FORGOTTEN BOOK: UNCLE SILAS

 Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1864)

I'm cheating here because I have never read this book.  Lord knows I have tried.  Four or five times over the past decades.  This is not to knock the book, nor its writer.  I am a big fan of Le Fanu's writing and have read and enjoyed all of his shorter works.  But Uncle Silas...something has always arisen and interrupted my reading of the novel...a family emergency, a conflict in my work schedule, or merely my misplacing my copy of the book...always something.  Is the universe conspiring against me?  i don't know.  But, damn, I really want to read the book.  Some day I finally will.

The book was based on/Le Fanu's story "A Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess" (1839; also published as "The Murdered Cousin" in Le Fanu's Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery, 1851).  The novel, which moved the setting of the story from Ireland to England, was first printed as a serial, "Maud Ruthyn and Uncle Silas," in the Dublin University Magazine in 1864; it was then published as a three-volume novel (because that's what they did back in those days) later that year.  Uncle Silas has remained Le Fanu's best-known novel, and rightly so.

From Wikipedia:  "Uncle Silas, subtitles 'A Tale of Bartram Haugh,' is an 1864 Victorian Gothic mystery-thriller novel by the Irish writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu.  Despite Le Fanu resisting its classification as such, the novel has also been hailed as a work of sensation fiction by contemporary reviewers and modern critics alike.  It is an early example of the locked-room mystery subgenre, rather than a novel of the supernatural (despite a few creepily ambiguous touches), but does show a strong interest in the occult and in the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist, philosopher and Christian mystic...It was the source of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Firm of Girdlestone. and remains a touchstone for contemporary mystery fiction."  The influence of Uncle Silas is obvious in Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White; perhaps it's the other way around -- the Collins novel was published a few years before Uncle Silas, bit well after the Le Fanu genesis story (unsolicited plug:  Collins' best novel; don't believe the naysayers who tout for The Moonstone.)

Uncle Silas relates the tale of young Maud Ruthyn, who grows close to her uncle. Silas Ruthyn, the family black sheep who had been a noted  rake and gambler and now professes to be a reformed and devout Christian.  In the past, Silas had been suspected to be involved in the suspected suicide of a man to whom Silas owed a great deal of money, a suicide which took place in a locked room in Silas' mansion at Bartram-Haugh.  Maud's father suddenly dies and a codicil in his will places her with Uncle Silas as her guardian until she reaches her majority.  If Maud should die before them her estate would pass to Uncle Silas... 

(I am torn between who is more evil, Uncle Silas or Wilkie Collins' Count Fosco.  I'm leaning toward Fosco but will reserve full judgement until I finally read the Le Fanu book.)

Le Fanu (1814-1873) is considered a central figure in the development of the modern ghost story.  M. R. James (no slouch in the field himself) consider Le Fanu as "absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories."  Le Fanu was also a major influence in the development of the mystery novel.  Among his best-known works are the stories "Green Tea," "Schalken the Painter," "Carmilla" (which I covered in this blog yesterday), "The Familiar," "Mr. Justice Harbottle," the sensation novels Wylder's Hand, The Wyvern Mystery, The Rose and the Key, and the historical novel The House by the Churchyard.  and of course, Uncle Silas.

Uncle Silas has been filmed at least five times, and three adaptations have aired on BBC Radio.

CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER: CARMILLA (JULY 31, 1975)

Sheridan Le Fanu's claasic 1872 vampire tale besides being a thumping good tale is an early example of feminism in the horror genre, defying the Victorian view of women as being possessions of men.  It is also perhaps the first story about a lesbian vampire (told oh so tastefully, mind you).  The story became a large influence on Bram Stoker's Dracula, as well as Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.  

The popular story has remained in print for more than 150 years.  It has been filmed or adapted fourteen times since 1931,   Carmilla has appeared at least three times on television, four times on stage, and once as an opera, as well as in a web series.  The character has appeared in at least six books in recent years, has been the subject of three comic book series, and has inspired at least four rock music recordings.  Carmilla has become a character in two video games.  In Japan, Carmilla is the title of a lesbian magazine.

Carmilla hit the radio airwaves beginning in 1940 on the Columbia Workshop, starring Jeanette Nolan. Vincent Price hosted as 1979 adaptation on the Sears Radio Theater.  In 2003, a version was aired on BBC Radio 4's Afternoon Play.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater version (linked below) starred Marian Seldes and Merccedes McCambridge, and was hosted by E. G. Marsahll.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOtnr0o7FHw&list=PLJm2etPj4-MYlykH8VeSx_9v9SlR5gGWX&index=26 

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE ROMANCE OF ROSY RIDGE

"The Romance of Rosy Ridge" by MacKinley Kantor  (first published in The Saturday Evening Post, June 5, 1937; published in book form that year, although it had only 96 pages; reprinted in Post Stories of 1937, 1938; and in The Pocket Book of American Modern Short Stories, edited by Philip Van Doren Stern, 1943)

"It was good corn growing weather that July night when the stranger first came along, making his music through the hollow all the way up to Rosy Ridge.  Old Gill MacBean and his wife and the youngsters were sitting out on the stoop when they heard the man coming."

It's post-Civil War Missouri and tensions from that conflict are still high.  People in the community appeared to be evenly divided; you'd see as many men wearing old Yankee blue trousers as you would wearing the old butternut yellow trousers of the Confederacy.  MacBean had no truck with Yankees -- he had lost two sons fighting for the South, as well as a brother at Willow Creek.  And the area had been plagued by night riders so MacBean kept his rifle handy.

The stranger was making music the like of which MacBean had never heard.  First he played Gentle Annie, then Billy Boy, then Jack o' Diamonds -- all while slowly walking up to the MacBean place.  The music had a strange humming noise, unlike any instrument MacBean had ever heard before.  It turned out that it was just a comb and a piece of paper.  The stranger introduced himself as Henry Bohun (soon to be called Comb-Humming Henry), a schoolmaster before he began wandering.  Henry played a tune that no one could dance to, "but it was a song to make you love, and perish happy in the remarkable joy of doing it."  (Henry said, "Well, maybe it hadn't ever been played before in these parts.  It comes all the way from Europe, and a man named Liszt made it up.")  MacBean was suspicious at first of Henry, (he was also a little taken aback when he introduced his two pus -- Paul and Agrippa -- to Henry, saying that he named them so because Paul came before Agrippa in the Bible; Henry responded, "You haven't got Jesus and Pontius Pilate, then, somewhere around, because I seem to have read Jesus came before Pontius Pilate too.").  Anyway, MacBean extended his hospitality to the stranger, offering him food and a place to spend the night.

And, of course, MacBean had a daughter -- Lissy, with strawberry-yellow hair and clear blue eyes and little freckles that were on her smooth round cheeks and her soft mouth smiling...

The story is not called "The Romance at Rosy Ridge" for nothing.

And then MacBean discovered that Henry had fought for the Union and he banished Henry from his home and from Lissy, fully expecting Henry to take up wandering again.  But Henry stayed in the area just to be close to Lissy, even though he could not be see her.

And then the night riders came...

A gentle, folksy, lyrical, and life-affirming story..

The author is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Andersonville.  He also wrote The Voice of Bugle Ann, Gentle Annie, Glory for Me (filmed as The Best Years of Our Life), and If the South Had Won the Civil War (an early alternate history novel).

The story was expanded slightly and made into a popular film (although it ended up losing half a million dollars -- go figure) in 1947, starring Van Johnson, Thomas Mitchell, and Janet Leigh (her first film role).  The film had an amazing cast, including Marshal Thompson (later to play Dr. Marsh Tracy in Daktari), Dean Stockwell, Guy Kibbee, Jim Davis, Paul Langton (perhaps best known as Leslie Harrington in TV's Peyton Place, and O. Z. Whitehead (one of John Ford's stock players; he was Al Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, and showed his virtuosity in The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, where at age 51, he played a lollipop licking schoolboy).   The film was also notable for its uncredited actors, including Barbara Billingsley (Beaver's Mom. June Cleaver), Gail Davis (TV's Annie Oakley), Marie Windsor (known as "the queen of the B's") Kermit Maynard (Ken's brother), Guy Stockwell (Dean's brother), I. Stanford Jolley (you'll know him when you see him; he was a very familiar western heavy in over 300 films and television shows); and Rhea Mitchell (one-time co-star of many of William S. Hart's westerns; her career faded soon after this, and she managed an apartment house in retirement until a disgruntled houseboy strangled and killed her when she was 66 -- not all Hollywood stories end prettily).

Anyway, it's a great flick and you can see it here:

https://archive.org/details/the-romance-of-rosy-ridge

OVERLOOKED TV: THE ADVENTURES Of DR. FU MANCHU: THE MASTER PLAN OF DR. FU MANCHU (NOVEMBER 12, 1956)

Weak tea, this.

If you are expecting the thrill a minute, pulse-pounding excitement of a master villain trying to take over the world, you may want to look elsewhere.

Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu has been thrilling readers since 1912 with his somewhat creaky, imaginative, jingoistic plots and his demotic scientific horrors, often involving murderous animals and dangerous dacoits.  Through thirteen novels and fix-ups, as well as a handful of stories, Rohmer blazed the trail for the "Yellow Menace" pulp stories that also weaved its way through films, radio, television, conic strips, comic books, and additions to the franchise by other authors.  For over a hundred years, the criminal genius of the Si-Fan tong has poured his vengeance on the Occidental world, often with startlingly effective results, and sometimes with results less than desired.  And -- in the case of The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu -- with a distinct and disappointing thud.

Hopes were high for the television show.  In 1955, Republic Pictures (yeah, the Poverty Row film company...so maybe hopes weren't that high) paid four million dollars to Sax Rohmer and announced they would produce 78 episodes of the projected series.  In the vaunted Hollywood tradition of placing white guys in oriental roles, Fu Manchu would be played by Glen Gordon, who played uncredited roles in You're in the Navy Now, Bright Victory, and Cell 2455, Death Row, as well as individual supporting roles in two dozen television shows, mainly in the 1950s and early 60s.  Needless to say, Gordon was not a blazing star with an energetic screen persona.  Disagreements between Rohmer and the producers led to a lawsuit, which led to the series being cancelled after filming only 13 episodes.  Less than generous critics may have viewed this kerfuffle as the universe righting itself.

Also attached to the program were Lester Matthews (The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Son of Dr. Jekyll, Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land, and a host of minor roles covering 216 IMDb credits) as Sir Dennis Nayland Smith, Fu Manchu's sterling British nemesis.  Clark Howat (he had an uncredited role as a patron in Macy's lunchroom in Miracle on 34th Street, had his scenes deleted as a disc jockey in 'Round My Shoulder, was an uncredited soldier in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, and had a gazillion minor, walk-on, and uncredited roles in his 164 IMDb credits) as Nayland Smith's assistant Dr. John Petrie.  Rounding out the regular cast was Laurette Luez (Prehistoric Women, Siren of Bagdad, Jungle Gents -- her brief career basically ended with The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu following her marriage to her third husband; she had two uncredited roles in 1961, a small movie part and one episode of Ben Casey in 1964; she claimed to have been the one to suggest Marilyn Monroe as a stage name for Norma Jean Baker) as Karamenah, Fu Manchu's eye candy assistant with a two-piece outfit -- G-r-r-r.

So the cast was lest than outstanding.  The sets and the production values were even less than worthy of Republic.  The entire program was basically one big plod.  It was so bad it was camp -- or, at least, could be considered considered camp some years down the road.

"The Master Plan of Fu Manchu" was the eleventh episode of the series, directed by William Whitney and scripted by Arthur E. Orloff.  Fu Manchu has kidnapped a famous plastic surgeon to operate on a mysterious "Mr. X" (Steven Geray).  Why?  That is the question facing Nayland Smith.  the clumsily telegraphed twist is that "X" is actually Adolph Hitler, who did not die in the Berlin Fuhrerbunker in 1945.  Fu Manchu plots to use Hitler to conquer the world.

Ask me if I regret spoiling the ending for you.  I don't.

It's only 26 minutes, 26 seconds out of your life:

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

MARGARET WHITING (1924-2011)

Today marks the 100th birthday of popular singer Margaret Whiting.  she came to music naturally -- her father was the composer of such songs as "Hooray for Hollywood," "On the Good Ship Lollipop," and "Ain't We Got Fun?"; her sister and her aunt were both recorded singers.  At age seven, Margaret performed for Johnny Mercer, who later signed her as one of Capitol Records first recording artists.  She was the featured singer in a number of orchestra, including Billy Butterfield's Orchestra and Paul Weston and His Orchestra.  in 1945, she began recording under her own name, accumulating a pile of hits.  She was dubbed "The Queen of the Jukebox."  Margaret and her sister Barbara starred as themselves in the television sitcom Those Whiting Girls (1955-1957).  She was a popular guest star on television through the 1970s.  Her fourth and final husband was a former gay pornography star whom she married when she was 70 and he was 48; they were married for 15 years until his death.  She died at age 86 from natural causes.

"Moonlight in Vermont"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dRw_F3f7ZA

"That Old Black Magic"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93gaxEyNT6o

"It Might As Well Be Spring" (with The Paul Weston Orchestra)

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

"A Tree in the Meadow"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7zn1r_bvaU

"Slipping Around" (with jimmy Wakely)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilLmVZ9awU

"All Through the Day"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqt2QZyydGo

"In Love in Vain"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOJf50iXovQ

"Guilty"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_UNuiqOX7o

"Pretending"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxr0lU-UIXo

"Oh, But I Do"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGs69zpUYLA

"Baby It's Cold Outside" (with Johnny Mercer}

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

"Blind Date" (with Bob Hope)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UFn_2PSMmk

"far Away Places"

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

"Silver Bells" (with Jimmy Wakely)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkc6xFJC1lU

"The Wheel of Hurt"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_d4TQ_7KXY

"My Foolish Heart"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXRwPxyL3-w

"Till We Meet Again"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLlJmSOMP1s

HYMN TIME

 Hank Williams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyiGHFGCf2U

OKAIE, MASTER OF THE JUNGLE (DECEMBER-ISH 1945

 Thousands of years' [sic] in the days of the great reptiles, there existed a race of people known as the Terraboolies.  The centre of this empire was at Terr. These warlike people were ruled by a king named Naisagood, whose armies were forever terrorizing the neighbouring countries. [sic]  Con quering [sic] and enslaving them [.]  The time came when a section of Naisagood's army. [sic] which disliked him, decided to revolt.  They planned that in the event of war, those of the army who are discontented, should revolt and desert to the enemy.

The basic thing we have to unpack here is that proofreaders in 1945 Australia were in short supply.  

Okaie, Master of the Jungle was printed by the Offset Publishing Company and contained three stories, the first of which featured Okaie.  The remaining two stories featured Jimmy Weston, Ace animal Cameraman and The Outlaws.  Okaie was the only character to have any further adventures -- which is just as well, since the story ends mid-stream.  Okaie and The Outlaws were both created by Geoff Litchfield, a commercial artist who worked mainly in animated advertising and the theatre, Litchfield, who sign the Okaie story as "Golly" and The Outlaws as "Gosh," would draw only two other Okaie stories.  

The artist for Jimmy Weston was Len Lawson (1927-2003), a best-selling comic book artist who created The Lone Avenger, Diana, Queen of the Apes, and the Hooded Rider.  Lawson comic book career essentially ended in 1954 when he took five models for a remote photo shoot, bound them, sexually assaulted them and raped two.   He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to 14 years once Australia ended the death penalty; Lawson had asked to continued writing The Lone Avenger, but the publisher wisely refused.  Lawson was released from prison in 1961 after serving half his sentence.  The following year, he assaulted and killed a 16-year-old girl, then took several hostages at a girls grammar school, killing one 15-year-old girl.  For this he was sentenced to life in prison, where he attacked a female member of a dance group for inmates; the woman was severely traumatized and ended killing herself six years later.  Lawson died in prison, certainly none too soon.

AUSTRALIA...WHERE IF NATURE DOESN'T KILL YOU, THE COMIC BOOK ARTISTS MAY.

Anyway, back to Okaie.  He's one of those who is revolting against the king.  Word of the rebellion gets to Prince Karrakar of of the Wiebakkie, who decides to consult the jungle witch doctor -- the High Priest of Terr -- who, in turn, decides to employ magic.  (This is all done in a very vague and confusing manner.)  Okaie rides a zebra into battle, with the rebel army riding brontosaurs.  Did I mention that Okaie has enlisted the help of the ape men?  If can follow the plot threads and the l;ack of logic, you're a better person than I am.  The artwork is pretty nifty in areas, though.

Jimmy Weston has a pencil-thin mustache and wears a pith helmet.  Working for the Australian Imperial Film Corp., he is in Africa to get some special shots for an upcoming film.  With him is Doc Harvey, a jungle explorer, and Betty Winthrop, Jimmy's pretty new assistant.  A lion sneaks into camp and attacks Doc but Jimmy shoots it in the nick of time.  The next day, Jimmy and Betty see a giant ape being crushed by a huge python.  Since jimmy doesn't like snakes, he shoots the python,  the ape is grateful and motion Jimmy and the group to follow him into the jungle, where -- after Jimmy is almost devoured by a crocodile -- the ape leads Jimmy to the cave city of his tribe and show him a treasure of gold and gems.  Well, hot doggies!  That treasure sure can do some good for people in need.  However, a German (this is just after WWII, remember) guide decides to get the treasure for himself.  The German makes the mistake of pointing a gun at Jimmy, who is now the giant ape's best friend...  Some pretty nifty artwork from a not-so-nifty artist.

As the result of a temporary breakdown of social life which followed the Second World War, outlaws have become. [sic] active on a large scale:  [sic] and well organized.   In the farming districts of the great Out-back, certain progressive elements of society have organized themselves into peoples committees to deal with the menace.  "Jack the Officer" has been appointed chief of the secret police, and is hard on the trail of the "Kellymen", a small gang of whom, have slipped away, after a futile attempt has been made to bomb them in their hide-out on the river.

In the meantime, Sheriff Joe Donz is shot and killed and Jack the Officer is tasked with finding the killer...

This story is not quite as confusing as Okaie's, and the artwork is acceptable.

Throw a shrimp on the barbie and settle down to enjoy:   https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=90864&comicpage=&b=i