MR. RISK #2 (DECEMBER 1950)

 "Something New in Private Eyes!  MR. RISK who answers only the pleas of the Doomed!"

He was billed as a man without fear, a private detective who had no superpowers and who donated all his fees to charity.  Created by George Mandel for Our Flag Comics #5 (April 1942), he then appeared in 35 continuous is of Super-Mystery Comics (July 1942-July 1949) and three issues of Four Favorites July 1942, February 1943, May 1943) before landing his own title, of sorts.  In the jangled world of comic book numbering and retitling, the title was All Romances for five (maybe six) issues before morphing into Mr. Risk #1 (or maybe #2 -- I said it gets confusing), then switched titles again to Men Against Crime for issue #3 and stayed there through issue #7 before coming back as Mr. Risk #7 (yeah, there were two #7s), after which it apparantly fell off the face of the Earth.

M r. Risk was a suave guy, evidently rich -- he wore an ascot, smoked a pipe, and wore dinner jackets or a lounging robe.  He relied on his fists and his intelligence; I don't know if he ever fired a gun.  consider him more of a tough Ellery Queen than a Mike Hammer type of PI.  He would help anyone in trouble and they would end up paying a ton of cash, which he promptly donated to various charities.  In the beginning he was assisted by his faithful servant, the hulking, ever-loyal Abdul, who stayed with him through the Forties, although he is missing from the later comic books; it should be noted that when we first met Abdul, he appeared willing to shoot anything moving.

After his original appearance by George Mandel, Mr. Risk was drawn by various artists, including Joe Gallagher, Harvey Kurtzman, Bill Savage, Warren Kremer, and Sy Grudko; artists for the peripatetic Mr. Risk Ken Rice and John Buscema.

In "The Case of the Psycopathic [sic] Lady," Mr. Risk rescues a girl from an insane asylum and proves that her "respectable" stepfather is actually a major crime boss.  For his efforts he is rewarded $5000, which goes to the Cerebral Palsy Fund.  In should be noted that Dr. Fredric Wertham in his crusade against the evils of comics books, pointed out the misspelling of "psychopathic" in the story title as proof, once again, that comics were harmful to children.

"The Case of the Jinxed Air Line" involved an attempt to sabotage a small airline to commit insurance fraud.  This time Mr. Risk netted $2000, which went to the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fund.

That's it for Mr. Risk in this issue, although there are two other stories:  one featuring Kirk Mason ("The Forgetful Chorus Girl," drawn by Gene Colon) and on featuring Poke Bancroft ("Seeds of Destruction," drawn by Frank giusto), as well as a two-page unsigned text story ("The Trap").

Have fun with this issue.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=23300

BOILEAU-NARCEJAC 'S OBSESSION ON BBC RADIO (JANUARY 17, 1976)

Pierre Boileau (1906-1989) and "Thomas Narcejac" (Pierre Ayraud, 1908-1998), writing as Boileau-Narcejac, were helped create the sub-genre of French crime fiction, eventually penning 43 novels, 100 short stories, and four plays.   Noted for their ingenious plots and creating atmospheres of disorientation and fear, they were masters of psychological suspense.  Some of their best-known work was successfully filmed, notably as Les Diaboliques (1955) and Vertigo (1958 and 1996).

Their fourth published novel, Dantre les morts ("Among the Dead"), 1954, was translated as The Living and the Dead (1956) and, more notably, Vertigo (1958).  It was adapted for BBC Radio 4 FM as Obsession by Michael Voysey and directed by Martin Jenkins.  

"A man is terrified of heights, a woman is possessed by the sprit of her great-grandmother -- she kills herself by jumping from a church steeple, but is she really dead?  The man becomes completely and tragically 'obsessed' with her 'ghost.' "

Starring Peter Jeffrey, Sarah Badel, and Nigel Stock.

Enjoy.

https://archive.org/details/pierre-boileau-and-thomas-narcejac-obsession

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE MAGIC WHITE SUIT

 "The Magic White Suit" by Ray Bradbury  (first published in the Saturday Evening Post, October 4, 1958; republished as "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" in  Bradbury's collections The Day It Rained Forever [1959], A Medicine for Melancholy [1959], The Vintage Bradbury [1965], The Stories of Ray Bradbury [1980], Fahrenheit 451:  Short Stories [1983), and Classic Stories 2 [1990]; republished in The Saturday Evening Post Stories 1958, edited anonymously and also titled in a slightly abbreviated version The Saturday Evening Post Stories Volume Five [both 1959]; reprinted as "The White Suit" in Argosy [UK], May 1959; it aired as a 1957 and a 1959 television play [scripted by Bradbury] reworked as a short play and published in Bradbury's The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other Plays, 1972; somewhere along the line it also became a stage musical [written by Bradbury]; it was also a 1998 American fantasy television movie directed by Stuart Gordon and scripted by Bradbury -- due a screw-up on the part of producer Roy E. Disney, it was released as a direct -to-video and not a theatrical film.)

Yesterday was National Banana Split Day so my daughters and UI went out and had -- you guessed it -- banana splits.  That got me thinking about ice cream, which, in turn, got me thinking about this story.

Bradbury grew up poor and until his late teens he wore hand-me-downs from his father or his older brothers.  While living in a Los Angeles tenement in this twenties, he would notice friends would borrow clothes to travel to Mexico and would, at time, pool their resources to buy clothes.

And that's the story.  Five friends pool their money and buy a suit to share that none of them could afford on their own.  How it affects them and what happens next help make this one of Bradbury's most powerful stories.

'Nuf said.

For the curious, the story can be found at the link below:

https://ia801405.us.archive.org/10/items/HeliganSecretsOfTheLostGardens/BradburyRay-TheWonderfulIceCreamSuit.pdf

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.