Looking at copies of Jumbo Tales I was first struck by how lush these covers were (and who could refuse buying them?), but secondly how each followed a formula of construction I like to call the Triangle. There is some variation, but the most popular examples feature three main focal points set in a triangle. These included the star hero or heroine, a threat (an animal or villain attacking), and a victim to be saved. The artist could vary which was largest in the picture but all three had to appear within that triangle. This got me looking back. When did this start? Did all jungle-themed comics have this cover formula?
I started with the oldest comics, the Tarzan newspaper strip that began in 1929 (the Ape Man actually came late to comic books in 1947). Typically, especially during the film cover era, these were not "triangular" but usually a double image, Tarzan striking a pose with a weapon or object in his hand. The publicity stills of Lex Barker or Gordon Scott were easily produced and promoted the film's main asset, the actor. The later covers were paintings and required more animals and fantastic villains to be featured in them.
But when Real Adventures Publishing entered the scene in 1938 with their general audience comic, Jumbo Comics, they didn't know that within their second year every cover would be a jungle cover, as their character Sheena, Queen of the Jungle rose to prominence in their stable of characters. By #18 (August 1940), the superhero covers were gone and the jungle would be featured on every issue until #159 in May 1952. That's 141 issues over 12 years! But that's just Jumbo Comics. Their sister magazine Jungle Comics, featuring Kaanga, would run 163 issues from January 1946 to Summer 1954. And then there was Kaanga, 20 issues on his own from Spring 1949-Summer 1954, with every cover a jungle triangle.
The triangle had become the norm. Whether it was Rulah, Zoot Comics, Zegra, Jungle Lil, Jo-Jo, White Princess of the Jungle, or Yarmak in Australia, they all used the same formula. The one exception was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, a solo comic that for 18 issues ran from Winter 1942 to Winter 1952-3. The Sheena covers sometimes returned to the Tarzan-style double image, with Sheena holding a weapon. Her star had risen high enough she could stand with the Ape Man.
One variation of the triangle is what I call the Square. This works the same as the Triangle, but the artist sneaks in a fourth figure, usually a second animal, such as two hyenas rather than one, or a mount upon which the hero/heroine rides, such as an elephant or zebra. The Square came along in later years as the cover artists must have been quite bored by the typical cover of Sheena throwing herself from a tree limb to intervene with an evil hunter or tribesman.
Where did the Jungle Triangle come from? Was Jumbo Comics #15 (the first full Sheena cover in May 1940) the first to use it? Not at all. I got to thinking about the very first Tarzan illustration of them all, Clinton Pettee's cover for Tarzan of the Apes (All-Story, October 1912). There was the triangle! Tarzan straddling a lion, about to plunge his knife into its side, while on the ground, John Clayton lies, the intended victim.
And of course, the jungle pulps later became jungle comics, as companies like Real Adventures phased out or doubled up their pulps - like Jungle Stories - with comics. These too had covers and what do you know... the Triangle! Clinton Pettee started it, the pulps and comics continued it, and even Frank Frazetta, the master painter, used it in 1952 for his Thun'da comics, which he abandoned when the strip dropped the caveman and dinosaurs angle. Frazetta returned to it in the 1960s when he came to paint his Tarzan covers like Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. The fierce lion attacking Jane is about to get a surprise as Tarzan comes to the rescue.
Later jungle comics such as Shanna the She-Devil and Ka-Zar did not use this formula as often (what would be so old-fashioned by the 1970s), but rather the typical Marvel-style cover. DC's Tarzan and Korak under Joe Kubert harkened back more to the old days, but Kubert adds a sizzle to the old formula that makes it his own. The most modern jungle girl covers by Dave Stevens or Frank Cho look more like publicity stills to a Sheena movie or pin-up art. The triangle lives on but only in subtle ways.
GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.
The Northern was Canada’s one true contribution to genre literature. The majority of Northerns are tales of fur trappers or gold miners: strong men and women pitied against the rough conditions of life in the wilderness. One book amongst these tales of hunting, trapping, and the lives of the animals that dwell in quiet places belongs to another genre as well. The book is November Joe (1913) by Hesketh Prichard. Despite being a Northern of the highest order, it is also a detective novel, or rather, a collection of detective stories.
Prichard's detective possesses the Sherlockian ability to see what others do not: "...Where a town-bred man would see nothing but a series of blurred footsteps in the morning dew, an ordinary dweller in the woods could learn something from them, but November Joe can often reconstruct the man who made them, sometimes in a manner and with an exactitude that has struck me as little short of marvelous."
The character of November Joe is incredible, but no more incredible than the man who created him. Hesketh Prichard was the son of a British officer who died weeks before his son's birth. Raised in England by his mother, he trained for the Law but became a writer instead. Through his acquaintance with JM Barrie, Prichard and his mother went to work for Cyril Arthur Pearson, the owner of Pearson's Magazine in 1897. Under the pseudonym E and H Heron, the mother-son team wrote a dozen tales of ghostbreaker Flaxman Low. But Hesketh was not limited to horror stories. He wrote books about hunting, sports, and his travels. These caught the attention of President Teddy Roosevelt who called Prichard's Through Trackless Labrador (1911) the best book of the season.
With the coming of World War I, Prichard enlisted as an "eyewitness officer" in charge of war correspondents. His observations at the front led him to lower the number of British casualties from snipers. He developed several techniques to locate German snipers, including inventing the dummy head and improved trench design. He also spent his time and his own money improving British sniping rifles and techniques. For this he was given the Distinguished Service Order in 1917. To say the least, Hesketh Pricard knew guns, shooting, and the wilds of Canada; all part and parcel of the story of November Joe.
November Joe begins with our Watson, Mr. James Quaritch, leaving work for three months to go shoot moose. His friend, Sir Andrew McLerrick, recommends November Joe as his guide. Upon arriving in the woods of Quebec where Joe lives, Quaritch is asked to deliver a message to Joe. The Provincial Police offer him fifty dollars if he can find the killer of a dead trapper. The hunting trip off, Quaritch convinces Joe to let him tag along.
THE CASES OF NOVEMBER JOE
"The Crime at Big Tree Portage" gives Quaritch plenty of opportunities to see November Joe in action. The two men go to the lumber camp at Big Tree Portage where the dead man, Henry Lyon, lies. Joe quickly accesses the few clues, seeing that the killer pulled up in a canoe, called to the man, and then shot him, leaving virtually no evidence. But Joe isn't stymied. He backtracks Lyon to his camp before the murder. Here he finds two beds of spruce boughs and evidence of the identity of a second man. Going to the small town of Amiel, November Joe finds out the background of Lyon's life, the names of all the men away trapping, and quickly narrows his suspect list to one man. He and Quaritch visit the man and quickly get a confession. When they learn of his reasons for the killing, Joe helps him destroy evidence, making it impossible for the police to follow the trail. The fifty dollars is not as important to Joe as his sense of backwoods justice.
"The Seven Lumberjacks" has local tree-fallers being robbed by a gang of thieves. False evidence has them accusing their boss, Mr. Close, of the deed, but Joe's careful examination of the ground tells him that the gang is only one man, and one of the lumberjacks. He sets a trap too tempting for the thief to resist.
"The Black Fox Skin" has a widow, Sally Rone, seeking out Joe because someone is robbing her traps: a ploy to force her to marry or starve. One of the pelts that is taken is a black fox pelt worth eight hundred dollars. Suspicion falls on Val Black, one of Sally's suitors, when he is found with stolen furs and a condemning bullet is found in Sally's cabin. November Joe suspects a frame-up. He sets a trap for the culprit and Sally and Val are free to marry.
"The Murder at the Duck Club" is almost an English cosy with its select club members and enclosed space. Young Ted Galt is accused of murdering Judge Harrison while out shooting geese. The tracks do nothing to clear the fiance of Harrison's daughter, Eileen. Instead of tracks, Joe examines the guns that have been so damning for Galt, as only he uses size 6 shot in his shotgun. Joe gleans a different motive and quickly rounds up the killer, someone else with a grudge against the judge.
"The Case of Miss Virginia Plank" has November and Quaritch looking for a murdered girl. November's careful tracking proves the girl is not dead, but kidnapped. Later, after meeting the kidnappers (a big man who talked and a small one who didn't), November is onto the truth. The tracks of the small man reveal his moccasins are too large. November knows that Virginia Plank was the small man and the kidnapping is a set-up. With a knowledge of civilized girls and a little poking around, he identifies the girl's accomplice, Hank Harper, and finds her at his cabin. Virginia explains why she pulled the stunt, and like in "The Crime at Big Tree Portage," November's sense of justice outweighs his sense of law.
"The Hundred Thousand Dollar Robbery" has Joe following a missing banker named Atterson, who has absconded with $100,000 in securities. Joe finds the man, but realizes that he has been robbed in turn and in fact used by another to commit the crime. He deduces who would have been able to turn Atterson's head and tracks down the woman, getting the money back.
"The Looted Island" has a fox farmer named Stafford robbed of $15,000 in fur. His employee, Aleut Sam, is also missing. Joe agrees to track down the culprits for ten percent of the furs' value. The island is frozen and icy, so there aren't any tracks to follow. Instead, November examines the fox pens and the cabin where the robbers camped out for a few days. This produces some information, like the fact that all the carcasses are from red foxes, not black. Someone has taken the foxes and tried to make it look like they were killed. Before they can act, the three men notice smoke coming from the neighboring island. Here they find Sam who tells a story of being stranded for eleven days. November examines his campfire and knows he is lying. The ashes indicate only a two-day stay, as Sam has no axe with him. Stafford forces the truth out of Sam and the men are off to Jurgenson's fur farm. The Swede can’t deny the evidence November provides and agrees to return the black foxes and two extra for their trouble.
"The Mystery of Fletcher Buckman" is a traditional train murder mystery. Buckman is an oil expert traveling with his wife. He is to make a report that will either increase or decrease certain stocks. The man is found dead, hanging like a suicide. November quickly puts this idea to rest for he finds fingermarks on the man's throat where he was strangled. The report has also been stolen. A man who had been arguing with Buckman, a down-and-out oil worker named Knowles, looks like the killer, but November proves this untrue based on the clues in the murdered man's car. Taking all the evidence and geography in mind, November leads the provincial police to the post office where the killer is about to mail the stolen report. This story breaks one of the classic Ronald Knox's fair-play rules: "The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story...". The culprit is never even named, let alone known to November Joe. The story is more about proving Knowles innocent and tracking the killer.
The remaining chapters, "Linda Petersham," "Kalmacks," "The Men of the Mountains," "The Man in the Black Hat," "The Capture," and "The City or the Woods" tell the final tale of November Joe. (The previous chapters were obviously short stories sold to magazines, and now Prichard is attempting to give the book a final episode to fill it out.) Quaritch is approached by an old family friend, Linda Petersham. She's worried about her father, who has purchased a large hunting concession called the Kalmacks. In fairness, he paid out the local squatters, but someone has sent a death threat if Petersham doesn't pay another $5000. Quaritch brings in November Joe and all four are off to the wilds, surrounded by lurking danger.
Upon their arrival, Petersham is informed that one of his game wardens, Bill Worke, was shot through the knee while at Senlis Lake. November's tracking about the lake finds a 45.75 caliber cartridge. November has Petersham dump two loads of sand from the lake around the house to improve tracking. This keeps the blackmailers away for a while, but eventually they make their demands that the $5000 dollars be left at Butler's Cairn. The demand comes from a masked man who holds up the other game warden, Ben Puttick, at rifle point. Petersham doesn't want to pay and Joe agrees. He slips out the window and covers Butler's Cairn, but no one shows. This makes him suspicious so he sets up a plan for the following day.
November leaves for Senlis Lake, making sure everyone knows where he is going. Shots are heard and Quaritch runs to the lake to find Joe shot. Together they look at the body of the shooter, a man in a black hat with a beard. Joe has killed him with a shot to the throat. Quaritch carries Joe back to the cabin where he reveals that the mole in their group is Puttick. The dead shooter is identified as Dandy Tomlinson, who with his brother, Muppy (both names worthy of Jack London), devised the plan with Puttick.
Mystery solved, Petersham tries to show his gratitude to November by offering to set him up in business. Linda encourages November to take the offer so that she can marry him. In the end, November Joe refuses, returning to his woods. Prichard leaves just enough of an opening for a sequel if the book should sell well. (As no sequel ever happened, I guess it did not.)
What struck me as interesting about this ending is how, in essence, it is the same as the final pages of Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Burroughs would write his most famous novel around the same time, so I'm not suggesting either author had any influence on the other. What I am suggesting is that the theme of both is that the Natural Man refuses to be corrupted or tamed by civilization. Tarzan returns to his jungle, more ape than man. The difference is that Tarzan of the Apes was a huge success followed by twenty-three sequels. The first of those was The Return of Tarzan, in which Tarzan and Jane are united at last. Jane and Tarzan build a ranch and remain in Africa. This is a choice that November Joe refuses to think of for Linda Petersham. He knows she is a creature of civilization and will never be happy living the mean existence of a trapper's wife.
GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.
Noel and I are joined by guest Melissa Kaercher (A Reel Education, The Sound and the Foley) to discuss Edgar Rice Burroughs' sole attempt at financing a Tarzan serial himself (with co-producer/actor Ashton Dearholt). We talk about the extremely troubled production, from its poor planning and even poorer sound to its Mayan space queens and wife-swapping producers. Was anything good able to come of the mess? Tune in and find out!
Noel and I are joined by my pal and fellow Nerd Lunch Star Wars panelist Kay (Fan Girl Blog, Hyperspace Theories) to talk about MGM's second Tarzan film. Inspired by King Kong and a pivotal film in the history of the Hays Code, Tarzan and His Mate offers a lot to discuss and we dig in good.
Spent some time this week revisiting some of my favorite movies from 2016. Some of them were new to David and Diane, but all of them I wanted another look it.
I was especially eager to watch Jane Got a Gun again. I loved it last year, but lukewarm reviews by other folks made me wonder if I just wasn't in a really good mood when I watched it the first time. The answer is: nope! It's great.
I love how it unfolds in three different time periods with everything leading to a big showdown between Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor. Joel Edgerton helps Portman, but where most movies would have had him take over and become the hero, Jane lets Portman hold onto that role. She is awesome and the movie is awesome. Glad I put it in my Top 5 last year.
The Legend of Tarzan (2016)
Liked it even better the second time. Alexander Skarsgård is an excellent Tarzan; probably the best ever, though we'll need to finish Greystoked before I can make that claim. Legend isn't a faithful adaptation of a Burroughs novel and it even changes some basic elements of Tarzan lore, but each change is considered and smart and exactly what's needed to keep the legend fresh and alive.
My only complaint is that the CG animals could be more convincing, but I'm thrilled with the story and the characters.
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
My favorite Kelvin Star Trek movie. That's not saying anything in comparison to Into Darkness, but I'm a big fan of the 2009 reboot and this is better. These are the characters - not growing into the people that I know and love - but already as I know and love them. Plus Jaylah. Plus everyone is 300% more kickass than they were in the original series. (And that's not because the original series wasn't kickass. It totally was. But not everyone got to do it back then and they certainly didn't get to do it directed by Justin Lin.)
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)
After watching this again and loving it just as much, I realized that it's directed by the same guy who's directing Thor: Ragnarok. Which makes me 1000x more excited for that movie than I already was. Taika Waititi knows how to make stuff funny, but also full of heart. If I ever meet him, I'm going to have someone take a selfie of us.
The Island (1980)
This has been on my list for so long. Michael Caine in a horror/thriller about modern-day pirates who dress as Golden Age pirates? And written by Peter Benchley? Yes, please.
It starts well enough with some scary and gruesome boat attacks. Caine plays a reporter named Blair Maynard who wants to investigate the disappearances, but he gets stuck with his kid for the weekend and has to take the boy along. Maynard's a pretty lousy dad, but Caine plays him with charm and it's clear that he loves his son Justin, even if he doesn't really know what to do with him. The movie is pretty good while it's about the pair of them traveling around the Caribbean and trying to bond. In a cruel twist of fate, it's not until the pirates show up that the movie sucks.
I can see how this could be a fun adventure novel, but putting them on screen makes it impossible to take the pirates seriously as a threat. They're bloodthirsty and dangerous, but also unbelievable and goofy. How their civilization has been able to survive all of these centuries is never seriously addressed, so they come off as deadly historical reenactors. It's as silly as it sounds.
Also silly is the drama around Justin's joining the pirate gang. There's a great story to be told about a kid who deserts the already shaky relationship he has with his father to do some horrible things with a bunch of new friends. How far can a child go before a parent gives up hope of bringing them back? Unfortunately, this isn't that story. Justin's transformation from normal kid to Lord of the Flies is way too quick and the movie doesn't really care whether we believe it or not.
Yellowbeard (1983)
The '80s were full of pirate movies that didn't work as well as they should have. I'm sure I'll get back around to some more of them later, but Yellowbeard showed up on my TiVo, so I gave it another look.
I was so disappointed back in the day. You take most of Monty Python and put them in a movie with Cheech & Chong and most of the cast of Young Frankenstein. I don't care what the movie's about, that's got to be hilarious. Making it about pirates is bonus. But Yellowbeard isn't as funny as its individual parts promise. And when I first saw it years ago, the letdown was unrecoverable. I hated it.
Watching it again, I laughed quite a bit. As Stacia says at She Blogged By Night, "Yellowbeard is a complete disaster, but it’s a funny disaster." She has a great analysis of what went wrong (and what went right) and links to still further information from Yellowbeard's director, so I highly recommend checking out her review. I'll probably never watch it again, but I'm glad to have it redeemed at least a little in my memory.
High Road to China (1983)
Another one that I wanted to like back in the day better than I did. It suffered by getting compared to Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's a comparison that the marketing of the movie asked for, but it's not the best way of approaching the film. I haven't done an exhaustive history of it, but I have no doubt that it was greenlit thanks to Raiders' success. High Road had been in development since the late '70s though, so it's conception was inspired by neither Indiana Jones nor '30s movie serials. High Road is an homage to a later genre: mid-century war/adventure movies.
It's telling that it was originally going to be directed by John Huston and was ultimately directed by Brian Hutton, because it has way more in common with The African Queen and Kelly's Heroes than The Adventures of Smilin' Jack. I still don't completely love High Road to China, because I never really care about whether Selleck and Armstrong get together, but I do appreciate it as a globe-trotting adventure with a war movie finale.
Argoman, the Fantastic Superman (1967)
Went to see Mystery Science Theater 3000 Live and this was the movie. I'm probably breaking some kind of social contract by telling you, because it was billed as a Secret Surprise Film. (There were two shows - an early and a late - and because of schedules, Diane went to the early one - which was Eegah - and I went to the late. David went to both.) Joel Hodgson was there to MC and he said that he wanted the second film to be a secret because he feels the show works best when the audience doesn't know anything about the movie. I'm only telling you, because the chances are really, really tiny of someone reading this who also has tickets to an upcoming late show of the tour. If I've spoiled it for you, I'm sorry. You're in for a great show, though.
It's hard to judge Argoman the Fantastic Superman in The Incredible Paris Incident on its own merits outside of the experience of the show that I saw it in, but I think it's safe to say that it's awful. It's a late '60s Italian film inspired by James Bond and Adam West's Batman. Mostly Bond, if Bond was the millionaire playboy secret-identity of a superhero. (Unlike Batman, Argoman the Fantastic Superman actually has powers. They're not defined very well, but telekinesis is part of it. And also unlike '60s Batman, it took me a long time to decide if Argoman was a good guy or a bad guy. That's probably the Bond influence again.) Calling it "camp" implies some intentionality that I'm not sure was there, but let's give it the benefit of the doubt. If you like horrible Italian cinema from the '60s, it's bonkers enough to make it worth tracking down - whether or not you have wisecracking robots to watch it with.
Windjammer (1937)
It's a decent idea. A lawyer finagles his way onto a yacht to serve a subpoena to a well-protected tycoon who's leaving the country on a race across the Pacific. The execution is miserable though, with the lawyer's seeming super ineffectual and the tycoon's being infuriatingly entitled in a way that I think is supposed to seem whimsically charming. Maybe. I had a hard time telling what kind of tone the movie's going for.
Complicating things is the tycoon's equally entitled daughter who hates the lawyer for obvious reasons until she suddenly doesn't and we enter romantic comedy territory. I think maybe the whole movie is supposed to be a romantic comedy? That would explain why it doesn't really care about how horrible the woman's dad is. Anyway, I'm sorry I watched it.
Johnny Angel (1945)
A case study on why genres are important. I've got a few wishlist searches on my TiVo, so sometimes I record things and I don't really remember why. I bet I grabbed this one because it's about a sea captain investigating the death of his sea captain father and there's gold involved. But that's all I knew about it, so going in I was expecting some kind of adventure story. Which means that I got impatient with how slowly and moodily the story was unfolding.
When that happens, I usually stop the movie for a minute and do some research. Learning that Johnny Angel is a film noir (that just so happens to be about a sea captain and some gold in New Orleans) made all the difference in the world. I started it up again, confident that I could enjoy it for what it was. Expectations are weird.
It's pretty good. None of the cast is especially remarkable except Hoagy Carmichael as a really cool cabbie, but the mystery is good and the movie is awesomely atmospheric. I like how the mystery unfolds, too, with some pleasant (if not especially shocking) twists.
Black Bart (1948)
Between this and Frontier Gal, I'm pretty much done with Yvonne De Carlo Westerns. Or at least with seeking out Westerns specifically because she was in them. She may be Lily Munster - and she's certainly gorgeous - but man does she play some miserable characters. Black Bart isn't focused on rape the way that Frontier Gal was, but it's still about a supposedly strong-willed woman who bends to a man's wishes simply because he's the man.
In this case, the man is a stagecoach robber named Black Bart. He's kind of a Zorro character except that he deserves to be an outlaw. In fact, his master plan for robbing stagecoaches really puts him in the supervillain category. And yet I think we're supposed to find it tragic when he gets what's coming to him. I don't know. If he's supposed to be charming and likable, then the movie makes a huge miscalculation, because he's a boring weasel. I'm glad to see him fall and only sorry that he drags De Carlo into it. I guess it doesn't actually end too badly for her, but that's only because the movie completely forgets about her at some point and never comes back to her again.
Fort Apache (1948)
Got interested in watching John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy" as a trilogy. I've seen Fort Apache before and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, but I have no memory of Rio Grande. Or maybe I've seen it, but I'm getting it confused with the million other Westerns named after rivers. Anyway, I've certainly never watched the three movies close together enough to understand why people consider them a trilogy, so I'm gonna work on that.
Fort Apache is good, if frustrating. It's frustrating in the same way that Mutiny on the Bounty is. I don't have patience for rigid, narrow-minded characters who have authority over more level-headed people. The fear of that scenario playing out in real life is a big reason that I'd never fit well into a military organization. But Fonda is great at the role and the script gives him some humanizing moments in addition to the maddeningly bull-headed ones. I end up feeling bad for the guy, which is remarkable considering how much I dislike him.
Shirley Temple sure is a joy, though, as Fonda's daughter. And I like John Agar more in this than I usually do. John Wayne is typically watchable, too. So as this kind of military drama goes, Fort Apache is the best I've seen.
The Bribe (1949)
Finally, I checked off another Vincent Price noir movie with The Bribe. Robert Taylor plays a government agent investigating a ring of airplane engine smugglers (?!) and Price is the (not really a spoiler, because it's Vincent Price) mastermind behind the operation. Ava Gardner and her husband (John Hodiak) are suspects, but Taylor gets too close to Gardner and his loyalties are compromised. Charles Laughton is Price's front man in the operation; mostly there to give voice to Taylor's conundrum by reminding everyone of the stakes as often as possible.
Taylor is never a compelling lead. He even makes Ivanhoe boring, for goodness sake. I don't know that I've ever seen Ava Gardner in anything else, so I don't want to judge her too harshly for The Bribe. She's dull too, but that might be Taylor's rubbing off on her. Vincent Price is great, but he's barely in the thing, which leaves Laughton to do all the hard work. His character is purely there for exposition (and I guess a red herring, if you're super gullible), but he does fantastic things with it.
Kudos also to directors Robert Leonard and Vincente Minnelli for giving a mediocre story tons of style. The final showdown between Taylor and Price is unforgettable and there's a good reason that The Bribe was one of the movies edited into Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.
Song of the Week: "Goodbye" by Echosmith
I love the guitar in this and the chorus is amazing and hilarious: "When you finally find yourself... tell him I said, 'Goodbye.'"
This was an especially fun episode since Noel and I are joined by our mutual friend, writer Christopher Mills (Femme Noir, Gravedigger, Perils on Planet X, and the excellent blog Space: 1970). We also got to talk about a fun movie: the 12-chapter serial, Tarzan the Fearless, starring Buster Crabbe (Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon) and Julie Bishop (The Black Cat). It's also the first Tarzan film by legendary Tarzan producer Sol Lesser. Notice that I didn't say it was a good movie, but it was still fun to watch and even more fun to talk about.
In the latest episode of Greystoked, Noel and I welcome special guest, comics writer Ron Marz (Batman/Tarzan: Claws of the Catwoman, Korak the Killer) to talk about the first in the MGM/Weissmuller series: the iconic Tarzan the Ape Man.
Opening music from "Voo Doo Dance" by George Richelavie (arranged by Paul Marquardt and Fritz Stahlberg)
I've had this on the To Do list for a while now, because I wanted to watch it and then listen to the Cult Film Club episode about it. I loved Streets of Fire back in the day when I was working at the video store and could take it home as often as I wanted. I have no idea how many times I watched it. And I had no idea whether or not it would hold up.
Turns out, it does. There's a level of cheese to the dialogue that may be intentional, but that I didn't pick up in younger days. It works with the tone of the rest of the movie though, so if you lean into it, it's not a flaw. And the rest of the movie is all good stuff. The setting is a fun mix of 1950s and '80s. The songs are a great mixture of '80s rock anthems and rockabilly with a little Motown mixed in. And the characters are all memorable and cool, with Willem Dafoe being especially so. And I love how the plot - while simple - never goes exactly where you think it's going to.
They Came from Beyond Space (1967)
I almost like it. It's a decade late though and the goofy space invader plot would have been more charming in black-and-white and with '50s fashions. I had a hard time staying interested, but there's some fun stuff in it, to be sure.
The Mark of Zorro (1940)
I've seen it before, but never in such close proximity to the silent version or the Disney show and certainly not since reading the novel it's based on. And I'd kind of forgotten a lot about it, because I was shocked at how much it deviates from the book. It's not a faithful adaptation at all.
It's much more focused on Don Diego and I was also surprised at how little Zorro there is in it. When Diego does put on the costume it's exciting, but it kind of reminded me of superhero shows from the '70s where 90% of the show is the secret identity and then you'd get a couple of big scenes with the hero to make it worth watching.
Not that the Diego stuff is boring. There's a lot of drama and intrigue and some great character stuff. And the swords fights are extremely good, even when no one in them is wearing black.
Zorro (1957-61)
After wrapping up the Richard Anderson/Jolene Brand plot in a really lovely way, Season 2 abruptly and unceremoniously returns the main cast to Los Angeles in time for a few episodes with Cesar Romero as Don Diego's shifty, gold-digging uncle. There are still multi-episode storylines, but they don't flow from one to another the way earlier episodes did and there are a few that are just completely standalone.
I'm still digging the show; the cast makes sure of that and Zorro is as cool and swashbuckling a character as ever. I'm just not as blown away by it was I was in the first season.
The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
David and I have been listening to the Tarzan series on aubiobook as sort of extracurricular activity for Greystoked. Return of Tarzan is still one of my favorite Tarzan novels. I love how it shifts settings and even genres in the same story, going from romantic thriller to spy story to jungle adventure and on to fantasy. It introduces Tarzan's arch-enemy Rokoff as well as the Waziri allies and the infamous La of Opar.
I asked David if he wanted to take a break and listen to the Star Wars radio dramas (since they came up on the last Dragonfly Ripple), but he wanted to go right into Beasts of Tarzan. It makes sense. He was literally jumping up and down in his seat and laughing in glee at the final confrontation between Tarzan and Rokoff in Return.
Jam of the Week: "Make You Crazy" by Brett Dennen
Smooth and summery with a hint of reggae.
A new episode of Greystoked came out this week in which Noel and I wrap up the 1920s with David again as our guest. This time we talked about director Henry McRae's 15-chapter serial Tarzan the Tiger, starring Frank Merrill as Tarzan, Natalie Kingston as Jane, and Kithnou as Queen La of Opar. There's treasure, amnesia, and (thanks to this being a transitional film into the sound era) our first listen at a Tarzan yell.
As a fan of the Hunger Games books, I got irritated when the movies came out and snotty people were all, "I liked it better when it was called Battle Royale." Yes, yes, you're very hip. But it did put the movie on my radar, so I'm grateful for that. It's a good film.
I still don't think it's smart to compare Battle Royale and Hunger Games though. The similarities are striking, but superficial. They're both about dystopian futures where kids are forced to battle to the death for public entertainment, but each is trying to do something different. For Battle Royale, it's a brutal and memorable analogy for middle and high school. Instead of being so embarrassed that you could just die... well, you could just die.
But that's as deep as it goes. I like the characters in Battle Royale just fine, but they're all simple archetypes; characters we've seen a billion times in a billion different teen movies. Only this time they're trying to murder each other. I dig Battle Royale, but I was way more invested in Katniss and her choices.
The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Probably my favorite adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, though I should give The Omega Man another try. I still have problems with The Last Man on Earth, though. Vincent Price is great, as usual, but the other actors aren't convincing and the ending - while a fascinating idea - doesn't pay anything off. The movie seems to be a survival tale, but decides at the last minute that it's really a social commentary of some kind. Except that I'm not clear on what comment it's trying to make; certainly nothing that was set up earlier in the story. It's a pretty cool twist; I just wish it was a more powerful one.
Airplane! (1980)
We talked about Police Squad on a recent episode of Dragonfly Ripple and that got me wanting to share Airplane! with David. Finally pulled the trigger on that and it was a big hit. A lot of the jokes are dated cultural references, but for the most part it's timeless, goofy humor that still holds up.
Caddyshack (1980)
Airplane! got me thinking about other '80s comedies that David hasn't seen yet. And since he's a big fan of the original Ghostbusters, I figured some classic Bill Murray (directed by Harold Ramis, no less) was the way to go. And it was joyous. Caddyshack easily has my favorite roles for Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Ted Knight, and possibly for Rodney Dangerfield, too (though I need to give Back to School another look). That gopher puppet is adorable and the Kenny Loggins theme is second only to "Holiday Road." There are a couple of weird, pointless sidebar scenes to endure, but for the most part it's just one memorable gag after another.
Zorro (1957-61)
Still loving this show. This week some new villains were introduced with a multi-episode plot about stolen treasure that's being used to finance the Eagle's takeover of California. And while Zorro competently overcomes every individual threat, there's the growing sense that he's getting in over his head when it comes to the Eagle's larger organization. The stakes are raising nicely as we head towards the season finale.
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-93)
In the last couple of episodes with the younger of the two Young Indianas, the Jones family visits India and China. I quite liked the China episode in which the gang makes an excursion far into the countryside without Indy's dad and Indy comes down with typhoid. Even knowing that he has to make it, I was still impressed with the performances, especially by Ruth de Sosa as Indy's mom. She was convincingly terrified that her son was about to die. And though I grew impatient with her hesitation to try Chinese medicine, I understood every decision she made.
The India episode wasn't as touching, but it did make me realize how effective the educational component of the show is. I mentioned last week that I thought the Jones' discussion of philosophy was over-simplified. The show did the same thing in this episode while talking about world religions. But seeing it repeat that tactic made me realize that it's intentional. Like with the geographical and historical elements, the show gives just enough information to tease my curiosity. I've had to pause every single episode at some point to hop on my phone and research one of the characters. In this case, it was Jiddu Krishnamurthi and the fascinating Theosophy organization that made him famous.
Underground (2016-present)
Nearing the end of the first season and the show's getting rather heart-breaking. Some of my favorite characters aren't going to make it.
And others are making some hard decisions that I'm not on board with. I don't know what it says about me that I'd rather see a woman kill a man than have sex with him to buy his silence (especially when her husband is someone else I like), but I would. I don't like that kind of secret in a marriage that I've grown to admire, so I'm hoping that gets resolved quickly and doesn't sit and fester in order to propel more drama. It was something similar that killed my interest in Downton Abbey.
Totally willing to keep going for now, though. I'm still very invested in the surviving runaways and there's some folks who need some comeuppance that I really want to see.
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
I'm a slow reader, so I won't always have books to talk about each week, but as luck would have it, I finished three of them last week.
The Wind in the Willows is beautifully pastoral. Its opening chapters read like a series of short stories about the same, recurring characters. Since I was mostly familiar with Disney's very loose adaptation, I was surprised and pleased to find so much of the book's focus on Mole and Rat. They're pleasant characters who live in a pleasant place and Grahame's wonderful descriptions make me want to live there, too.
I love his prose and especially the observations he makes about human (or animal, I guess) nature. I was completely hooked as soon as I read Mole's thoughts about vacations: "...he somehow could only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working." Grahame gets me.
There are stories about hospitality and homesickness and curiosity and traveling and worship and they're all lovely. As they progress, Badger and Toad enter the tales and the stories start to become more connected, so there's a strong narrative pushing through by the end. That's the part that Disney latched onto, and it is entertaining, but it's not the best part to me. The earlier, quieter chapters are the ones that are going to stick with me for a long, long time.
Grandville: Mon Amour by Bryan Talbot
An excellent sequel to Talbot's Grandville. Like it's predecessor, it successfully combines mystery and political intrigue with some horror and lots of talking animals. I really enjoyed reading this so soon after finishing The Wind in the Willows, just because of how radically different they are using so many of the same building blocks.
Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan Omnibus by Various Creators
I knew that Dark Horse had an ongoing Tarzan series in the '90s, but I'd never read it and incorrectly assumed that it was like most ongoing comics series: more or less telling a continuing story of the adventures of a primary character. This omnibus collects the entire run, but it reads like an anthology of individual mini-series. Every few issues brings not only a change in creative teams, but in overall tone and genre. There's no house style connecting them.
Which can be a strength and it mostly works for the collection. I enjoyed some stories more than others, of course. My favorites were the ones with Tarzan in New York encountering a variety of historical figures and literary monsters. And I especially enjoyed the art of Thomas Yeates in the closing story, even if I wasn't as crazy about that story in which Tarzan travels to the future to fight creatures from Edgar Rice Burrough's The Moon Maid.
Jam of the Week: "You Don't Know" by Scarlett & Black
I recently head this playing in a Taco Bell and it brought back all kinds of memories. It was used in the 1987 Jon Cryer movie Hiding Out and was my second favorite song on that soundtrack (after the kd lang/Roy Orbison team-up on "Crying"). I don't know if you can even call Scarlett & Black a one-hit wonder, because this song wasn't much of a hit, but it holds up for me and I love how Robin Hild belts out the title lyrics towards the end.
I went into Rogue One just hoping for an entertaining movie that was different from the typical Star Wars experience, and that's exactly what I got. It's a great story and everything a prequel should be. My only disappointment was that I didn't connect with any of the characters as much as I wanted to. I feel empathy for many of them, appreciate the moral journey that Cassian goes on, enjoy what Saw Gerrera represents to the Rebel Alliance at large, and I really really like K-2SO. I just don't love any of these folks as much as I do Rey, Finn, and Poe.
9. Sing Street
I love the setting and the music. That's a lot of fun and the original songs are super catchy and sound right out of the '80s. I also really love the relationship between Conor and his older brother and the themes about firstborn children blazing trails for their younger siblings.
I'm not crazy about the assertion that success can only be found outside of Dublin, though. Especially since the movie has to ignore the existence of U2 in order to make that claim. It's a major omission for the sole purpose of forcing Conor down a particular path, when I'd much rather have seen him make a different choice anyway.
Very good movie, but as someone who adores director John Carney's Begin Again, I expected much more from his take on my favorite music genres.
8. Magnificent Seven
Another one that I went into more detail about on a podcast. Very nice update. I love the diversity in the cast and these actors are all compelling and great. I also love James Horner's score, especially how he suggests the original Elmer Bernstein music without simply dropping it in whole.
My issue with the movie is that it replaces the complex themes of the original with a straightforward revenge story. Peter Sarsgaard is great as the villain, but the character is so charmless and excessively evil (unlike Eli Wallach's Calvera in 1960) that he becomes less interesting.
Still, the way the heroes react to Sarsgaard's character is great and that's where the real story is anyway.
I liked it even more the second time I saw it. Everyone's motivations may be simplified from the original, but I don't like the characters any less for it. In fact, I like all of these Seven more than a couple of the originals.
7. Doctor Strange
Visually stunning with great performances. I loved the sense of humor. Strange has a similar character arc to Tony Stark, but it's different enough to stay interesting. Stark's ego and selfishness makes him charmingly careless while Strange is arrogant and often mean. The similarities seem intentional though and I love the movie's description of the mystical masters as essentially the Avengers of the spiritual world.
6. Legend of Tarzan
I was extremely skeptical after seeing the trailers, but I love this movie.
I love that it doesn't spend much time on Tarzan's very familiar origin, but relates only what it needs to in quick flashbacks sprinkled throughout the main story. It's made some minor changes to that - mostly around Jane's background - but for great reasons that improved her as a character.
And it's the characters that I love the most. This feels like Tarzan and Jane, but a mature, contemporary (even though it's set in the nineteenth century) Tarzan and Jane. They're clearly equals and Jane has a lot to do. She's technically the damsel in distress for quite a while, but the movie comments on that and subverts it. Margot Robbie can pretty much do no wrong at this point.
Alexander Skarsgård is a perfect Tarzan. He's big, he's physical, but most of all he's completely convincing as both English lord and wild man. It's awesome, because we meet him in London, then get to watch the civilization slowly fall off of him once he returns home to the jungle. It's simultaneously thrilling and also kind of heart-breaking to watch.
The various tribal people are also fantastic. Sidney Ralitsoele in particular plays an unbelievably handsome and charming ally. I expect to see a lot more of that guy.
I don't always know what I'm going to get from a Samuel L Jackson or Christoph Waltz performance. A lot of times, they're just doing their Samuel L Jackson and Christoph Waltz things, but every once in a while they'll really go all out for a character. I didn't expect Legend of Tarzan to be one of those times, frankly. I was expecting it to be just a big, dumb, heartless cash-grab with half-hearted performances. But everyone's put a lot of effort into it. It helps that they have strong characters to work with. Waltz' motivations are believable and go way beyond just being evil and destructive. And Jackson has a touching backstory that also gives him purpose in the film and explains his actions.
The writers not only get these characters; they also clearly love Burroughs' novels. This feels like a Burroughs adventure. From an alternate timeline perhaps, but the heart is there. And there are lots of references to Burroughs' stuff that I won't spoil.
I do have one minor issue and that's with the quality of the CG. It's not horrible, but it's not especially good either. I was able to overlook it though, because I was so pleased with everything else.
5. Captain America: Civil War
When Warner Bros announced their plans to fast-track the building of a DC cinematic universe, I was worried for two reasons. First, it would be headed up by the folks responsible for the problem-filled Man of Steel. But also, it sounded like WB was hoping to reap the benefits of a shared universe without putting in the years of character development that Marvel had. That's very clearly seen when I compare Batman v Superman with Civil War.
The movies have almost identical plots, with their villainous masterminds who manipulate heroes into fighting each other. But BvS feels forced and unnatural while Civil War is fun and organic. Everything that happens in Civil War flows out of motives and decisions that are believable because Marvel has spent several years exploring and growing these characters. I like all of these people and I understand why they do what they do, even when I don't agree with them.
But Civil War's success isn't all due to work done by previous movies. It's just more smartly written than BvS. The source of the conflict between the heroes is complicated and fascinating, unlike the self-absorption and bigotry that drives BvS. The characters in Civil War are way smarter, too.
So Civil War really shines next to BvS, but even without that comparison, it's a great time at the movies. It's thought-provoking, but it's also funny and the fights are amazingly choreographed. This is superheroics at their best.
4. Jane Got a Gun
I was totally sucked into this story of a woman who's had to make some hard decisions and now faces the violent consequences. There's some High Noon going on in that it's as much about the build-up to the final confrontation as it is about the confrontation itself.
I love that almost as much as I love the way it gradually reveals the characters' pasts and why they currently feel about each other the way that they do. It's all complicated and human; none of it more so than Jane herself. Portman does a great job, as do all of her co-stars.
3. Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Delightful and beautiful. I'm such a sucker for stories about broken people who learn to connect with each other. Especially when they're as charming and funny as this one. I don't want to say too much and oversell it, but I highly recommend this one.
2. Star Trek Beyond
My favorite of the rebooted Star Trek movies. That's not saying anything in comparison to Into Darkness, but I quite enjoyed the 2009 movie and this is better. 2009 did a great job of introducing the alternate timeline and these new versions of the characters, but it's still an origin story. It has to spend most of its time getting everyone into place so that we can have movies like Star Trek Beyond, which is what I really want to see.
Beyond plays like an episode of the show, but a really badass episode of the show. It's got everything I want in a Star Trek story: strange new worlds, new life and new civilizations, reflections about humanity, and plenty of action. As much as I hear fans talk about action as if its some kind of necessary evil for Star Trek these days, it's always been a vital ingredient of the series and I love having it in the mix.
And speaking of "new life," I have a new favorite Star Trek character in Jaylah. Holy Neck Pinch, she's awesome.
1. Moana
I was hoping to love this. I'm a big fan of Disney animated movies when they're done well and the Pacific islands setting is so my bag. Plus, The Rock. But it's even better than I imagined.
The movie subverts expectations while still feeling very much like what it is. And those coconut pirates are totally rad. I laughed a lot, I was deeply moved, and the songs are as good as any Disney musical since The Little Mermaid (or maybe Aladdin; in a really long time, is my point). You know how little girls everywhere drove everyone crazy with their personal renditions of "Let It Go?" That was me with "How Far I'll Go." And David and I can't stop singing "You're Welcome," either.
