OVERLOOKED FILM: THE GHOST OF ROSY TAYLOR (1918)

Early Hollywood had its share of scandals, one of which was the unsolved murder of director William Desmond Taylor in 1920, which had a major effect on the careers of two of the era's brightest stars:  Mabel Normand and Mary Miles Minter, both of whom were suspects in the public's eye but neither was seriously considered by police.  The Tylor murder led to Normand's frequent drug use becoming known and her career went into decline until her death from tuberculosis a decade later.

Minter (1902-1984), born Juliet Shelby,  began her stage career at age 5; to avoid child labor laws while appearing in a play in Chicago in 1912, her mother obtained a birth certificate for her deceased niece from Louisiana, and Juliet became Mary Miles Minter.  Mary made her film debut in 1912 and starred in her first feature-length film, The Fairy and the Waif, in 1915 -- reviews of that film were positive:  "Mary Miles Minter is the greatest child actress to be seen either on stage or before the camera.  She is exquisitely fascinating, sympathetically charming, and delightfully childlike and human,"  Her career took off and she soon rivaled  Mary Pickford in the public perception.  Taylor first directed her in Anne of Green Gables (1919), and directed her in another three films before his murder in February of 1920.  Mary had fallen hopelessly in love with the director and claimed that she and the man who was thirty years her senior had a relation; for the rest of her life, she declared Taylor to be her "mate."  The reality of the relationship is in  doubt, and Taylor's friends claimed that he tried to put her off, being all too aware of their age difference, and Taylor was supposedly deeply in love with Actress Mabel Normand.  Nonetheless, romantic letters from Mary were found among Taylor's effects, which led the press to suspect a sexual relationship; perhaps the press were influenced by Mary's "marriage without benefit of clergy" at age fifteen to James Kirkwood, Sr., a film director who was twenty-six years her senior and already married -- that "marriage" ended when Mary became pregnant and her mother arraigned for an abortion.   Following Taylor's death Mary made only four more films, before the studio refused to renew her contract.  Despite offers from other studios, Mary retired.  In her career, Mary made 53 films, most of which are now lost to the sands of time.

So who really killed William Desmond Taylor?  The betting money is on Mary's mother, charlotte /Shelby, who has been describe as a manipulative and greedy "stage mother."  Her initial statements to the police were elusive and "obviously filled with lies."  In= addition, she owned a rare pistol and ammunition similar to that used to kill Taylor; following the murder, she reportedly threw the pistol into a Louisiana bayou.  Police never acquired enough evidence to charge anyone with the murder.

The Ghost of Rosy Taylor is a comedy-drama based on a short story by Josephine Daskam Bacon.  The film was written  by Elizabeth Mahoney, who wrote from 1917 to 1920 --  nothing else is known about her from that date.  It was directed by Edward Sloman, who directed over a hundred films between 1917 and 1938 -- perhaps the best known of these was A Dog of Flanders (1935).  Also featured ion the film were Allan Forrest, George Periolat, Helen Howard, Emma Kluge, Kate Price, and Anne Schaefer.

Minter plays Rhoda Eldridge Sayers, a penniless orphan who travels to New York to be a nursemaid.  when that position disappears, she finds herself in a boarding house with only seventeen dollars to her name.  After two weeks, she is down to just one dime when she finds a letter in the park addressed to Rosy Tyler; the letter contains two dollars and instructions to clean a New York mansion of Mrs. Du Vivier every week.  Rhonda tries to return the later and discovers that Rosy had died.  She decides to take Rosy's place and accept the job.  Things were going fine until Mrs. Du Vivier's brother sees Rhonda/Rosy cleaning the silver and thinks she is trying to steal it, and she is sent to a reform school.  complications ensue.

Critical reaction to the film was mixed, but film historian Paul O'Dell said, "The picture has quite unbelievable charm, and Mary Miles Minter makes us forgive her lack of acting talent, by the sheer beauty of her face."

See for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQIlJa1BY20

GET READY...

Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo!  It celebrates Mexico's victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.  Far more popular in the United States than in Mexico, it became popular here in the 1980s when beer, wine, and tequila advertisers began celebrating it -- and Americans will always fall in line for good advertising campaigns.  Today, beer sales on Cinco de Mayo rival those on Superbowl Sunday.  The holiday also gives us an opportunity to pay homage to a great Mexican-American culture -- great food, great music, and a great history.  In these perilous times it is good to be reminded of something positive.

Nothing says Mexican music more than the joyous rhythms of mariachi.  Here are some examples to get you ready for tomorrow's celebrations.

First we have a compilation of twenty-five great songs, paired with a visual tour of Mexico:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoXh_CzAo10

Followed by seven instrumental folk songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyjHTYF-4H0

Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea was the first all-female mariachi ensemble to win a Grammy Award.  Here is their innovative and electrifying performance at the 11th Annual International Mariachi woman's Festival  in 2024:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE-2JXIar3A

You may happen upon me celebrating Cinco de Mayo tomorrow.  I'll be the one saying, "Dos Equis, por favor."

HYMN TIME

 The Rev. T. T. Rose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqc9BQihB24

THE HAWK #2 (SUMMER 1951)

 

The Hawk is Bob Hardie, "Fighting Marshal of the American Desert"  and the "Scourge of Desert Badmen."  "He strikes with the speed and accuracy of the hunting falcon, with the grim silence of the bird of prey after which he is named."  The title appeared briefly (three issues) from Ziff-Davis, then for another eight issues, plus a special 3-D issue, from St. John. ending in May 1955.  The book was noted for decent storylines and excellent artwork.

• "Secret of the Sands" -- "An old prospector is fleeced of the gold he carries when two crooked gamblers use a marked deck to cheat him -- and The Hawk explodes into action!  A grim trail of death and robbery stretches across the desert wastes of the Southwest before The Hawk rips away the veil shrouding the secret of the sands!"  The bad guys go to the prospector's cabin to steal what gold he had left, leaving the old man for dead.  By the time The Hawk catches up with them, he learns that the prospector has had the last laugh.
• "Desert Gunsmoke" -- "In the desert country, where water is precious as blood, the small ranch owners struggle for their very existence against the greed and ruthlessness of cattle baron Jeff Driscoll!  And when Driscoll's brutal tactics are challenged by a lone girl, it becomes The Hawk's fight, and bullets mingle with desert gunsmoke."  I found it interesting that the townspeople have names like Kansas, Tex, and Laramie, and the ranch hand is Slim, because there's always a Slim.
• "Iron Caravan of the Mojave" -- "Like a wounded animal scurrying for cover, a chugging locomotive hurtles across the desert.  Its throttles wide open, it makes a desperate bid to outdistance a swarming horde of attacking Apache Indians..."  {SPOILER:  The train lost.}   But was it Apaches?  The Hawk does not think so.  Hmm, could have the rival Mesa Stagecoach Company, run by the viscous Dude Mullions, disguising his men as Indians?
• Also, "Hopi Hero" -- When cavalry man Sam Watt's troop is attacked  by the Navajo, everyone is killed except for Sam who is left for dead.  He is found by the Hopi and nursed back to health.  Then the Navajo attack the Hopi village, the peaceful Hopi have no one to lead them in the fight.  No one, that is, except for Sam.  "The annals of the United States Cavalry are silent concerning Sam Watt's exploits, but his story is still told around the council fires of the Hopi.

Plus the requisite amount of fillers.

An interesting issue.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=6251

FORGOTTEN BOOK: APACHE RISING

Apache Rising by Marvin H. Albert  (first published in 1957; reprinted as a m0vie tie-in titled Duel at Diablo, 1965; reprinted this month in paperback and e-book as Apache Rising under Stark House Press's Whipcrack Western line) 

For those interested in a fast-moving western with a tight plot and well-drawn characters, it's hard to beat the eleven paperback originals published by Mavin H. albert under his own name and as "Al Conroy" between 1956 and 1965.  Apache Rising, the second of these, is a tough and realistic example of how good albert was at his craft.

Jess Remsberg is a frontier scout on a mission -- finding and killing the man who murdered, raped, and scalped Jess's beloved Comanche wife, Singing Sky.   Jess has searched for years  but has not found any clue to who had killed his wife, until his friend Lieutenant Gil McAllister, came across Signing Sky's scalp displayed at a sutler's in Fort Duell; the scalp had a silver streak along the black hair, and a tiny silver bell attached to it -- there could be no doubt that it belonged to Jess's wife.

On his way to meet McAllister, Jess had rescued across a lone woman in the desert being stalked by two Apaches.  The woman was Ellen Graff, the wife of a local freighter who had been kidnapped by the Apaches several years ago.  She had been taken as a wife by the son of the powerful chief Chata and had born a son by him.  When the army raided Chata's camp, Ellen was knocked un conscious and -- recognized as a white woman by the soldiers because of her red hair -- was brought back to her husband who had given her up for dead and had moved on with his life, hoping to marry another woman.  Ellen's child had been unknowingly left at the Indian camp.  Graff resented Ellen for not killing herself while in captivity and for giving birth to an Apache baby; the mere presence of Ellen back in his home has severely damaged Millard Graff's personal and business reputation.  For her part, all Ellen wants to do is find her child.  She had run away and was crossing the desert to that when Jess rescued her.

The raid on Chata's camp had all but destroyed Chata's band of warriors.  With a few survivors, Chata made it to the Mexican hills to regroup as renegade Indians slowly made their way from reservation=s to join him.  It is now suspected that he has gained enough warriors to regain his war against the hated white men.  If Chata makes it across the order and past the army stationed at Fort Duell to the Mogollon Rim, he will have an impenetrable stronghold from which to wreak terror along Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.  McAllister is in Fort Creel next to the town of Avalanche to receive a shipment of four wagons full of ammunitions due at distant Fort Duell.  McAllister will have twenty-five soldiers with him to protect the shipment, but he is concerned that Chata might emerge from Mexico if he learns of the shipment of ammunition.  McAllister asks Jess to scout for him.  Jess, anxious to reach Fort Duell himself to question the sutler who had his wife's scalp, agrees.  Joining McAllister's group is Graff, who is bringing a wagon of goods to sell at the fort, and a gun-toting gambler named Toller, looking to relieve some long-isolated soldiers of their cash.

As the expedition heads out, Jess learns that Ellen has stolen two horses and has headed back into the desert in search of her son, and that Graff could care less.

Scouting ahead of the main party, Jess discovers Chata has crossed the  border and is nearby with a force twice the size of McAllister's.  He also discovers that Ellen has been captured by Chata's men.  Chata's son -- the one who took Ellen as a wife -- is dead and Chata is determined to keep Ellen alive until he reaches hos son's grave, where he will bury Ellen alive with him.  Jess also comes across the remain of a party of settlers -- men, women, and children -- who have been butchered by Chata's men.

Rather than turn back until he can get reinforcements, McAllister decides to attack Chala and stop him before any other settlers get hurt.  (And, if McAllister is able to stop Chata, it would not hurt his chances for promotion.)  But Chata is a skilled and wily battle leader, and the desert is a remorseless place for white men, but the Apache seem to know every square inch of it.  Surprise attacks, bad luck, and a lack of water combine to whittle down McAllister's forces.  McAllister's only hope is to get a message to Fort Duell for rescue, unaware that the messenger has been staked out and tortured  by the Apache.  No help is coming.

While Chata's men are attacking the McAllister, Chatoa's camp in a protected canyon has only women, children, and old men left, allowing Jess to sneak in and rescue Ellen and her child.  The smart thing to do would  be to bring Ellen and the child to Fort Duell, but to do that would be to abandon McAllister and his men.  Jess and Ellen fight their way back to McAllister, who has been left with just a handful of survivors.  McAllister has just one wild hope for survival while he sends Jess on a near suicidal mission to get help from Fort Duell.

The suspense never lets up and both the action and the setting are vivid.  Jess, of course falls in love with Ellen, and is torn between his feelings for her and the memory of his dead wife.  Complicating things is that Jess learns -- late in the novel -- that the man who murdered Singing Sky was Ellen's husband.

A fast and totally satisfying read.  Whipcrack Books, a new imprint from Stark House, was wise to choose this lone as their first release, biding well for the future of the line.

A word about the film, which was also scripted by Albert.  The movie starred James Garner, Sidney Poitier, and Bibi Anderson.  This was Poitier's first western and the film was directed by Ralph Nelson, who had recently directed Poitier in Lilies of the Field.  Poitier portrayed Trotter as a former Buffalo Soldier, rather than an itinerant gambler.  No mention was made kin the film of Poitier's color -- a wise decision, IMHO.  In the film, the final stand-off took place in Diablo Canyon; in the  novel the name Diablo was never mentioned, which must have left readers of the tie-in version scratching their heads.  As with the novel, the film is also visually graphic in its violence and scenes of torture -- something that was rare at that time.

Marvin H. Albert (1924-1996) began his writing career for Quick and Look magazines, moving into novels in 1952 with The Road's End, published as  by "Al Conroy."  with the success of his first western, The Law and Jake Wade, he became a full-time writer, eventually publishing more than eighty-five novels under various names, mainly in the crime, mystery, detective, suspense, adventure, and western fields; this number includes twenty-five film and television novelizations.  Albert also scripted at least five major films.  His 1975 suspense novel The Gargoyle Conspiracy was nominated for an Edgar.  He may be best remembered for a series of novels featuring private detective Pete (Pierre-Ange) Sawyer and for his Tony Rome novels, which were the basis for several films starring Frank Sinatra. 

No matter under what name or what genre, Marvin H. Albert always provided entertaining, exciting reading.

CABIN B-13: SLEEP OF DEATH (DECEMBER 26, 1948)

Cabin B-13 began as a radio play by mystery author John Dickson Carr, airing on CBS's Suspense on March 16, 1943.   The episode was rebroadcast later that year, and again as a separate program -- not part of the Suspense anthology series -- in 1948; it also received a special broadcast for screen executives early in 1949 as they considered filming it.  The show was also used as the premiere episode of the British radio series Appointment with Fear in 1943.  The script was reprinted in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1944.  It was televised in 1958 on the television version of Suspense, and in 1959 on Climax.  Canada's CBC aired it as an episode of the program The Unforeseen.  In 1992, it was the basis of a made-for-television movie, Dangerous Crossing.

In 1948, Carr used the ;program as the basis of a radio series which ran from July 5, 1948 through January 2, 1949, as a replacement for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, again on CBS.  The radio series was directed by John Dietz, and all scripts were written by Carr.  Here, Doctor John Fabian (Arnold moss, in all but four episodes, in which he was replaced by Alan Hewitt), ship's surgeon on the luxury liner Maurevania, would relate tales of mystery and adventure concerning various passengers of the ship as it made port in different areas of the world.  Cabin B-13 was Fabian's own cabin.

To win the approval of her overprotective and stubborn uncle )Peter Capel). a young suitor (Cliff Carpenter) dares to spend the night in the cursed Tapestry Room to win the hand of his beloved (Janice Gilbert) -- but all who have slept in the room have been killed.  SPOILER ALERT:  The uncle is not a murderer!

Enjoy.

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

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: BLACK BUTTERFLIES

"Black Butterflies" by Elmer Brown Mason  (first published in All-Story Weekly, June 24, 1916;  reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, April 1949; in Rainbow Fantasia:  35 Spectrumatic Tales of Wonder, edited by Forrest J Ackerman, 2001; in Brown's collection of stories, The Golden Anaconda, 2009; in= Apemen!:  Classic Tales of Anthropoids, edited by T. M. Gray & Charles G. Waugh, 2013 [revised version edited by Gray, Jon A. Schlenker, & Waugh, 2021]; and in Zoologica Fantastica, edited by Chad Arment. 2013)

A nifty lost civilization story -- the type that was done so well in the early pulp magazines, and sometimes so poorly.

"The way was strewn with the dead who had dared seek out the secret of those jungle depths ... but the lure was gold at safari's end, and the priceless wings of the sable  butterfly no man had ever caught..." -- introduction to the story in Famous Fantastic Mysteries. 

In brief, practical Scotsman Andy Freeman and his good friend, the obstinate Englishmen Trebor Dillingame, head into the depths of the Borneo jungle in search of rare butterflies and other species to sell to wealthy clients back home.  Specifically, they are search of a giant black butterfly -- a hitherto unknown species.  They are joined in their expedition  by the villainous, treacherous, and  murderous Gomez, who is in search for the reputed gold that lies deep in the jungle.  As they proceed, they encounter a beautiful white goddess who claims to be immortal, a race of humanoid apes, an ancient Chinese tong, flesh-eating insects, a giant underwater leech demanding sacrifices, and danger at every turn.

How could you ask for anything more?

Among the ingredients for this fantastic and enjoyable tale are:

• Kratas, the Preistess of the Land of Blood, who knows not death, who lives forever, and is the guardian of the souls of the dead.  The superstitious call her a hantus, a witch and a spirit who lives  on the top of Mount Kina Balu.  Kratas is very strong and very agile, and can disappear into the jungle easily; she is highly jealous and has fallen in ,love with Dillingame, whom she is obligated to slay.
• A mysterious and unnamed Chinese tong, which ruled Borneo long before the English, or even the Dutch appeared.   In this area, they live in a hidden city and are ruled by the cruel mandarin <Lo Chin, a giant 400-pound tyrant with a terribly disfigured face, a punshment for committing patricide.   
• The primitive Ida'an, a tribe under the control of the Chinese.
• A race of ape men, perhaps orangutangs, clad in sarongs and with human-like hair piled on top of their heads to contain poison darts.  They are experts with blowguns,  but appear to be under the sway of Kratas.
• Giant, flesh-eating caterpillars, eventually to mature into giant black butterflies which thirst for blood.  The black butterflies are sacred because they contain the souls of dead priests.
• A monstrous giant carnivorous leech living underneath a mysterious pool with red water.  Various Chinese and apemen are fed to it as sacrifices.
• A treasure trove of gold dust and nuggets, which is regularly transported out of the jungle to fund the tong in a manner that no authorities are aware of.  The dust is often carried inside large porcupine quills.
• And the Borneo jungle itself -- steaming hot, deadly, and mysterious.  It is portrayed in a very realistic manner by the author, who had spent time in Borneo and knows of what he writes.

Put it all together and you have a crackerjack of a story.

Mason wrote three stories about Andy Freeman, all published in Al-Story Weekly; this was the first.  the second "Red Tree-Frogs," was a direct sequel; the third story, "The Gem Vampire," which sends him on another Borneo adventure, this time with the son of Kratas and Dillingame.

Mason (1877-1955) was a bit of mystery man.  The son of a prominent family (his father was the surveyor general of Montana and his grandfather had been the mayor of Chicago when the Great Chicago Fire occurred), Mason himself suffered from wanderlust.  He would pick an area of the world at random and then go and live there until his money ran out.  then he would return home, get a job, and once he had money, would set off for another destination.  In this manner, he lived in Borneo, India, Europe, South America, and parts of Southern United States.  He was, at times, a journalist, a lumberman, an entomologist, and a writer, as well as in inveterate traveler.  As an entomologist, he was called  by the then-governor of south Carolina as the "bug man"; he became an expert on the Southern Pine beetle -- during this time in the South, he said that he had been "shot at twice and stabbed once in an illicit whiskey still in North Carolina, and generally had a good time."  At age 40, he enlisted in the army and was sent to France, where he was wounded at least three times and gassed at least twice, and spent six weeks in an English hospital.  He also reportedly had a raucous time while serving.  One of his later jobs was with the American Cancer Society, which may or may  not -- records are inconclusive -- have placed him on stage with Madame Curie in 1931.

From 1911 through 1926, Mason published over ninety stories.  From the Pulp Flakes blog, October 5, 2012:  "He wrote stories set around the world, in Borneo, Africa, South America and the swamp country in the US.  Some of his earliest stories centered around animals -- with the heroes usually trying to collect rare animals for one reason or the other.  These rare animals included an albino otter, a white gorilla, a dinosaur, and a large black butterfly.  The stories are usually set in place he had personally visited, so there is an authentic flavor to them."  Another series character was Wandering Smith, a swamp guide feature in five stories.

The April 1949 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries is available here:

https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/SF/FFM/FFM_1949_04.pdf

And here:

https://archive.org/details/Famous_Fantastic_Mysteries_v10n04_1949-04_unz.org/mode/1up