp heroes such as Doc Savage or The Spider.  At times, Gibson's writing style can be too plodding for my taste, but in this tale, he's hitting on all  cylinders.  It's the best Shadow story I've read in some time.

P.S.  For those who are counting, there were 325 Shadow novels published in the pulps, almost all by Gibson, between April 1931 and Summer 1949.  This was #51.

OVERLOOKED BUT NOT QUITE LOST MELODRAMA: THE CAT CREEPS (1930)

The Cat Creeps is a sound remake by Rupert Julian (Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera, Three Faces East, and 1918's The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin, in which he also took the title role because of his remarkable resemblance to Kaiser Wilhelm) for Universal Pictures of the 1927 flick The Cat and the Canary, which, in turn, was based on the popular 1922 play of the same name by John Willard.  Universal  had hoped to have Laura La Plante (a silent film star who was later considered as a possible replacement for Myna Loy when Loy briefly considered leaving the Thin Man series) reprise her role of Annabelle West from the 1922 film, (The Grand Parade, The Painted Desert, The Spanish Cape Mystery) but she was unavailable so they cast Helen Twelvetrees in the role and retitled the film.  The Cat and the Canary has been filmed under various titles at least five time, most notably in the 1939 Bob Hope-Paulette Goddard vehicle.  (Another Universal film titled The Cat Creeps (1946) has no relation to this film and was based on the 1940 film Horror Island.)

For years the film was considered lost, with only two minutes of footage surviving.  Actually, it is still lost, but additional footage was found in 2025.  Using the original sound recording of the film, with existing film fragments, synchronized dialogue cards, and film stills, a "full reconstruction" was made this year.

A notable entrant in "the old dark house school" of melodramatic films, it concerns a young woman (Annabelle), who with Paul Jones (Raymond Hackett, The Trial of Mary Dugan, Madame X, The Sea Wolf), Charles Wilder (Neil Hamilton, Jane's original fiance in in 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man, Which Way to the Front?, and Commissioner Gordon and the television series Batman), and other relatives are summoned to the estate of their late uncle Cyrus West.  Annabelle, it seems, is to inherit her uncle's fortune, but first she must be judged sane by a doctor; if she is not found to be sane, the fortune passes to another relative.  So, yeah, your typical inheritance tale.

But, wait!  There also happens to be an escaped lunatic hiding on the grounds or, perhaps (oh, the horror), in the mansion itself!  The lunatic's insanity takes the form of believing he is a cat, and he rends his victims to death as if they were canaries...

The tag line for the film states it is a "Thrilling, Chilling, Spooky Melodrama!," leading one to believe there is not  much mellow in this drama.

Also featuring Lilyan Tashman (Whispering Smith, Lady Raffles, Bulldog Drummond), Jean Hersholt (Shirley Temple's grandfather in Heidi, Don Q, Son of Zorro, and the title character in radio, television, and film series about Dr. Christian), Montagu Love (Limehouse Blues, The Prince and the Pauper, The Mark of Zorro), Lawrence Grant (The Canary Murder Case, The Mark of Fu Manchu, werewolf of London), Theodore von Eltz (The Westland Case, Dr. Erhlich's Magic Bullet, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery), Blanche Friderici (A Farewell to Arms, Flying Down to Rio, It Happened One Night), and Elizabeth Patterson (Aunt Blanche Clavering in the Bulldog Drummond films, I Married a Witch, and the Ricardo's elderly neighbor in ten episodes of I Love Lucy).

The various versions of The Cat and the Canary helped set the template for later movies such as The House on Haunted Hill and the monster films of Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy.

Enjoy this quirky restoration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZhrYU9uUPc

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: PARLOUR TRICKS

"Parlour Tricks" by Ralph Plummer  (first published in the Passing Show Christmas Holiday Annual, 1930; reprinted in Silent Nights:  Christmas Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards, 2015)

Not much is known about Ralph Plummer, who was most likely a  British writer.  He has 69 stories from 1926 to 1932 to his credit listed in the FictionMags Index -- 49 of them published in The 20-Story Magazine, a monthly publication from London's Odhams Press.  The 20-Story Magazine emphasized adventure and mystery fiction, and later added romance stories to its mix.  "Parlour Tricks" appears to be the only story by Plummer to be reprinted.  Martin Edwards (who in addition to being a talented author and editor, is also a noted historian of the mystery genre) only became aware of it when Robert Adey, noted mystery fiction scholar, recommended the story.

It is a slight story, somewhat in the vein of the "stranded travelers during Christmas" motif.  A diverse group of people -- including "a bevy of old ladies, a stern-looking man with side-whiskers, and a retired colonel who divided his time between staring fiercely into space, twisting his moustache, and emptying glasses of port.  Also in the group are Eric Glover, a young man who entertains the group with his humorous stories and parlour tricks, and Peter Mullinger, our point-of-view character.  The people are at the Grand Private Hotel and, for reasons yet to be explained, are not allowed to leave by order of the hotel management; they have been confined for days -- a stay made somewhat lighter by Eric Glover's amusing stories and antics.  It's Christmas time, and most of the guests are happy with Glover's constant and pleasant patter; the colonel is happy because there has been no cessation in the port.

Glover says he has what some might call a magic trick.  He said he could leave a full glass of water on a table, leave the room, and when he next walked back into the room the glass would be empty -- while the glass remained in full view of everyone present.  This resulted in a minor wager with Mullinger, which Glover accepted.  a glass was filled with water, placed on the table, and Glover left the room while everyone else kept a close watch on the glass.  One minute later, Glover returned -- on his hands and knees -- and crawled to the table, drank the glass of water, then crawled back out.  a few minutes later, Glover walked back into the room, pointed to the empty glass, and accepted his wager.

This led Mullinger to propose another wager.  He, Mullinger, would be blindfolded while the rest of the group placed an unknown object somewhere in the room.  Mullinger would be turned around a number of times while still blindfolded, and would then be led around the room where he would stop at the point where the object was hidden.  He stopped exactly where the group had place the object -- an orange.  Less the group think he had cheated somehow, he offered to do it once again; this time, blindfolded, he would find a sum of money...

It  turns out that the hotel safe had been robbed in the early hours of Christmas Eve morning.  The thief had not been able to leave the hotel, so the money was hidden until it could be safely retrieved.  How Mullinger was able to located the stolen money and identify the thief is explained in the last few paragraphs.  

The solution turns out to be somewhat commonplace for the modern reader, but the elaborate preparation for this "parlour trick" is kind of neat.

The story is one of fifteen mysteries included in Edwards' anthology; well-known writers include Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Nicholas Blake, and Edmund Crispin; less familiar stories are from Edgar Wallace, Leo Bruce, Gabrielle Margaret Vere Long ( both as "Marjorie Bowen" and as "Joseph Shearing"), Ethel Lina White, J. Jefferson Farjeon, Raymund Allen, and -- of course -- Ralph Plummer.  As with all of Martin Edwards' anthologies, Silent Nights is a pleasing and varied mix of great stories and is highly recommended.

HOW MUCH IS THAT DOGGIE IN THE TARDIS? THE COMING OF K9! (1977)

Here's one that flew under my radar -- the November edition of David Langsford's Ansible reports that actor John Leeson has died:

"John Leeson (1943-2006), UK actor who voiced K9 in Doctor Who (62 episodes 1979-1988 plus many returns and spinoffs) died on 1 November aged 83."  [K9's start date was actually 1977 -- JH]

What Doctor Who fan could possibly forget K9, the robotic (and to me, annoying) dog of the Tom Baker/4th Doctor era?  K9 (name sometimes given as K-9) also carried over to the brief spinoff series The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007-2010).  He (it?  them?  they?) was also the central character in the failed pilot K-9 and Company (1981) and in K9 (2009-2020), and has appeared alongside several of the Doctor Who incarnations.

He was created by writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin (who still own the rights to the character) for the four-part episode The Invisible Enemy.  Originally intended as a one-off, K9 proved very popular with younger viewers and is now considered on of the Doctor's most-loved companions.

K9 had been built in the year 5000 by Professor Marius (Frederick Jaeger), who gifted the robot to the Doctor (Tom Baker) at the end of the adventure.  

In the first episode, a three-man crew arrive on titan and become hosts for an alien intelligence which turns them hostile.  The Doctor and Leela (Louise Jameson) arrive in answer to a distress call.  in the second episode, we meet K9, and the Doctor has to fight a voice in his head which is trying to take over his intelligence.  Episode 3 sees the Doctor catatonic, while clones of the Doctor and Leela go microscopic to hunt down the intelligent infection that has struck the Doctor.  In the final episode, efforts to bring the clones back from the microscopic world to the macroscopic in, also brings the alien invader -- which is ready to spawn!  But fear not, boys and girls -- the Doctor is triumphant in the end.

K9 had been introduced as a means to provide narration while the Doctor and Leela clones were inside the Doctor's body.  The original intention ways to have a small actor inside a robotic Doberman costume,  but that idea was abandoned kin favor of an electronically-controlled prop.  Over the course of K9's Doctor Who career, five different iterations of the robot companion were presented -- almost all voiced by Leeson, who also voiced the character for audiobooks and video games.

Enjoy all four episodes of The Invisible Enemy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNf8NuUC4kE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, J. D. SOUTHER!

 John David Souther (1945-2024) was "a principal architect of the Southern California sound and a major influence on a generation of songwriters."  He wrote and co-wrote songs recorded by such artists as Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Christopher Cross, Dan Fogleberg, Roy Orbison, and The Eagles.  He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2013.

"Closing Time"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGsNCBJ8RrU&list=PLAihpSSSuB2k2K1-uUl4FEJRVn7bDCSZs&index=5

"You're Only Lonely"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSvfuchi5C0&list=PLAihpSSSuB2k2K1-uUl4FEJRVn7bDCSZs&index=3

"Southern Cross" (with the /Coral Reefer Band)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCfjRMC7HfE

"Fountain of Sorrow"  (with Jackson Brown)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHljmLUEk9o

"Hearts Against the Wind"  (with Linda Ronstadt)

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

"Her Town Too"  (with James Taylor)

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

"White Rythm and Blues"  (with Phil Everly)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMyrS32octk

"Prisoner in Disguise"  (with Linda Ronstadt)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV3c1CJNUXY

"The Last in Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGA6Nr7hCpQ

And here are some of the songs he wrote for The Eagles:

"Best of Your Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VDuTGJ_ZQI

"James Dean"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5XYho0Qer4

"New Kid in Town"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fW2rw8SwoA

"Doolin-Dalton"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L4qBm8LrIc

"Heartache Tonight"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBte_o5JpJA

HYMN TIME

 Sons of the Pioneers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kqOP5sSBsI&list=OLAK5uy_mCgU4RbjP--UN8VUoOubRGcoJl3IVxhM8

SKELETON HAND in SECRETS OF THE SUPERNATURAL #1 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1952)

It's Halloween, so let's take a look at a rare horror comic book.  How rare?  A near-mint copy of issue #1 reportedly sold for $1,399.  Skeleton Hand in Secrets of the Supernatural was a six-issue title published by American Comics Group from late 1952 to mid-1953; other titles from this publisher included the  much longer lasting Adventures in the Unknown [the first continuous horror-genre comic book; 174 issues],and Forbidden Worlds [145 issues].

This issue contains four main stories:

• "Deathless Immortal" -- "To live forever -- that is the dream of many men, both good and evil!"  Using the power of Black Magic, Largo the stage magician nearly succeeded.  In order to stave off the demons from hell eager for his soul, Largo hypnotizes beautiful dancer Martha Starr to steal her youth -- don't ask.  You know that Largo will get his comeuppance and the winged demons will take him to a place of eternal torture, because even in the realm of the supernatural -- CRIME DOES NOT PAY!
• "Sea of Retribution" -- "James Simon was a smart operator!"  Yes, Simon was going to prison for a few years for selling defective steel plates to shipyards, but when he gets out, he'll have all that lovely cash he had hoarded to keep him cozy for the rest of his life.  what he did not count on was the stranger in ancient garb who came to his cell and released him, taking him through the prison gate to freedom.  The stranger is the ghost of John Paul Jones, and he has brought Simon to one of the Navy ghost ships that sank because of the defective steel Simon had sold.  The crew of that doomed ship is there also...and they are pissed.
• "Death for Hire" -- ""Craig Shultz was dead -- the electric chair had seen to that!"  But there's dead...and there's dead.  Shultz's mobster boss hires a little "professor" to bring Shultz back from the dead, as a zombie!  Zombie Schultz is sent to kill a pesky senator,  but can you really trust a brainless zombie to do a job properly?
• "Monster of the Deep" -- "Ancient epics and sagas are fill with descriptions of horrible monsters that preyed om humans -- but the most awful of all was SCYLLA, the dread monster of the Straits of Messina!"  In this brief tale. a small Italian fishing boat is taken over by a Soviet submarine; the Soviets want to use the boat to take them to shore so they can distribute funds to Communist saboteurs.  But the boat takes them close to Scylla, who, as much as the monster likes to prey on humans, it likes to prey on Communists even more.

Also included are a brief text story, "The Ghost of Company C", and a brief one-page nothing-burger of a horror story, "The Corpse Under the Carpet."

Not the scariest comic book on earth, but perfectly suited for Halloween, which, -- after all -- tends to cater to predictable thrills.  The artwork of okay, but nothing really great, although I found the portrayal of Scylla to be abysmal.  (**sigh**)

Check it out.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=18915