OVERLOOKED FILM: THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957)

It's time for a 1950 cheesy sci-fi monster flick.

This one features giant mollusks arising from the Salton Sea.  Tim Holt traded in his cowboy hat and returned to films after five years to make this one.  Co-starring Audrey Dalton (My Cousin Rachael, Casanova's Big Night, Mr. Sadonicus), with child actress Mimi Gibson (The Three Faces of Eve, Houseboat, One Hundred and One Dalmatians), noted character actor Hans Conried (The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T., The Twonky, Horton Hears a Who), film and television supporting actor Harlan Warde (with 216 IMDb credits, mainly in uncredited roles), and Max Showalter (What Price Glory?, Dangerous Crossing, Fate Is the Hunter).

Directed by Arnold Laven (Without Warning!, Vice Squad, Down These Dark Streets).  The Screenplay was written by Pat Fielder (The Return of Dracula, The Flame Barrier, The Vampire), from a story by occasional science fiction writer and screenwriter David Duncan (he wrote the English language version of Rodan, 1960's The Time Machine, and co-wrote the screenplay for Fantastic Voyage); Duncan's original title was The Jagged Edge and the flick was renamed The Kraken before the producers finally settled on The Monster That Challenged the World.

Let the cheesiness begin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2jHqSzPnw8

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FRED ROSE

Fred Rose (1898-1954) was a Hall of Fame songwriter, many of whose songs became classic country hits and were recorded by such artists as Hank Williams, Gene Autry, Hank Snow, Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, Ref Foley, Marty Robbins, and Eddie Arnold.  In 1942, Rose and country star Roy Acuff created the first Nashville-based music publishing company, Acuff-Rose Music.  In 1961, Rose was one of the first three inductees inn the Country Music Hall of Fame, along with Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers.  He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985.

"Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" - Elton Britt, with the first recorded version of this song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVhYzPcA24E

"Tears on My Pillow" - Gene Autry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lv4ueCky8M

"I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" - Hank Williams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19vApPwWqh8

"Kaw-Liga" - Carl Perkins

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

"Take These Chains from My Heart" - Ray Charles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVu4e_SIvlQ

"No One Will Ever Know" - Jerry Lee Lewis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9miAEA7ZhjE

"It's a Sin" - Eddy Arnold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DiF6Tbo90M

"Charlestonette" - Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViWYX1K8pGw

"Did I Do" - Ruth Etting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihH1E8IcNdI

"Fireball Mail" - Roy Acuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPn_6dz_G_o

"Hang Your Head in Shame" - Bob Will and His Texas Playboys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVRFYq0M_Ac

"Home in San Antone" - Ray Price

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo2UMRg7NOM

"Flamin' Mamie" - Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvNpB8ZLOFQ

"Dreaming the Waltz Away" - Jesse Crawford

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxUp_PdP2Wc

"Deep Water" - George Straight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nFGErt9baU

"Pins and Needles (In My Heart)" - Bob Atcher and Bonnie Blue Eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXW299aJmpA

"Roly Poly" - Jim Reeves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xy6D7TBVZ8

"Texarkana Baby" - Roy Drusky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q9j3vaQbiA

'Waltz of the Wind" - Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAz82pqVmeE

HYMN TIME

The original Chuck Wagon Gang (1941).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFcs-kmM5PM

FORGOTTEN BOOK: CLEMMIE

Clemmie by John D. McDonald (1958)

From the back cover of the paperback:

She was very young.

She was dangerous.

She was a girl who lived too close to the edge of violence.

She hunted trouble.

She was an exhibitionist, a body worshipper, a sensualist.

She was without morals, scruples, ethics.

She was beautiful.

She was CLEMMIE

Clementina Bennet was the only child of a rich (and probably amoral) man who simultaneously spoiled and ignored her.  When she was thirteen she was seduced by a college student.  When she was fifteen something terrible happened that remains unspoken and she was eventually institutionalized.  Now, at twenty-three, she is a fantasist living only for her whims and desires; she is incapable of being truly empathetic and thinks nothing of ruining a man's life and family.

Craig Fitz had a terrible childhood that he put behind him when he entered college, instead creating a completely imaginary background.  After receiving a wound that left him with a slight limp in the war, he met and married an English girl while recovering in London.  Back in America, he got a job with a national manufacturing company and rose to the position of production manager at one of its plants.  Thirteen years into the job, he has not moved forward in the company, nor has he really wanted to; he is satisfied with his life, his wife, their two daughters, and his work.  Known as a straight-shooter, he has earned the respect of his neighbors and his peers.  Scrimping money, Craig and his wife were able to afford a summer's trip to England for her and their two daughters kin order for them to meet their grandparents.  Alone for the summer, Craig was feeling lonely.

When a co-worker invited him out for drinks one night, things went terribly wrong.  Craig got  drunk and the even drunker co-worker was arrested and taken to jail.  That's when Craig met Clemmie, who fascinated with her youth and her sense of whimsey.  Without really realizing what was happening, Craig and Clemmie made love, probably the only time Craig was unfaithful to his wife.  Craig felt guilty but Clemmie wanted the relationship to continue, and slowly Craig slid into a life of infidelity.  Soon Craig was caught in a trap between wanting Clemmie and wanting to save his marriage.  Clemmie' philosophy was that, if one were feeling guilty, one must continue full bore doing whatever makes you; feel guilty; in doing this, sooner of later Craig's feelings for his wife would fall to the wayside.  Craig's guilt (and his wishy-washiness) were increased by his  burgeoning alcoholism, brought on by pressures at work that imperil his job and his future livelihood.

McDonald made his bones with paperback suspense novels in the fifties and sixties, but this one is more mainstream than suspense.  The question remains whether Craig can drag himself lout of the morass he has put himself in and whether he can save his marriage, or at least, his soul, or whether Clemmie will be able to destroy him completely.

The writing is good (it is McDonald, after all) but the book had an uncomfortable feel for me. I disliked the character of Clemmie for personal reasons:  I had meet too many people like her.  And Craig's absolute weakness of character set off negative vibes for me.  

Still, this has McDonald's trademark mid-century, middle America malaise all over it, and it is something he has done so well in the past.  Yet, for some reason I got the distinct feeling I was reading an Evan Hunter mainstream novel of the same period more than a John D. McDonald novel.

Your  mileage may well differ.

POGO PRIMER FOR PARENTS (TV DIVISION) (1961)

Cartoonist Walt Kelly produced this for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to answer parental concerns about the effect of television on children.  He "carefully applies concepts of mental health and child rearing embodied in the findings of the 1960 White House Conference on Children and Youth."  The dangers, although very real, appear to be blown out of proportion to me, but things were very different six decades ago, when McCarthyism and Dr. Fredric Wertham were still in the rearview mirror.

Your cast of characters include Mother (Pogo Possum), Father (Albert Alligator), Child (Rackety Coon Chile), and Psychiatrists One and Two (Howland Owl and Churchy La Femme).

Despite the hype, most of the recommendations are common sense ones.

I do take issue, however, with the opinion given about folk singers.

Enjoy this little bit of Pogo.  (Then, cleanse your palate by checking out one of the m any collections of Pogo comic strips.)

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102266

BBC NORTHERN IRELAND SATURDAY-NIGHT THEATRE: THE UNFORTUNATE FURSEY (FEBRUARY 24, 1990)

Poor Fursey, a simple (and perhaps simple-minded) monk in the 10th-century Ireland Monastery of Clonmacnoise.  The forces of evil have descended upon the monastery and the unfortunate Fursey cannot manage to pronounce the words of exorcism.  As a result, Fursey is expelled from the monastery, bringing with him 'a fantastic procession of cacodemons, hippogriffs, imps, furies, and other dreadfuil creatures, not to mention the gentleman in black."

One of the truly great novels of comic fantasy, The Unfortunate Fursey was published in 1946 by Irish fantasist Mervyn Wall, who return to the hapless monk two years later with The Return of Fursey.  while never a runaway bestseller, Fursey's misadventures have entertained readers for eighty years.

This radio adaptation of the first book was directed by Eoin O'Callaghan.   Christina Reid adapted Wall's novel for the broadcast.  John Hewitt stars as Fursey, while Timothy Bateson plays the Devil.  Other performers include Fenella Fielding, Richard Howell, Ann Manahan,  Birdy Sweeney, Maurice 
O'Callaghan, Gerry McSorley, Joe McPartland, Annalivia Ryan, B. J. Hogg, Louis Rolston, and Maureen Dow.

Wall (1908-1997) wrote four additional novels, but none hard the staying power of the Fursey duology.  He also wrote two plays, a collection of short stories, and a volume of history.  His day jobs saw him as a pubic servant for 41 years, including working for Radio Eireann from 1948 to 1957, and as Secretary to the Arts Council from 1957 to 1975.

Both Fursey novels are currently in print from Valancourt Books.

Enjoy this sly adaptation.

https://archive.org/details/mervyn-wall-unfortunate-fursey

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY; THE FORGOTTEN LAND

"The Forgotten Land" by Henry Herbert Knibbs  (from The Popular Magazine, February 7, 1917; never reprinted to my knowledge)

We can't recall that we have ever published a story like this in the Popular.  It is a staggering thing -- the kind of yarn you'll talk about to your friends.  You know the type of story Knibbs writes -- Western, with a good deal of sympathy for man and his four-footed companion.  There is the Westerner here, but he is placed in a setting so far removed from anything that Knibbs has ever given us that it took out breath away.  Knibbs is a poet as well as a novelist; and as we read, we had a vision of 'the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling.'  It is prophetic, but we have known prophets who have guessed wrong, and we fancy Knibbs is wrong -- at any rate we hope so.

-- editor's introduction to "The Forgotten Land"; in that issue's Table of Contents, the story is called strange and unusual, "quite the strangest so far."

Knibbs (1874-1945) never worked as a cowboy (he suffered from a lifelong respiratory ailment) but he was a popular author of western short stories, but he was a popular author of western short stories, novels, and poems.  The FictionMags Index lists over 140 of his stories, novels, and serials published over a 28-year period, as well as over 160 published poems.  He published thirteen novels and six collections of poetry; his tales were adapted for seven films.  He stopped writing, embarrassed, because in one of his Saturday Evening Post he had a horse with a gestation period of nine months; a horse has a gestation period of eleven months -- something he knew full well -- and not only was he ridiculed by his peers, he was never able to sell another story.

Long before science fiction ever gelled as its own genre, tales of the fantastic were often published in popular magazines as "strange" stories, a practice that continued until the middle or late 1920s.   Such stories carried their own cachet and were eagerly devoured by some readers.

America has been invaded, and conquered.  As far as he knew, Jack Hanley, the lone watcher of the Grey Grouse power station, might be the only American left.  The enemy had just taken the station at the bottom of the mountain, although the crew out up a good fight.  The sound of war birds filled the air.  Hanley had four freight cars of supplies the had been abandoned earlier at his station.  He was able to destroy them by plunging them off a 4000-foot cliff.  Then he saddled his horse, Candy, and took off into the wilderness, heading toward Canada, dynamiting his trail behind him.  He had only a few supplies and the American flag he had taken from the power station with him -- he was not going to gift his country's flag to the enemy.  Now he had to find a way to survive with little supplies and even less ammunition.  After nearly being killed when he was spotted by a war bird, Hanley found a cave where he and Candy could shelter for the winter.  He improvised traps for game and was severely wounded by a bear who had forced his to use almost all of his ammunition.  Both he and his horse were weak and hungry.

He had not seen evidence of another person the entire winter, but  now, with springtime here, he found moccasin tracks.  They led to a mountain lake with a thin wisp of smoke rising above it.  A girl was being beaten by a huge Indian.  Hanley had a few bullets left and fired at the Indian, Mooswa, killing him.  The girl, whose name was Bess, had been given to the Indian for protection by her father because Mooswa had promised to hide her in the deep woods away from the invaders and the plague that they had brought with them.  Yea, there was a plague and it wiped out the invaders and any remaining Americans.

Hanley, ever the gentleman and possibly the last American male alive, treated Bess with respect.  He decided that his place, as an American, was back in America where white folks came from, rather than in the woods of Canada populated by Indians.  (Casual racism was big in 1917 -- did I mention that the invaders were "yellow men"?)  He gave Bess the choice of going back to America with him.  He was her protector so she felt that he was basically her "husband," so she agreed to go with him.  (Casual sexism was also big in 1917.)

Fifty years later some Northern  Indians came across a falling apart ranch house.  There on the cot was the body of an old man who had placed an American flag over his legs before he died.  He could have been the last of the vanished white men.  Outside the house was a grass-covered grave in the shade of a wall.  The Indians knew this had to be the final resting place of a woman.

Here's the link to the February 7, 1917 issue of Popular Magazine, which also contains stories by well-known authors of the time Francis Lynde, Holman Day, Bertrand W. Sinclair, and William S. McNutt, as well as serials by B. M. Bower, Henry C. Rowland, and Roman Doubleday:

https://archive.org/details/the-popular-magazine-v-043-n-04-1917-02-07/mode/1up