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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[July 4, 1966] The Daughters of Jane Eyre (Gothic Romances and a New Soap Opera)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

From the Castle of Otranto to Northanger Abbey

Most literary historians state that the first Gothic novel was The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole. It set the pattern for later spooky stories. You know the type; mysteries, curses, hidden passages, innocent heroines prone to fainting, etc.


All that stuff about being translated from Italian by the nonexistent William Marshal is fictional. Note that the book was very popular, going through multiple editions.

Walpole's bestseller inspired many imitations. The genre was so popular that it was parodied in Jane Austen's posthumously published novel Northanger Abbey (1817), in which a naïve young woman who reads too much Gothic fiction imagines all sorts of dark secrets behind perfectly innocent situations.


It first appeared with Persuasion, another posthumous novel.

Frankenstein Meets Dracula

One of the most famous works of Gothic fiction appeared soon after, with the publication of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. This groundbreaking work, which one might think of as the first real science fiction novel, spawned countless adaptations and imitations, in the form of movies, comic books, and so forth.


It seems odd that authors didn't want their names on their books back in the old days.

I'm sure you're familiar with the scary stories that appeared during the Victorian era, from Edgar Allan Poe's chilling tales of madness and murder, to Bram Stoker's seminal vampire novel Dracula (1897).


The cover of the first edition. Looks very modern, doesn't it?

Isn't It Romantic?

Let me back up a little bit and mention the Brontë sisters, particularly Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, both published in 1847. Both books added a touch of romance to Gothic fiction, particularly the latter.


At least she used a pseudonym instead of being completely anonymous.

I hesitate to call Wuthering Heights a love story, although you might think it one if you've only seen the movie. The relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff in the book is more complex than simply a romance. (It's a very strange novel in many ways.)


Note that the book pretends to be a true account, and the similarity in pseudonyms. Their sister Anne Brontë used the pseudonym Acton Bell for her novels, which lie outside the topic of this article.

Jane Eyre is more obviously a romance, although it certainly contains elements of Gothic fiction as well. This blending of love and terror had an important influence on romantic novels of the current century, eventually leading to the marketing category of Gothic Romances.

(Just to make things completely clear, allow me to emphasize the fact that I am using the term Romances — note the capital letter — to refer to books sold as love stories. It should not be confused with the rather old-fashioned use of the word romance — note the small letter — to mean an imaginative tale, as in the archaic term scientific romance for what we now call science fiction.)

The most important modern Gothic Romance, I think, is Daphne du Maurier's 1938 bestseller Rebecca. The success of this novel, and the award-winning 1940 Alfred Hitchcock film adaptation, led to many similar books, which you can still find on the paperback racks of your local drug store.


The similarity to the cover of Dracula is interesting.

There are lots of these things floating around, usually with a cover depicting a beautiful young woman and a sinister building in the background. Often there's a single light in the window.


Science fiction writers sometimes produce Gothic Romances as well.

Welcome to Collinsport

I offer you this rather haphazard look at a particular category of popular fiction because the subject came to mind when a new daytime drama (that's a euphemism for soap opera) premiered on American television one week ago. Dark Shadows — even the title suggests Gothic elements — offers the kind of shuddery thrills found in the books I've been discussing. Heck, even the music played during the opening title sequence is spooky!

The first few minutes of the initial episode introduce us to the protagonist and her employers. In the tradition of Jane Eyre, our innocent heroine, Victoria Winters, is an orphan hired to work as a governess.


Victoria Winters, played by newcomer Alexandra Moltke, ponders her past and future.

She travels by train from a foundling home in New York to the fictional village of Collinsport, Maine, where she is to watch over David Collins, the ten-year-old son of Roger Collins.


Young actor David Henesy as the troubled boy David Collins. It must make it easier to have the same first name as your character.

Roger is separated from his wife, David's mother, and is living on the huge estate, including a spooky mansion, known as Collinwood with his fabulously wealthy sister, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Elizabeth's husband disappeared eighteen years ago, and she hasn't left Collinwood since.


Louis Edmonds as Roger Collins and movie star Joan Bennett as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. You may have seen her share top billing with Edward G. Robinson in The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945), or with Gregory Peck in The Macomber Affair (1947).

Arriving on the same train as Victoria is Burke Devlin. Like many male characters in Gothic Romances, he's darkly attractive, but obviously has some kind of secret in his past. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Roger is upset when he learns Burke is back in Collinsport.


Mitchell Ryan as Burke Devlin, ruggedly handsome antihero.

Mention should be made of Carolyn Stoddard, Elizabeth's daughter, and her boyfriend, Joe Haskell. Joe wants to marry her, but Carolyn is reluctant. She also seems to be interested in Burke.


Nancy Barrett as Carolyn Stoddard. Women in nightgowns are a staple of Gothic Romances.


Joel Crothers as Joe Haskell, in a happy mood.

Rounding out the list of major characters are Sam Evans, an artist who appears to know something about the trouble between Roger and Burke, and his daughter Maggie, waitress at the local diner.


Kathryn Leigh Scott, in an obvious blonde wig, greets Victoria at the diner, and provides exposition for the audience.


Mark Allen as Sam Evans, who drinks a lot at the Blue Whale, which seems to be the only place to get booze in Collinsport.

After only six episodes, counting today's, we've already got a lot of mysteries.  Who were Victoria's parents?  Why does Elizabeth want her to work at Collinwood?  Where has Burke been for several years?  Why did he return to Collinsport?  Why is Roger unhappy to know he's around?  What does Sam know about the situation?  What happened to Elizabeth's husband? Why hasn't she left the estate since he vanished?  What's in the locked room in the basement?

Besides all this stuff, we've got subtle hints of the supernatural.  Victoria hears unexplained sobbing sounds in the middle of the night.  David claims that ghosts told him to send Victoria away.  Sam tells her that Collinwood is haunted by Josette, a French woman who leapt to her death from a cliff called Widow's Hill nearly two centuries ago.  Whether the ghosts will turn out to be real or not remains to be seen.

It's also unknown whether this offbeat soap opera will stick around for any length of time.  It's a production of ABC (American Broadcasting Company), which is something of an upstart network, much newer than CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) and NBC (National Broadcasting Company.) In my neck of the woods, Dark Shadows shows up at four o'clock in the afternoon, and faces competition from well-established programs on the other networks.


This CBS soap opera has been on the air since 1954.


On NBC, we have The Match Game, which has been running since 1962, and is now being broadcast in color.

If none of this appeals to you, you could always read a book.


Let's see; beautiful woman with a spooky house in the background, one light in the window; must be a Gothic Romance.  And guess what?  My sources in the publishing world tell me that Cassandra Knye is actually the team of New Wave SF writers Thomas M. Disch and John Sladek cashing in on the trend.

If you don't feel like watching TV or reading, tune in to KGJ, our radio station! Nothing but the hits!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 10, 1966] Summer Reruns (July 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Old Series Never Die, They Just Fade Away

Summertime is right around the corner, here in the Northern Hemisphere, and all patriotic Americans know what that means; reruns on television. Not only does this save the production companies money, it allows defunct programs to continue to appear on TV screens long after they're gone, like ghosts haunting a house. (Of course, they're easier to exorcise than traditional specters; just pull the plug.)

Two popular, critically acclaimed, and long-running series recently cast off this mortal coil, ready to enter the monochromatic afterlife of reruns.

Late last month, the courtroom drama Perry Mason slammed down the gavel for the last time with The Case of the Final Fade-Out. The story involved a television studio, so a large number of crew members made cameo appearances, pretty much as themselves. There was also a very special guest star.


That's executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson on the left and Hollywood columnist Norma Lee Browning on the right. The fellow in the middle? That's bestselling author Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, dressed up for his role as a judge in the final episode.

At the start of this month, The Dick Van Dyke Show came to a conclusion with the appropriately titled episode The Last Chapter. Van Dyke's character, television writer Rob Petrie, finishes the book he's been working on for five years, and looks back on his life.


Because The Last Chapter was really just an excuse to reuse sequences from previous episodes, I'm offering you this scene from the penultimate episode, The Gunslinger. Surrounding Van Dyke in this Western parody are cast regulars Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Deacon.

I'm sure that both of these hit series will be reincarnated in American living rooms for quite a while.

Not all summer television programming consists of reruns, to be sure. There are so-called summer replacement series as well. In a week or so, we'll enjoy (or avoid) the first episode of The Dean Martin Summer Show (not to be confused with The Dean Martin Show, which has been going on since last year. Are you still with me?) It will be hosted by the comedy team of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin.


Rowan on the left and Martin on the right, in a scene from their 1958 Western spoof Once Upon a Horse. I wonder if they'll have any success as TV hosts.

A Home Run The First Time At Bat

Although it's not unknown for popular songs of yesteryear to return to the charts — auditory reruns, if you will — listeners are usually searching for something original. Newcomer Percy Sledge offers an notable example with his smash hit When a Man Loves a Woman. This passionate, soulful ballad, currently Number One in the USA, is not only the first song recorded by Sledge, it is the first song recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a city famous for its music studios, to reach that position.


Your fans mean it, Mister Sledge.

I've Seen This All Before

The reason I've been talking about reruns, before I get to the contents of the latest issue of Fantastic, isn't just the fact that they've been filling up the magazine with reprints for some time now. As we'll see, many of the old stories in this issue have reappeared several times before. Reruns of reruns, so to speak. Whether fans of imaginative literature will be willing to spend four bits for fiction they may have already read in collections or anthologies remains to be seen.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

Predictably, the front cover is also a rerun.


The back cover of the June 1943 issue of Amazing Stories. It looks better in the original version.

Before I get to the reruns, however, let's start with something new.

Just Like a Man, by Chad Oliver


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Three men are in an aircraft, flying over the surface of an Earth-like planet. A sudden storm forces them to abandon the vehicle, stranding the trio in an area resembling an African savannah. Because the place is full of leonine predators, they hightail it to the relative safety of a nearby rainforest.


Climbing one of the planet's gigantic trees in order to get away from the hungry cats.

They wind up far above the ground, among an unsuspected community of highly intelligent primates. These mysterious creatures help them survive, and even offer the possibility of reaching their home base, located five hundred miles away across uncharted wilderness.


Among the primates, who are not as hostile as shown here.

This is a decent tale of adventure, and the enigmatic primates are interesting. The planet is so similar to Earth — the feline predators are pretty much just lions — that you might forget you're reading a science fiction story. Overall, it's worth reading, if not outstanding in any way.

Three stars.

The Trouble With Ants, by Clifford D. Simak


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

From the January 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures comes this final story in the author's famous City series. (By the way, the title of this work was changed to The Simple Way when it appeared in book form.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth. From this point on, all the illustrations are reruns from the original appearances of the stories.

In the far future, people are gone from Earth, with the exception of one fellow in suspended animation. Long ago, humans increased the intelligence of dogs, gave them the power of speech, and built robots to serve their needs. The canines, in turn, taught other animals to speak.

Complicating matters is the fact that a man caused ants to develop technology of their own, including robots the size of fleas. Now the ants are constructing a building, for an unknown purpose, which threatens to take over the planet.

An ancient robot returns from humanity's new home in a mysterious fashion. It seeks out the man in suspended animation as part of its quest to understand the ants.

Brought together as a fix-up novel in 1952, the City series won the International Fantasy Award the next year. It is usually considered a classic of science fiction, and has been reprinted many times.


One of the many editions of this work. Cover art by Ed Valigursky.

Highly imaginative, and with a sweeping vision of the immensity of time, Simak's tales also have a gentleness and intimacy that touches the reader's heart. The mood is one of quiet melancholy, and the acceptance of the fact that all things will pass away.

Although SF fans are likely to have read this story before, its quality makes it a welcome repeat. (One can rarely say the same thing about television reruns, or else viewers would stay glued to their screens.)

Five stars.

Where Is Roger Davis?, by David V. Reed


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

Let's take a break from stuff that has already been reprinted multiple times, and take a look at the first reappearance of this yarn, taken from the yellowing pages of the May 1939 issue of Amazing Stories. (The author is unknown to me, but I have discovered that he also writes for comics, particularly Batman. Apparently a couple of episodes of the new television series are based on his scripts for the comic book.)


Illustrations by Julian S. Krupa.

Two young men working for a New York City tour bus encounter an invisible, telepathic Martian. One of them is seduced by the alien's plot to take over the world, and soon becomes a megalomaniac.


The fact that the Martian makes robbing a bank as easy as pie is another factor in his decision.

The other fellow has to figure out a way to keep the Martians from conquering Earth.

The mood of the story changes drastically from light comedy at the start to grim tragedy by the conclusion. Given the year it was written, I wonder if the dictatorial intentions of the first man were influenced by the rise of Fascism.

The author claims that this story is a true account, sent to him by the second man. There are also bits of imaginary news articles scattered throughout, in an attempt at verisimilitude. These don't work very well, particularly the long one at the end. The only thing I found mildly intriguing, if implausible, was the way the hero manages to plot against beings who can read his mind.

Two stars.

Almost Human, by Tarleton Fiske


Cover art by Harold W. McCauley.

The introductory blurb makes it clear that the author of this story, reprinted from the June 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures, is really Robert Bloch, using a rather absurd pseudonym. (As is common practice, this was done because he had another story in the same issue under his own name.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth.

A hoodlum makes his way into the secret laboratory of a brilliant scientist. His moll has been working for the guy, so the crook knows the genius has created a robot. The machine is being educated like a child. The gangster teaches it to be an invincible criminal, and to kill without mercy. As you'd expect, things don't work out very well.

This piece reads like hardboiled fiction from a crime pulp. The final scene is particularly gruesome, in typical Bloch style. The author shows a certain knack for the Hammett/Chandler mode, but that's about all I can say for it. Not that great a story, but somebody thought it was worth reviving for an anthology.


Cover art by Jack Gaughan.

Two stars.

Satisfaction Guaranteed, by Isaac Asimov


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

Speaking of robots, here's one of several stories about the robopsychologist Susan Calvin by the Good Doctor, from the April 1951 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustration by Enoch Sharp.

Calvin only plays a minor part in this story, which focuses on a rather mousy, insecure housewife. Her husband works for the same robotics firm as Calvin, so he brings home a test model of a new machine. It looks like a handsome young man, and is designed to be helpful around the house in many different ways. The husband goes off on a business trip, leaving his wife alone with the robot.

The housewife is frightened of it at first, but soon learns to accept it. It even helps her with home decorating, clothing, and makeup, so she learns self-confidence. A final, unexpected gesture on the part of the machine, seemingly out of character for a robot, wins her the envy of her snobbish acquaintances. Susan Calvin explains why the machine's action was a perfectly logical way of obeying the famous First Law of Robotics.


Anonymous cover art for a British edition.

The author must be fond of this tale, because he has already included it in two different collections of his work. The one shown above, as the title indicates, includes stories that take place on Earth rather than in space, despite the misleading illustration and blurb. The story also appears in an omnibus that brings together his two robot novels as well as several shorter works.


Cover art by Thomas Chibbaro.

Besides that, it is also included in the same Roger Elwood anthology as Bloch's story. My sources in the television industry tell me that it is being adapted for the British series Out of the Unknown, and should appear late this year. (Will there be American reruns? One can only hope.)

Is it worth all this attention? Well, it's not a bad yarn, if not the greatest robot story Asimov ever wrote. The housewife is something of a stereotype of an overly emotional female, dependent on a man for her happiness. (This is in sharp contrast to the highly intelligent and independent Doctor Susan Calvin.) At some point you may think that the author is violating his own rules about robot behavior, but it's all explained at the end.

Three stars.

A Portfolio – Virgil Finlay

I'm not sure if I should even discuss this tiny collection of illustrations by the great artist, but at least I can share them with you.


For The New Adam (1939) by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The magazine calls it The New Atom, which is an egregious error.


For Mirrors of the Queen (1948) by Richard S. Shaver.


For The Silver Medusa (1948) by Alexander Blade (pseudonym for H. Hickey.)

What can I say? His work is stunning.

Five stars.

Satan Sends Flowers, by Henry Kuttner


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

The January/February 1953 issue of Fantastic is the source of this variation on an old theme.


Illustrations by Tom Beecham.

A man sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for immortality. (The premise is similar to that of the Twilight Zone episode Escape Clause, but the twist ending is different.) He ensures that he will remain young, healthy, and all that, so Satan can't play any tricks on him. Obviously, he figures he'll never have to pay up.

The Devil demands surety in the form of certain subconscious memories the fellow possesses. After assuring him that he won't even know he's lost anything, the man agrees. Unafraid of either earthly punishment or damnation, he lives a life of total depravity.


His first crime is the murder of his mother.

Eventually, he persuades the Devil to give him back what he lost, even though Satan warns him that he won't like it. This turns out to be a bad idea.

Like most other stories in this issue, this one has already appeared in a book. (It acquired the new title By These Presents.)


Back and front cover art by Richard Powers.

I should mention that the husband-and-wife team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore almost always collaborated, even if the resulting story appeared under only one name. Whoever might have been responsible for whatever parts of this work, it's a reasonably engaging tale. I'm not sure I really accept the explanation for what the man's unconscious memories represent, but I was willing to go along with it.

Three stars.

The Way Home, by Theodore Sturgeon


Cover art by Barye Phillips.

This quiet story comes from the April/May 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by David Stone.

A boy runs away from home. Along the way he meets a wealthy man and his glamourous female companion, in their fancy car; a man with an injured hand who has been all over the world; and a pilot in a beautiful airplane. Without giving too much away, it's clear from the start that these men represent possible future versions of himself.


Is this the road to the future, or to home?

Like Asimov's story, this piece has already appeared in two of the author's collections, but with a slight change in the title.


Cover art by Mel Hunter.

(I'm not sure if I should really count these as two different collections, because all the stories in Thunder and Roses already appeared, along with others, in A Way Home. Such are the vagaries of the publishing industry.)


Cover art by Peter Curl.

In any case, this is a beautifully written little story, subtle and evocative. To say much more would be to ruin the delicate mood it creates.

Five stars.

Worth Tuning In Again?


Cartoon by somebody called Frosty, from the same magazine as Satan Sends Flowers.

I wouldn't call this issue bad at all, although there were a couple of disappointing stories.  It's no big surprise that the Simak and the Sturgeon were excellent, and Finlay's art is always a delight.  It's enough to make you want to tear yourself away from all those reruns on television and turn to some literary reruns instead.


In the world of cuisine, reruns are known as leftovers.

Tune in to KGJ, our radio station!  Nothing but the newest and best hits!  Even the reruns are great!




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 18, 1966] What's the Difference? (Two versions of Mindswap by Robert Sheckley)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

What's The Big Idea?

Science fiction writers often take novellas that have appeared in magazines and turn them into novels, to be published as books. Sometimes this doesn't require any expansion of the original at all, particularly if it's half of an Ace Double.

Case in point, as Rod Serling might say, is The Unteleported Man by Philip K. Dick, which appeared in the December 1964 issue of Fantastic.


Cover art by Lloyd Birmingham. It's not really a complete short novel, but you'll rarely see the word novella in a magazine.

It showed up as half of Ace Double G-602 without any changes. (In case you're wondering, the other half was something called The Mind Monsters by somebody named Howard L. Cory.)


Cover art by Kelly Freas. It's still not a complete novel.

On the other hand, an author can make use of the big (and profitable) idea of reusing old material by adding new stuff to it. One example is The Whole Man by John Brunner. The first half is original, while the second half makes use of two previously published novellas.


The cover art is anonymous, and deserves to be so, in my opinion.

With that background in mind, let's take a look at a recent example of stretching a novella into a novel.

What's The Story?

I'll start with the magazine version of Mindswap, Robert Sheckley's comic tale of a fellow whose consciousness goes bouncing around the universe from body to body. It appeared in the June 1965 issue of Galaxy.


Cover art by George Schelling. The table of contents calls Mindswap a, you guessed it, complete short novel.

Our Gracious Host didn't care for it, awarding it only two stars. That's a matter of taste of course, as I'll discuss later. For now, let me outline the plot, so we can compare it with the novel.

Marvin Flynn is a fellow who wants to travel to other planets, but who can't afford the extremely high price of space travel. Fortunately, the process of switching bodies with somebody, even over interstellar distances, is a lot cheaper. (Maybe not the most plausible premise in the world, but let's go with it.)

He answers an ad from a Martian who wants to mindswap with an Earthling. The bad news is that the Martian is a crook, who has already sold his body to a previous customer, and who runs off with Marvin's body. Marvin has to mindswap again, in order to avoid dying when he gets kicked out of the criminal's body.

Having no other choice, he winds up in an alien body, working as an egg catcher. These aren't ordinary eggs. They talk, for one thing. In addition to that, the dinosaur-like beings who produce the eggs hunt down those hunting the eggs. Facing a very unpleasant demise in the jaws of one of these creatures, Marvin mindswaps once more.

This time he's in the body of an insectoid alien, and he has a ticking ring in his nose that might be a bomb, ready to go off in the near future.

Things are already complicated enough, but it gets a lot weirder. You see, the act of mindswapping tends to cause the swapper to perceive reality in odd ways. The story turns into a parody of cowboy fiction when Marvin hallucinates that he's in the Old West.

Without going into too much detail about a complex plot, let me just say that Marvin falls in love, loses the woman he adores, searches for her with the help of a peculiar companion, confronts the villain who stole his body, and winds up back on Earth. There's a twist at the end.

What's New?

Mindswap just came out as a hardcover novel from Delacorte Press. Is it worth paying the three dollars and ninety-five cents they're asking at the bookstore? Let's find out. (Or you could just wait for the paperback edition, which should cost just about as much as the magazine did.)


Cover art by James McMullan. By the way, The Game of X isn't science fiction, but a comic spy novel.

At first, there seems to be very little difference between the novella and the novel. That changes at Chapter 24 (out of 33) or, if you prefer, on page 151 (out of 216.) Either way, that means that not quite one-third of the book is new.

In the short version, Marvin runs into the Martian crook a lot quicker. In the long version, there's a major section of the book where he gets involved in a swashbuckling adventure. Reality has completely broken down at this point, so you'll just have to accept the fact that he starts acting and talking like somebody in an Errol Flynn movie. After that, we get the same twist ending as in the magazine.

What's So Funny?

Appreciation of comedy is very much an individual thing; more so, I think, than appreciation of any other form of art. Maybe I like the Marx Brothers and you like the Three Stooges. Each of us would have a difficult time convincing the other of the superiority of our differing preferences. Without arguing for the merits of Sheckley's work, allow me to discuss the various forms of humor he employs.

Slapstick

Maybe we can define this as amusement at another person's woes, as long as they're ludicrous. When Marvin is about to get his head bitten off by a dinosaur, or when he expects to have the bomb in his nose explode, we can laugh at his anxiety.

Parody

I've already mentioned the spoofs of Western and swashbuckling fiction. There's also a section where, for ridiculous reasons, characters start speaking in pseudo-Shakespearean verse. The novel as a whole seems to be a parody of science fiction itself.

Wordplay

This occurs all through the book. Right at the start we hear Marvin and his buddy talk in futuristic slang that borrows from other languages. (Might Sheckley be making fun of the Anthony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange?)

The author delights in silly names, of which there are dozens, if not hundreds, scattered throughout the novel. Marvin's companion during his search for his lost love alternates speaking in a thick, stereotypical Mexican accent and formal English. During the swashbuckling section, everybody talks in a highfalutin' fashion that you'd only hear in a romantic novel or a Hollywood movie.

Illogic

Reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter, Sheckley's characters often reason in ways that might seem superficially logical, but which expose their inside-out and upside-down thinking.

The Martian detective searching for the criminal (I didn't mention him, did I?) figures that probability is on his side; he's failed to solve 158 cases, so he's bound to solve this one.

The hermit who mindswaps Marvin from the egg hunter's body into the insectoid body (I didn't mention him either, did I?) speaks in verse because he thinks it protects him from the dinosaurs. His proof? That he hasn't been killed yet.

The pseudo-Mexican helping Marvin in his search (I did mention him, didn't I?) has an unusual theory of searching; just go somewhere and wait, so that the searcher becomes the searchee.

Overall, I have to say that the book amused me. It doesn't have quite the same satiric bite as some other Sheckley works, but it made me smile all the way through.

Three and one-half stars.

What's Next?

I'm sure that other writers will continue to turn stories into novels. (The series of linked stories by Robert Silverberg that started with Blue Fire and which recently ended, or so it seems, with Open the Sky cries out to be a novel.)

My sources in the publishing industry tell me that Larry Niven's impressive novella World of Ptavvs has been expanded into a novel, and will appear in a few months. Here's a sneak preview.


Cover art by Norman Adams

And just to prove that authors aren't the only ones to reuse old material, just take a look at this book from 1963.


Look familiar?

All of us should heed the example of writers, artists, and publishers, and reuse whatever we can. It's the patriotic thing to do.


Junior looks like he might be searching through old science fiction magazines.

If you want to hear some great current music, then tune in to KGJ, our radio station! We never reuse the old songs!




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Movies

[May 14, 1966] Seeing Double (The She Beast and The Embalmer)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Two For The Price Of One

The tradition of double features in American movie houses goes back at least as far as the early 1930's. Under the old system, theaters were forced to purchase a lower budget movie (the B film) in order to be allowed to purchase a higher budget movie (the A film.) Often, there would also be cartoons, newsreels, short subjects, and so forth.


A typical double feature from 1934.

That began to change with the court case United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948.) The United States Supreme Court decided that the practice of studios owning their own theaters, and having full power over what films a theater could show, violated antitrust laws.

As a result, major studios no longer had an incentive to produce B movies. Audiences still wanted double features, so smaller studios supplied low budget films that could be shown with A movies from the big companies. Eventually, theaters started showing two B movies together.


A typical double feature from 1955.

Doubled And Redoubled

Once I saw the trailer for a double feature of horror movies that opened early this month, I knew I had to rush out and see it. It turned out that each film was, itself, something of a double. I'll explain what I mean when I discuss them in turn.


Do you prefer Horror or Terror?

Nerves Of Steele

I've spoken elsewhere about the striking British actress Barbara Steele, who has appeared in a number of horror films, particularly in Italy. Her latest starring role is in The She Beast, a British/Italian co-production, filmed in Italy and Yugoslavia.


The Italian title, which even I can translate.

We begin with pretty simple opening titles, accompanied by the usual scary music.


Simple, but at least you know you're watching the right movie.

The words Transylvania — Today pop up, setting the stage. This helps, because the first thing we see is a nifty bright yellow motor car that looks like it rolled right out of the 1920's. Add to that the fact that the driver, an older, professorial type, with gray hair and beard, is wearing the kind of shortened trousers that I believe are known as plus fours, and which I associate with golfers of the same era.

This fellow drives up to a cave and enters, where he picks up a very old book and starts reading. (It turns out that this is the man's home, complete with a skull here and there to add the proper mood.) This conveniently gives us our back story in the form of a flashback.

Cut to the late 18th century. Some folks are at an open-coffin funeral, when a young boy rushes in to say that she has taken his brother. Everybody seems to know exactly who she is; the local witch, who looks more like a monster than a human being.


Jay Riley as the She Beast. Yes, she's played by a man, under very heavy makeup.

Depending on who's talking about her, the witch's name is either Vardella or Bardella; it's hard to tell. Anyway, a typical mob of villagers, carrying torches and pitchforks and such, grab the witch and strap her into the seat of a wooden thing that kind of looks like a catapult. After driving a long metal spike through her body, which you might think would be enough punishment, they dunk her into the adjoining lake several times.


A couple of guys watch the fun going on below.

Cut to 1966. A couple of young folks are driving around in a black Volkswagen. They're newlyweds, who have decided to spend their honeymoon in Transylvania. (Obviously, they've never seen a horror movie.) They discover that a highway to Bucharest shown on the map doesn't actually exist, so they're stuck here for the night.


Barbara Steele as Veronica and Ian Ogilvy as Philip.

A local fellow directs them to the only hotel in the vicinity. It's run by a creepy guy who gives them tea with garlic bulbs in it.

That bit of goofiness gives me the opportunity to explain what I mean by this movie having a double nature. It constantly makes wild changes in mood from deadly serious to silly, as if it can't make up its mind if it's a spoof or not. This goes far beyond the occasional touches of comedy relief often seen in this kind of film, and is rather disconcerting.


Mel Welles as Ladislav Groper, the innkeeper. Hey! He was in The Little Shop of Horrors, too!

The fellow we saw at the start of the film shows up and starts chatting to them. It turns out that he's Count Von Helsing, the scion of a local family of aristocratic exorcists. Veronica jokingly asks if he knows the Draculas, and he replies that his ancestors exorcised them. We'll find out later that he lives in a cave because the Communist government took away his ancestral castle.


John Karlsen as Count Von Helsing. Hey! He was in Crack in the World, too!

Mister Groper — the surname seems to be a deliberate reference to his lechery — gets his kicks by peeking at the newlyweds during a moment of intimacy.


What the butler — I mean, the hotelier — saw.

Philip beats the guy up badly — we even see a big blood stain on the wall after he bashes the voyeur's head against it — and the couple decides to leave early the next day. Apparently, Groper fiddled with their Volkswagen, because it doesn't start at first. Once they get it running again, it turns out that the steering wheel doesn't work. They nearly run into a truck, and wind up crashing into the lake where the witch was killed.

Von Helsing rescues Philip, but Veronica appears to be drowned. Dredging up what they expect to be her body, it turns out to be the witch instead. Barbara Steele fans, among whom I count myself, will be disappointed to find out that she disappears from the film until the very end. Rumor has it that she only worked on the movie for one grueling eighteen hour day.

If I was able to follow the plot correctly, it seems that the only way to bring Veronica back is to revive the dead witch, then exorcise her and drive her back into the lake, where the body exchange can take place again. Von Helsing brings the witch back to life, but she attacks him and escapes.

The witch starts killing people. In particular, she slices up Groper with a sickle. (We've just seen him attempt to rape his niece — see what I mean about changes in mood? — so you won't feel too sorry for him.) In the movie's most outrageous joke, the sickle falls to the floor, right on top of a hammer, forming a perfect image of the famous symbol of Communism.


Comrade!

Philip and Von Helsing drug the witch into a coma, then stick her in a refrigerator. The local cops find her, so it's up to our heroes to steal her back, while also absconding with a police van. The cops have to use Von Helsing's yellow roadster. At this point, the movie becomes pure farce, with the police acting as the Kommie Keystone Kops.


Our heroes in the police van.


The cops in the roadster. Note that the same guy on a motorcycle passes them both.

After this slapstick interval, Philip and Von Helsing dump the witch in the lake and Veronica returns, apparently without any knowledge about what happened, and surprised to find herself soaking wet. Then the movie concludes with one of those Is it really over? kind of endings.

Besides failing to decide if it's a comedy or a thriller, this movie suffers from a lack of Barbara Steele. Despite having top billing, she has less screen time than any of the other main characters. I just hope that the thousand bucks she reportedly earned for a hard day's work makes up for what this mixed-up little film might do for her reputation.

Canals of Carnage

Our second feature is The Embalmer, an Italian film from last year, just now making its way to the New World.


The original Italian title, which is also easy to translate.

After a brief introductory scene showing our title character at work, we get the opening titles.


Nice blood-dripping effect.

The movie establishes the basic premise right away. Some kook, disguised in a monk's robe and skull mask, kidnaps young women and drags them to his underground lair, where he embalms them with a secret formula in order to preserve their beauty. (We learn all this because the lunatic constantly talks to himself.)


One tube of embalming fluid, coming right up!

Because the setting is Venice, the way he does this is by swimming around in the canals while wearing a scuba diving outfit and pulling his victim into the water.


What the well-dressed maniac wears, when not scuba diving.

Lucky for him, there are plenty of young women walking along the canals all alone late at night.


She should have taken a taxi — I mean a gondola.

Even though more than one woman disappears this way, the police think they just fell into the canal. Only our protagonist, the usual heroic newspaper reporter, thinks there's a killer at loose. Meanwhile, the embalmer adds to his collection.


What the well-dressed victim wears, after embalming.

After all this scary stuff, the movie slows down for quite a while, as we introduce more characters. Besides the reporter, we've got his boss, the cops, a couple of comedy relief canal workers, and a few others. A group of young female tourists shows up. The reporter starts smooching on the very slightly less young chaperone of the group pretty quickly. There's also an older woman and her nephew, who is interested in antiquities.


In one of many time-wasting scenes, aunt and nephew do the Twist.

Along the way, we'll get a hotel worker who uses a one-way mirror to spy on one of the tourists while she's undressing, and an Elvis-like singer who starts his act by coming out of a coffin. The main reason we have so many minor characters is that somebody has to turn out to be the murderer.

That reminds me of why this movie also has a double aspect. The premise of a mysterious figure in disguise, who will later be revealed as somebody we've met before, is very similar to the sort of thing that comes up in the German krimi films adapted from the works of Edgar Wallace. (My esteemed colleague Cora Buhlert has discussed these movies a couple of times.)

On the other hand, the emphasis on horror rather than mystery suggests a new kind of Italian thriller, best exemplified by the recent shocker Blood and Black Lace. Although this is a very recent subgenre of horror, some folks are calling such movies giallo films. (The word just means yellow in Italian, and comes from the fact that mystery and suspense novels often have yellow covers in Italy.)

The Embalmer has aspects of both krimi and giallo, I think, and maybe it points the way to future combinations of the two.

Back to the movie at hand. In parallel plots, both the reporter, via the canal, and the chaperone, via a secret panel, make their way to the embalmer's lair. (I forgot to mention that the nephew also found it, but paid for the discovery with his life. Oops! I gave away the fact that he wasn't the killer. Sorry about that.)


The comedy relief guys help the reporter find the embalmer's hideout. At the risk of ruining the suspense, neither one of them is the killer either.

Near the end, the movie moves along at a rapid pace, as the chaperone finds herself trapped with the embalmer, and the reporter desperately tries to save her. After a surprisingly downbeat ending, the identity of the killer is revealed.


The chaperone with one of the embalmer's companions.

There's quite a bit of padding in the film, because the plot is very simple. There's some nice black-and-white cinematography, and the climax is exciting, if you have the patience to wait for it.

Coming Attractions

Although this wasn't the greatest double feature I've ever seen, I'm sure that I'll slap down my dollar (movie ticket prices are getting out of hand!) the next time a similar one comes around. Maybe it'll even be a new color film paired with an older black-and-white import, just like this time.


Coming soon!


I understand that this two-year-old German black-and-white film will show up on a double bill with the one above it.

After your trip to the movies, tune in to KGJ, our radio station! Nothing but the newest hits!




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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 22, 1966] No Man's Land (Women of the Prehistoric Planet and Further Female Filled Fantasy Films)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Where The Boys Aren't
With apologies to Connie Francis.

One of the more unusual themes of science fiction and fantasy is a society entirely made up of women. I won't claim to have discovered the origin of this idea, but digging deep into old bound periodicals reveals that the early feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman dealt with it as far back as 1915, in Herland, a novel serialized in her own magazine, The Forerunner. Flipping carefully through these old, dusty pages, I found out that it deals with a group of male explorers who come across a remote land populated only by women.


Maybe someday it will appear in book form. Until then, good luck tracking it down.

(If you know Perkins at all, it's probably because of her classic psychological horror story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), which has been reprinted many times.)

Jumping forward in time, we find Philip Wylie dealing with a similar theme in his 1951 novel The Disappearance. Notably, this work not only features a world without men, but also one without women.


If memory serves, the question What Happened? is never answered.

Another important example is the novella Consider Her Ways (1956) by John Wyndham, in which a modern woman travels mentally to a future time when all men died from a virus.


It was even adapted into an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

A few years later we got a couple of examples from authors who are probably better known to science fiction fans than the general public, unlike Wylie and Wyndham.

World Without Men (1958) by Charles Eric Maine takes place in the far future, long after no male babies have been born. The women of this time discover a frozen man from the past, kept in suspended animation by the extreme cold.


They may have forgotten men, but they remembered hair dye and lipstick.

In Poul Anderson's novel Virgin Planet (1959), a man arrives on a world that has not seen one of his sex for many centuries.


He doesn't seem upset by the situation.

I'm sure there are many other examples of which I am not aware (and I'm deliberately ignoring an old story uncovered by my esteemed colleague John Boston a while ago). Let's turn our attention to cinematic versions. It turns out that we can divide them into two types.

Just Some Old Fashioned Girls
With apologies to Eartha Kitt.

First of all, we have movies about women in prehistoric times, or, in a similar fashion, primitive tribes of women dwelling in some remote part of the globe. For some reason or other, these nontechnological ladies have become separated from their menfolk, either deliberately or by chance.

The earliest example of which I am aware is Prehistoric Women (1950). The film has no English dialogue, only some kind of cavewoman language. A helpful narrator tells us what's going on. A group of tough cookies decide they would rather live without men, only capturing them when they're needed for mating. Our movie's hero teaches them the error of their ways, while taking the time to invent fire making.


Apparently the women invented makeup, hair styling, and the miniskirt.

Coming up fast on its heels was Wild Women (1951), demonstrating the other variety of primitive women flicks. In this case, the isolated females exist in modern times, somewhere in darkest Africa (although they're all Caucasians.) They run into a safari of male explorers, and hijinks ensue, as well as a lot of stock footage.


As you can tell from this poster, the movie has a much more interesting alternate title.

Slightly different in theme, but so utterly goofy that I feel compelled to mention it, is The Wild Women of Wongo (1958). Introduced by Mother Nature herself, this bizarre film deals with two primitive tribes. One consists of good-looking women and unattractive men; the other has the opposite problem. When yet another group shows up, this one made of of ape-men, the two tribes finally get together and trade partners.


Did I mention the talking parrot who provides a running commentary?

Planet of the Dames
With apologies to Pierre Boulle.

Next we have a surprisingly large number of movies in which astronauts wind up on another world full of women. The oldest one I know is, perhaps not surprisingly, a comedy.

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) sends the two comics to Venus. That's right, Venus. At no point does anybody go to Mars. Go figure. Anyway, the planet is full of beautiful women, and no men.


Featuring the Miss Universe contestants seems appropriate.

The same year brought us the more serious, but just as silly, Cat-Women of the Moon, in which the title characters are the sole survivors of the ancient Lunar civilization. There are also a couple of big spiders.


The resemblance of the Hollywood Cover Girls to felines is minimal.

Not to be outdone, the British demonstrated that they can make movies just as goofy as American ones. 1956 offered Fire Maidens from Outer Space, set on the thirteenth moon of Jupiter (whichever one that might be.) Adding a touch of class is the presence of classical music on the soundtrack. As you'd expect, the Fire Maidens wear miniskirts, but these are inspired by ancient Greek designs.


In the United States, from was changed to of, for no good reason I can see.

A couple of years later, we got what is probably the most expensive movie yet of this specific kind. Queen of Outer Space (1958) was written by Charles Beaumont, later to pen several episodes of Twilight Zone, from an idea by the noted playwright Ben Hecht. With those big names at the typewriter, you'd think it would be something other than just another variation on the same old theme. Not so, although Hollywood scuttlebutt has it that it was intended as a spoof. Anyway, the plot has astronauts journey to Venus, where they find a bunch of beauties ruled by a tyrannical monarch.


Contrary to popular belief, Zsa Zsa does not play the Queen of Outer Space.

Probably not last, but maybe least, the same year somebody decided to remake Cat-Women of the Moon and call it Missile to the Moon. Words fail me.


More emphasis on the giant spider, less on the feline females.

Double Trouble
With apologies to Otis Rush.

With all of that background in mind, let's take a look at a newly released film with a title that seems to promise a combination of the two kinds of movies discussed above.

Assuming anything in this poster is at all accurate, it's hard for me to see how a skirmish between savage planet women and female space invaders is the battle of the sexes.

We begin aboard the good ship Cosmos One, which looks like a golden flying saucer zooming through interstellar space. In command is Admiral David King, who provides the audience with some helpful exposition by dictating his log entry for the day.


Wendell Corey as Admiral King. Hey! He was in Agent for H.A.R.M. too!

It seems that the admiral's flagship, as well as Cosmos Two (never seen in the movie) and Cosmos Three are on their way back from Centaurus, carrying refugees from a failed colony world. (I'm guessing this is supposed to be Alpha Centauri.) We'll soon find out that the Centaurans are all played by actors of Asian ancestry. (Was the colony founded by Asian space explorers? The film doesn't say.) The crews of the starships are all played by Caucasian actors.

Aboard Cosmos One are some male officers, a couple of female communications technicians (who wear very tight trousers), and a couple of engineering guys, one of whom, to my horror, proves to be our movie's comic relief. There is also one Centauran, a young woman named Linda. (All the other Centaurans we'll meet have Asian-sounding names. Why is Linda different? Because, as we'll learn later, she's actually only half-Centauran. I guess that's why she's on the flagship.)


Irene Tsu as Linda. Hey! She was in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini too!

In the first of many painful scenes involving our would-be comedian (Lieutenant Red Bradley, if you must know), he does some clumsy flirting with the communication gals. After being rebuffed, he makes a remark about how they shouldn't treat him like a Centauran. Oops. Linda happens to be standing right there, and Bradley has to make a feeble apology for his prejudiced remark.


Paul Gilbert as Bradley, with a typical expression.

The incident introduces the film's theme of discrimination, albeit in a ham-fisted fashion. This is brought out more forcefully aboard Cosmos Three (using the same set as the interior of Cosmos One but with different actors.) The Centaurans, accusing the crew of treating them like slaves, take over the ship.


A communications officer tied up by the rebels. Later she'll reveal that she hates all Centaurans. Admittedly, this is after the mutiny, and when she has a broken arm.

The hijacked spaceship hurtles towards a star called Solaris, if I heard the dialogue correctly. (I understand there's a Polish SF novel with the title Solaris, by one Stanislaw Lem, but it has not yet appeared in English translation. If this is an allusion, it's a darned obscure one.)

Cosmos Three crashes into, you guessed it, a prehistoric planet. Among the survivors is a Centauran woman who happens to be married to one of the ship's officers. (At least not all the folks among the crew are bigots.)


From left to right, the Centauran woman, some guy with an injured head, the woman's husband, and the woman who hates Centaurans.

One of the Centauran rebels shows up and attacks the officer. It turns out to be the Centauran woman's brother. In what must be an incredibly painful moment of decision, she shoots her brother (with a plain old gun, not one of the blasters we'll see later) to save her husband.

Back at Cosmos One, Admiral King defies his commanders at home by turning back to search for survivors of the wreck of Cosmos Three. (The implied subplot of King risking his career leads to nothing, so don't worry about it.)

At this point we introduce the idea of time dilation at velocities near the speed of light, a pretty sophisticated notion for a low budget sci-fi flick. The journey to the prehistoric planet will take three months of ship time, but eighteen years of planet time. I was impressed by this plot element, but they ruin it later by claiming that the time difference has something to do with how quickly the planet rotates.

Anyway, the crew explores the planet, running into things like a giant lizard, which they quickly wipe out with a blaster. (I told you it would show up.) They also have to cross a pool of some kind of deadly liquid on a log. Unfortunately, the way this is filmed, you can tell that they could have easily walked around it.

Worst of all, the movie comes to a complete stop as we endure a comedy routine from Lieutenant Bradley. In addition to relating an anecdote that only leads up to a very weak pun, he demonstrates his supposed karate skills. He manages to do a really impressive forward flip during this scene, landing flat on his back, so I'll admit the actor is quite agile. If nothing else, I have to say that I've never heard anybody make the exact same kind of karate shout.


HI_KEEBA!

Due to all the planet's dangers, not counting the comic relief, Admiral King doesn't allow any of the other crewmembers to take shore leave. Security on Cosmos One must be pretty lax, because Linda, who is sick of being cooped up inside, escapes. She quickly gets in trouble, but is rescued by a local inhabitant named Tang. (The fact that he has the same designation as a brand of drink mix doesn't seem to have occurred to any of the filmmakers.)


Roberto Ito as the unfortunately named Tang.

Tang takes Linda back to his cave and covers her with furs. When he reveals that he had to remove her wet clothing, she slaps him silly. Not to be outdone, he slaps her back. Naturally, this leads to them smooching.


An intimate moment in Tang's bachelor pad.

It turns out that Tang is the son of the Centauran woman and her officer husband. (Remember them?) Weirdly, he's got their bodies frozen in perfect condition in an ice cave. You might think this would put a damper on his burgeoning romance, but Linda doesn't seem too upset.

The folks on Cosmos One are worried about Linda, so they set out to find her. We learn that Linda is actually Admiral King's daughter. This doesn't come as a big surprise, as it was already hinted at by Jung, an older Centauran man on the ship.


Kam Tong as Jung and Merry Anders as Lieutenant Karen Lamont share a moment of concern with Admiral King.

Let me pause a moment to describe a pointless scene that occurs somewhere around here. One of the communications officers puts on some cha-cha music and starts dancing in a hip-swaying manner. (Remember those very tight trousers.) Of course, this draws the attention of the lecherous Lieutenant Bradley. It's a really odd moment, that doesn't have anything to do with anything else.

Out of the blue, some cavemen we've never seen before attack Tang and Linda. The rescue team happens to be right there, and they stupidly injure Tang with a blaster. They grab Linda so they can drag her back to the ship, and Tang runs off.


Linda screams as she sees Tang leave. By the way, she's wearing a dress that belonged to Tang's mother, which is in amazingly good condition and fits her perfectly.

Oh, if you're wondering when we're going to see the women of the prehistoric planet, you might as well relax. Unless you count the female survivors of the crash landing, or Linda, there aren't any. From what I've been able to learn, some scenes involving cavewomen will be added to the slightly racier European version of the movie.


Not for innocent American eyes.

Linda isn't very happy to be back aboard Cosmos One. Admiral King eventually agrees that his daughter would be happier with Tang, so off she goes. (I forgot to mention the big volcanic explosion, courtesy of stock footage, that adds some drama, but doesn't alter the plot in any way.)


Linda temporarily returns to the ship. Note that she is now wearing the fetching mini-sarong that Tang gave her.

We then get the film's shocking twist ending, which you'll see coming a mile away. (Stop reading if you want to be surprised, which you won't be.) As Cosmos One heads out into space, Admiral King looks back at the prehistoric planet, and tells us that it is called Earth. That's right, the oldest and corniest plot in science fiction. I guess Tang and Linda are supposed to be Adam and Eve (although I don't know how the briefly seen cavemen and the unseen-in-America cavewomen figure into things.) It just goes to show you that you shouldn't monkey around with worn-out clichés.


Also not in the American version, although Tang does have a chimpanzee companion.

Well, so much for sticking with the topic of this article! The title of this cheap little picture, best suited for mocking, led me down the garden path. No tribe of primitive women isolated from men, no astronauts landing on a planet full of lonely females. I guess I'll have to wait for the next cinematic example of the genre.


Coming soon!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 8, 1966] Search Parties (May 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Keep Watching the Skies!

The good citizens of Michigan were recently reminded of the warning I've quoted above, from 1951's The Thing from Another World (a loose cinematic adaptation of John W. Campbell's 1938 novella Who Goes There?).


Father and son describe what they saw.

Folks in Washtenaw County (just look for the city of Ann Arbor on the map, and you're smack dab in the middle of it) reported seeing strange lights in the sky last month. Supposedly, a UFO even landed in a swampy area near the tiny community of Dexter Township.


Looks like a classic flying saucer to me.

About one hundred people witnessed these phenomena. Naturally, the federal government got involved. They sent astronomer J. Allen Hynek to the area to check things out. Reportedly, he thinks at least some of the sightings can be explained as swamp gas. One politician isn't so sure.


Note that the article uses the phrase marsh gas. One person's swamp is another person's marsh, I suppose.

Gerald R. Ford is a United States Congressman from the Grand Rapids district of Michigan, so this situation strikes close to home for him. (He's a Republican, and the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives. Maybe this event will make him famous.)

Here's a picture of Representative Ford and wife Betty on a recent fishing trip, so you'll recognize him if his face shows up in the news in times to come.

It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier

While some Americans are tracking down UFO's, others are searching for ways to justify their nation's involvement in the conflict in Vietnam. As a counterpoint to the many demonstrations against the war, a patriotic song celebrating the heroism of the Army Special Forces has been at the top of the charts for several weeks. The Ballad of the Green Berets, sung by Sergeant Barry Sadler, seems to have struck just the right note with many conservative music lovers.


Personally, I prefer the Tom Lehrer song I have alluded to above.

Hunting Through the Pages

Meanwhile, I've been searching for good reading. Take, for example, the latest issue of Fantastic. Fittingly, many of the stories feature characters who are on quests of one kind or another.


Art by Frank R. Paul.

(I might add that I had to search through piles of old pulp magazines to find the original source of the magazine's cover art. It turned out to be the back cover of the September 1944 issue of Amazing Stories.)


Confused? We'll get to an explanation of this weird scene later in the issue.

The Phoenix and the Mirror, by Avram Davidson

Let's begin our journey with a new novella from the former editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

The author's introductory note explains that the ancient Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, was depicted as a sorcerer in legends of the Middle Ages. (Davidson prefers the spelling Vergil, which I will use for the name of the fictional character in this story. He also prefers nigromancer to necromancer and Renascence to Renaissance, but that's typical erudite eccentricity on his part.) He also notes that this tale is the first part of a series to be called Vergil Magus.

Anyway, we begin in medias res, with Vergil trying to escape from an underground labyrinth full of malevolent manticores. (These are not the lion-scorpions of myth, but something more like large, clever weasels.) He manages to get out, winding up at the palace of an aristocrat with magical powers. She forces him to undertake the extremely difficult quest of creating a very special enchanted mirror, so she can see where in the world her daughter might be. He can't say no, because she steals one of his souls.

You read that right. People in this world have more than one soul, it seems. Losing one isn't fatal, but it seems to be so traumatic an event that Vergil feels compelled to undertake the nearly impossible task. He has to obtain unrefined tin and copper ore from the far ends of the known world, and then form the mirror through a long and laborious process. After many struggles, with the help of his alchemist sidekick, he manages to complete this onerous undertaking.


The mirror in use.

That isn't the end of his troubles, however. After instantly falling in love with the daughter after one glimpse in the mirror, he treks through desert wastelands, with an enigmatic Phoenician at his side, to rescue her from a Cyclops.


The lady and the cyclops.

This isn't the typical brutal, dimwitted Cyclops from mythology, but an intelligent, even sensitive creature. Multiple plot twists follow, and we find out why a phoenix is mentioned in the title.

Davidson keeps his baroque writing style under control here, and the plot is cleverly crafted. The background, which is kind of a mixture of the ancient world and the Middle Ages, with a strong dose of pure fantasy, is unique and interesting. Some readers may be impatient with several pages describing in great detail the exact method of creating the mirror, but I found it fascinating.

My one major complaint is that Vergil's lengthy and dangerous voyage to obtain copper ore is skipped over almost entirely, related in just a few sentences of flashback. I would like to learn more about his adventures there. Maybe Davidson plans to expand this novella into a novel, as authors of science fiction and fantasy often do. Otherwise, I greatly enjoyed this witty and imaginative excursion into a past that never existed.

Four stars.

Seven Came Back, by Clifford D. Simak


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

As usual, the rest of the magazine is filled up with reprints. Let's start with a tale from the pages of the October 1950 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by Arthur Hutah.

The setting is Mars, the favorite world of SF writers. Like many fictional versions of the red planet, this is a place where humans can survive without spacesuits. It's still a very dangerous environment, however, with all sorts of deadly creatures living in the endless desert.

The protagonist is on a quest to find the fabled lost city of the nearly extinct Martians. He hires a couple of tough guys to guide him through the wasteland. As we'll see, this turns out to be a big mistake.

Six Martians show up at their camp. It seems that they're the last of their kind, and they think that the men can lead them to a seventh. The Martians have seven sexes, you see, and this is their last chance to reproduce. (That must certainly make things complicated.)

If the humans help them out, they'll take them to the city, which is supposed to be full of fabulous treasures. The two roughnecks take off on their own, leaving the protagonist alone in the deadly desert.

Things get a lot stranger after this, and I don't want to give too much away. Suffice to say that the main character manages to survive, wins an unexpected ally, and has a mystical experience at the city.


The lost Martian city.

At first, I thought this was more or less a science fiction Western, with the hero heading for a showdown with the no-good polecats who left him to die. I have to admit that the plot went in completely unexpected directions. I'm still pondering the meaning of the ending. The author mixes space adventure with his usual warmth and concern for all living things and a touch of Bradbury's magical Mars.

Four stars.

The Third Guest, by B. Traven

The mysterious author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre offers a fable of life and death that appeared in the March-April 1953 issue of Fantastic.


Cover art by Richard Powers.

Like everything else about the author, the provenance of this story is puzzling. As far as I have been able to determine, it was written under the title The Healer, was first published in German in 1950 as Macario, and somehow wound up with its current title when it showed up in Fantastic.


Illustrations by Tom O'Sullivan.

One of the few facts known about the author is that he — or she? — lives in Mexico, the setting for most of his — or her? — fiction. This tale is no exception. It takes place when the region was still known as New Spain, during the colonial period.

Macario, a dirt-poor woodcutter, barely manages to feed himself, his wife, and their many children. For most of his life, his greatest dream has been to eat an entire roast turkey by himself. Over several years, his wife saves the tiny payments she receives for doing chores for slightly less poverty-stricken folks. She buys a turkey, prepares it exquisitely, and presents it to her husband, telling him to go into the woods and devour it alone.

Before he can enjoy the delicious feast, however, three strange visitors show up. The first is a sinister fellow, richly dressed. He offers Macario enormous wealth for a share of the turkey. Macario refuses.


The first guest.

The second one is poorly dressed, gentle, and saintly. Despite his kindly manner, Macario again refuses to share his meal. The visitor blesses him anyway.


The second guest.

The third guest, as the title suggests, is the one most vital to the plot. Macario knows he cannot refuse this cadaverous figure, so he at least manages to keep half of the turkey for himself. In exchange, the guest gives him an elixir that will cure all ills, but only if the visitor chooses who will live and who will die. The rest of the story follows Macario as he wins a reputation as a great healer. A summons from the Viceroy of New Spain, whose child is dying, leads to a final confrontation with the third guest.

This is a remarkable fantasy, with the simplicity of a folktale but the sophistication of great literature. It appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1954 (edited by Martha Foley), so I'm not alone in my opinion. It was even made into a Mexican movie in 1960, which you might be able to catch at your local arthouse cinema, if you don't mind subtitles.

Five stars.

The Tanner of Kiev, by Wallace West

The last time we met this author, it was with a reprint of the antifeminist dystopia The Last Man, to which my esteemed colleague John Boston awarded one star. Even if we ignore that story's political stance, it's poorly written. Will this tale, from the October 1944 issue of Fantastic Adventures, be any better? It could hardly be worse.


Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

The first thing to keep in mind is that this is a story about World War Two, written and published during the height of the conflict. You have to expect Our Side to be heroic Good Guys, and Their Side to be sadistic Bad Guys. In particular, the Soviets are definitely on the side of the angels here.


Illustrations by Malcolm Smith.

The hero parachutes behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Ukraine. His mission is to deliver a radio transmitter to the underground resistance. Things get weird pretty quickly, as he runs into an immortal magician from Russian folklore.


The wizard and his pets.

Next thing you know, he's at the chicken-legged hut of the legendary old witch Baba Yaga. None of this supernatural stuff seems to bother him, and soon he's on his way into Kiev. He contacts the Russian guerillas, including the pretty female one with whom he falls in love. With the help of the warlock and witch, as well as a talking squirrel and a were-rat, the brave Soviets overcome the craven Germans.

Given the fact that, inevitably, a wartime story is going to paint things in black and white, this isn't a bad yarn at all. It's pretty well written, and the wild and wooly plot held my interest. The changes in mood from whimsical to romantic to horrific are disconcerting, and the love story is a little sappy, but's it worth a read.

Three stars.

Wolf Pack, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.


Cover art by Leo Summers.

The Second World War is also the background for this story, from the September-October 1953 issue of Fantastic, but this time the battle rages in Italy instead of the Soviet Union.


Illustrations by Bernard Krigstein.

The main character is the pilot of an American bomber who has already flown nearly fifty missions, raining destruction from the skies. He has recurring dreams about a alluring woman he thinks of as La Femme, or just La. It would be easy to dismiss this as a predictable fantasy for a young man deprived of female company for an extended period of time, or as an idealized image of his girlfriend back home. Yet she seems very real, and he appears to be in some kind of telepathic communication with her, even while awake.


The woman known as La.

During his latest bombing run, he nearly aborts the mission, terrified that he might destroy her. The other members of the crew have to physically restrain him to complete their gruesome task.


A bomber's world.

The author was a radio operator and tail gunner during World War Two, participating in as many bombing missions over Italy as the story's protagonist. It's no surprise, then, that the details of life as a bomber pilot are extremely realistic and convincing.   Miller took part in the bombing of the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino in 1944, which certainly had an influence on the writing of his award-winning novel A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), already considered a modern classic.

Unlike the previous story, which, understandably, was full of gung-ho patriotic glory (much like Sergeant Sadler's hit song, come to think of it) this is a somber, emotionally powerful account of the way that war turns men into machines, and how the innocent suffer as much as the guilty.

Five stars.

Betelgeuse, in Orion: The Walking Cities of Frank R. Paul, by Anonymous

I wasn't sure if I should even bother discussing this little article, but what the heck. It originally appeared under the slightly different title Stories of the Stars: Betelgeuse in Orion, supposedly by a Sergeant Morris J. Steele in the September 1944 issue of Amazing Stories. This is probably a pseudonym for the magazine's editor, Raymond A. Palmer, but I can't prove that.


Cover art by Julian S. Krupa.

Anyway, after some facts about the giant star, we get wild speculation about the beings who might live there. It's pretty much just a way to fill up some space.

Two stars.

The End of the Search

Well, my search for enjoyable fiction certainly paid off! This was an outstanding issue. Even the worst story was pretty good, and the best were excellent. It makes me ponder my skepticism about reprinting old stuff. After all, I don't complain when an movie from yesteryear shows up on television, as long as it's a good one.


Check your local listings to see if this decade-old classic will be showing in your area any time soon.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 14, 1966] Random Numbers (May 1966 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Printers' Devils

When I'm reading a book or magazine, if I come across a mistake in printing it takes me right out of the story. If it's a simple misspelling, it's no big deal, yet there's still that brief moment when my mind unwillingly goes back to reality.

More serious problems, such as a few lines duplicated or in the wrong place, cause greater distress. In the most extreme cases, as when entire pages are missing, the experience is ruined.

I bring this up because my copy of the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow contains an egregious example of this kind of technical shortcoming.

Dig That Crazy, Mixed-Up 'Zine, Man


Cover art by Gray Morrow.

Allow me to provide you with a metaphorical road map for the route you need to take between the front and back covers of the publication.

Pages 1 through 15: OK so far.
Pages 18 through 21: Hey, what happened to the other two?
Pages 16 through 17: Oh, there they are.
Pages 22 through 45: Smooth sailing.
Pages 48 through 55: Here we go again!
Pages 46 through 47: Another two pages out of place.
Pages 56 through 164: No more detours, thank goodness.

If I've managed to annoy and confuse you with that, now you know how I felt when I read this issue. The short, sharp shock (to steal a phrase from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado) of jumping from an incomplete sentence on page 15 or page 45 to a completely unrelated incomplete sentence on page 18 or page 48, then having to flip through the magazine to find page 16 or page 46, then having to hop back to page 15 or page 45 to remember what the incomplete sentence said, was a pain in the neck. (That's another allusion to the short, sharp shock. Ask your local G and S fan what it means.)

Thus, if I seem a little more critical than usual, blame it on the printer (not on the Bossa Nova.) With that in mind, let's get started.

The Ultra Man, by A. E. Van Vogt


Illustrations by Peter Lutjens.

I'll confess that I have a real blind spot when it comes to Van Vogt. I know he's one of the giants, like Asimov and Heinlein, of Astounding's Golden Age, but I almost always find his stuff hard going. Often I can't follow the plot at all. When I think I understand what's going on, it usually seems overly complicated. Given my prejudice, I'll try to be as objective as possible.

The setting is an international lunar base. A psychologist demonstrates his newly acquired psychic ability to a military type. It seems the headshrinker can tell what somebody is thinking by looking at his or her face. Suddenly, he spots an alien disguised as an African who intends to kill him.

(There's an odd explanation for why the alien takes the form of an African. Something about that would give him the protection of race tension. I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. That's my typical reaction to Van Vogt.)

We soon find out that other folks have been gaining psychic abilities, all of them following a very strange pattern. The people retain the power for a couple of days, then lose it for a while, then get it back in a much more powerful form for a brief time. If there was any sort of explanation for this bizarre phenomenon, I missed it.


Like the first illustration, this is more abstract than representative.

Anyway, the psychologist and the military guy get involved with a Soviet psychiatrist and with aliens intent on conquering humanity. Only the psychologist's intensified psychic powers, of a very mystical kind, save the day.

Science fiction is often accused of being a literature full of power fantasies, and this story could serve as Exhibit A. (Just look at the title.) The psychologist's abilities eventually become truly god-like.

I have to admit that this thing moves at an incredibly fast pace. It reads like a novel boiled down to a novelette. I can't call it boring, at least, even if it never really held together for me.

Two stars.

The Willy Ley Story, by Sam Moskowitz


Uncredited photograph.

The tireless historian of science fiction turns his attention to the noted rocket enthusiast, science writer, and SF fan. As usual for Moskowitz, there's a ton of detail, as well as a seemingly endless list of early publications by Ley and others. For an encyclopedia article, it would be a model of thoroughness. As a biographical sketch for the interested reader of Ley's writings, it's pretty dry stuff.

Two stars.

Spy Rampant on Brown Shield, by Perry Vreeland


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

A writer completely unknown to me jumps on the James Bond bandwagon with this futuristic spy thriller.

It seems that the Cold War has been replaced by a struggle between the good old USA and some kind of unified Latin America. The enemy Browns — named for their uniforms, I believe, and not intended, I hope, as a reference to their ethnicity — have a shield that will protect them from nuclear weapons. This means that the dastardly fellows can attack the Norteamericanos with impunity.

The protagonist is the typical highly competent secret agent found in this kind of story, although said to be more cautious than others. He gets a cloak of invisibility so he can sneak into the office of the Brown scientist in charge of the shield and get the plans for it.


Our hero stuns his target.

The invisibility gizmo has several limitations. Dirt and moisture render it less than effective in hiding the user. (In an amusing touch, the hero has to keep changing his socks.) Some kind of scientific mumbo-jumbo is used to explain why it shimmers when more than one source of light, of particular intensities and locations, strike it.

Much of the story consists of the spy just waiting, so he can walk through a doorway, opened by somebody else, without drawing attention. In an interesting subplot, he has to fight altitude sickness as well, because the headquarters of the scientist are located at a great elevation, way up in the Andes.


Walking through the streets of La Paz, the highest capital city in the world.

The twist ending, during which we find out the true nature of the Browns' shield technology, is something of a letdown. It also allows the hero to escape from the Bad Guys, thanks to dumb luck and pseudoscience.

Two stars.

The Worlds That Were, by Keith Roberts

Here's a rare American appearance by a new but quite prolific British author. The narrator and his brother, from an early age, have been able to escape the slum in which they live and enter other times and places. He meets a woman in a dreary public park and brings her home. This leads to a battle with his brother, who sabotages the paradises into which he brings the woman, even trying to kill her. At the end, the narrator learns the truth about his brother and the power they share.

This is a delicate, emotional, poetic tale, full of vivid descriptions of both the beautiful and the ugly. Despite the speculative content, in essence it is a love story. Notably, the narrator, despite his incredible ability, is quite ordinary in most ways. Similarly, the woman isn't an alluring beauty or a temptress, but a fully believable, realistic character. This makes their romance even more meaningful.

Five stars.

Delivery Tube, by Joseph P. Martino


Illustrations by Jack Gaughan.

More proof of the continuing effect on popular culture of the late Ian Fleming, if any be needed, appears in yet another spy yarn. The setting is the fictional Republic of Micronesia. (Given the fact that we're told this is one of the most populous nations on Earth, which is hardly true for the many tiny islands collectively known as Micronesia, I'm guessing this is supposed to be something like Indonesia.)

Anyway, the supposedly neutral Micronesians, with help from Red China, possess atomic bombs and at least one satellite to send into orbit. The paradox is that they don't seem to have any way to launch either the bombs or the satellite. Our hero, with the help of some local opposition parties and anti-Communist Chinese, investigates the mysterious construction project happening on Micronesia's main island.


What are they building in there?

Along the way, he gets mixed up with an old enemy, a Soviet agent. The USSR wants to find out what Micronesia is up to as well, so the two foes become temporary allies. A lot of familiar spy stuff goes on. I'm pretty sure you'll figure out what the construction is all about long before the hero does.

Two stars.

Alien Arithmetic, by Robert M. W. Dixon

People who hate math can skip this part of my review.

The author considers various ways to record numbers, other than our familiar base ten Arabic numerals. Before he gets to the alien stuff, he talks about Roman numerals, and demonstrates how to perform addition with them. It makes you glad you don't use them in daily life.

After a brief discussion of binary arithmetic, familiar to many of us in this modern age of electronic computers, we get to some weirder ways of symbolizing numbers.

First comes an odd and confusing system in which the column on the right uses only 0 and 1, the one to the left of that 0, 1, and 2, the one to the left of that 0, 1, 2, and 3, and so forth. As an example, 4021 translates as (4x1x2x3x4) + (0x1x2x3) + (2x1x2) + (1×1) = (96) + (0) + (4) + (1) = 101. (The author claims it translates to 99, but I'm just following his exact method of calculation, using the same example and the same steps. Somebody doublecheck me, but I think I'm right! For 99, I think the number would be 4011.)

Next we turn to a way of recording numbers by combining symbols for their prime factors. This is easier to explain via the author's diagram than in words.


An example of number symbols based on prime factors. The symbol for six combines the symbols for two and three, and so forth.

These imaginary number systems seem awfully impractical to me. The author vaguely links them to imaginary aliens, but that's really irrelevant. My formal education in mathematics ended with first semester calculus, so I'm no expert, but this kind of thing interests me to some extent (which is why this part of the review is longer than it should be.)

Number-haters can start reading again.

Two stars.

Trees Like Torches, by C. C. MacApp


Illustrations by Jack Gaughan.

We jump right into a drastically changed far future Earth, so it takes a while to figure out what's going on. Many centuries before the story begins, aliens conquered the planet. It's considered an unimportant, backwater world, so they use it as a hunting preserve. (I'm assuming this includes humans as prey, although this isn't made explicit.) They also mutated Earth creatures into new forms, so the surviving humans have to face dangerous animals.

As if that weren't enough to ruin your day, there are also human renegades who kidnap children, for a purpose not revealed until the end. The plot deals with a man out to rescue his daughter from the renegades. Help comes from blue-skinned, telepathic human mutants.


Beware the trees!

A lot of stuff goes on besides what I've noted above. Despite the science fiction explanation for everything, this fast-paced adventure story felt like a fantasy epic to me. The beings in it seem more magical than biological. It's not a bad tale, if a little hard to get into.

Three stars.

Holy Quarrel, by Philip K. Dick


Illustrations by Dan Adkins.

Three government agents wake up a computer repairman. It seems that the super-computer that monitors all the data in the world for possible threats against the United States has a problem. It claims that it needs to launch nuclear weapons against a region of Northern California. The G-men managed to stop that by jamming a screwdriver into the machine's tapes.

The danger, or so it says, comes from a fellow who manufactures gumball machines.  This seems utterly ridiculous, of course, so the government guys want the repairman to figure out what's wrong with the computer. Just to be on the safe side, they investigate the gumball magnate, and study the candy machines as well as the stuff they contain. They communicate with the stubborn computer, even trying to convince it that it doesn't really exist.


You don't really think it will fall for that, do you?

You can tell that there's more than a touch of the absurd to the plot, along with a satiric edge.  The author throws in the computer's religious beliefs, as well as an outrageous ending.  The whole thing has the feeling of dark comedy.  (There are references to the USA having attacked both France and Israel, due to the computer's perception of threats.) Like a lot of works by this author, it has a plot that seems improvised.  It always held my interest, anyway.

Three stars.

In Need of Some Repair

So, were the works in this issue as messed up as the page numbers?  For the most part, I have to admit they were.  With the shining exception of an excellent story from Keith Roberts, both the fiction and articles were disappointing, although they got a little better near the end of the magazine.  My sources in the publishing world tell me that this will be the last bimonthly issue of Worlds of Tomorrow, and that it will turn into a quarterly.  This should give the editor, and the printer, time to deal with its problems.


Even an amusement park has to close down once in a while to fix things.

The Journey is once again up for a Best Fanzine Hugo nomination — and its founder is up for several other awards as well! If you've got a Worldcon membership, or if you just want to see what Gideon's done that's Hugo-worthy, please read his Hugo Eligibility article! Thank you for your continued support.




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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 4, 1966] Sanguinary Cinematic Surgery (Blood Bath and Queen of Blood)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Holiday for Hemophiles

A rather lurid double feature showed up at my local movie house a few days ago. Naturally, I had to go see it.


Nothing says Fun For The Whole Family like Shrieking Mutilated Victims.

Besides being released by (or escaping from) the same production company, these two films would seem to have little in common other than the prominent use of the word Blood in the title. This shouldn't come as a surprise, since American International also brought us Blood of Dracula (1957), Night of the Blood Beast (1958), and A Bucket of Blood (1959).

One is a black-and-white supernatural thriller, the other is a science fiction melodrama, full of bright colors. Quite different, right?

Actually, they resemble each other closely in a very specific way. Both make extensive use of footage from other movies. The scenes are chopped up, rearranged, and slapped back together, like making a Frankenstein's monster from random body parts. I'll go into detail as I discuss each film.

Art in the Blood

Let's start with Blood Bath, a confusing story that began as an ordinary crime drama.


Nothing like this actually happens in the movie. That's advertising for you.

Take a deep breath, because the path to the final product on screen is a long and tortuous one. (You may also find it torturous. Please note the distinction between these two terms.)

According to Hollywood gossip, this thing started life as a tale of murder filmed in Yugoslavia. It had something to do with a painting by the great artist Titian. None of this remains in Blood Bath.


Not a Yugoslavian crime film.

In fact, all we've got left are some nice scenes of Yugoslavia and the presence of actor William Campbell, familiar to me for his work in the psychological shocker Dementia 13 (1963). It was a pretty decent scare flick, written and directed by a newcomer named Francis Coppola.


Campbell stars in Blood Bath as an insane artist who lives in an old bell tower.

The next stop in the convoluted road to Blood Bath was to dump the plot and turn it into a horror movie involving a crazed painter. He imagines that he's possessed by the spirit of an ancestor, also an artist, who was condemned as a sorcerer way back in the bad old days. He kills his models and dumps them into a vat of wax.

Apparently this wasn't creepy enough for the producers. More new footage establishes that the madman is also a shapeshifting vampire. I don't mean that he turns into a bat or a wolf. I mean that he turns into another actor.

You see, Campbell was no longer available. Some other guy, who looks nothing at all like Campbell, plays the artist when he changes into a bloodsucker.


Not William Campbell.

I previously mentioned the movie A Bucket of Blood, which was an enjoyable black comedy about a guy who becomes an acclaimed sculptor when he accidentally kills a cat and covers the body in clay, creating his first masterpiece. He goes on to murder people and turn them into works of art in the same way. (I said it was enjoyable, not in good taste.)

Anyway, that film contains a great deal of biting satire concerning the pretentions of arty beatnik types. Blood Bath tosses that into the mix as well, resulting in a movie with wild shifts in mood from grim to comic.


Beatniks!

One artist produces what he calls quantum art by loading a pistol with a packet containing paint and shooting it at the canvas. Another applies paint directly to the face of a model, then shoves her into the canvas. (I felt sorry for the actress playing this tiny role, who had to put up with getting some kind of goop on her face.)

All this makes the movie seem like a real mess, and I can't deny that it's even less coherent than I've made it sound. And yet it's not without interesting moments. As I've mentioned, there are some fine scenes of Yugoslavia. (The film actually takes place in Southern California, so there are some inconsistencies. Notably, the bell tower is supposedly from medieval times.) The cinematography, in general, is quite good, creating an eerie mood, full of darkness and shadows.

The vampire attacks, although they stick out from the rest of the film like sore thumbs, are done with some imagination. There's one at a merry-go-round, and another in a swimming pool.

In particular, I was very impressed with a hallucinatory sequence. The artist imagines himself in a desert landscape full of strange objects, while his ancestor's mistress dances and laughs at him.


It reminds me of a Salvador Dali painting.

The ending, which I won't give away here, doesn't make much sense, but is strangely effective in its own way. That pretty much describes the whole movie, really.

Red Planet, Green Vamp

Let's leave Yugoslavia/California and head for outer space, in order to meet the Queen of Blood.


The portrait of the Queen is pretty accurate, but the movie does not feature tiny people floating in a giant spider web.

We start with some really nifty abstract art under the opening titles.


Painting by John Cline. He gets on screen credit, too.

Our helpful narrator tells us that it's the year 1990. People have settled the Moon, and are planning voyages to Mars and Venus. Space travel is under the auspices of the International Institute of Space Technology.

The IIST receives signals from another solar system, indicating intelligent life. We then cut to scenes of the alien world.  These are quite impressive, and show a great deal of visual imagination.


Looks like something Chesley Bonestell might have dreamed up, doesn't it?

Let me back up a bit and explain why some parts of this movie look quite lovely, and others look, well, cheap. Queen of Blood takes much of its footage from a Soviet film, Mechte navstrechhu. My Russian is a little rusty, but this seems to mean something like To the dream.

Similar things have happened in the past. The Noble Editor and the Young Traveler have already told us how the Soviet film Nebo Zovyot (The sky is calling, more or less) emerged as Battle Beyond the Sun in American theaters.

Last year, Planeta Bur (Storm planet) showed up as Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. I'm sure more of this kind of thing will go on in the future. Why? Simply because the Soviet SF films are so visually impressive.


Take a look at this scene from the alien world in Queen of Blood, for example.

Back at the IIST, we meet our heroes, about to take a lunch break. Their meal is interrupted by the announcement that the alien message has been translated.


From left to right, John Saxon as Allen, Judi Meredith as Laura, Dennis Hopper as Paul, and Don Eitner as Tony. For a supposedly international organization, the IIST is sure full of Americans.

All four are astronauts, and Laura is also the communications expert we saw listening to the alien broadcast. She and Allen are romantically involved, but that doesn't prevent them from acting in a fully professional manner when on the job. I'll give the film credit for making Laura a vital character in the plot, rather than simply the Girl.

The leader of the IIST tells a huge crowd of listeners (more Soviet footage) that an alien spaceship is on its way to our solar system.


Very special guest star Basil Rathbone, everybody's favorite Sherlock Holmes, as the director of the IIST.

A small device, containing a record of the voyage, falls into Earth's ocean. This reveals that the aliens suffered an accident and crash landed on Mars.


The beautiful alien spaceship, before it leaves its home planet.

By the way, the scene in which the crowd listens to the announcement is visually stunning. It features a statue of heroic proportions, symbolizing humanity's exploration of space.


Seriously, isn't that monument gorgeous?

Naturally, the IIST sends astronauts to Mars to contact the aliens. Aboard the oddly named spaceship Oceano are Laura and Paul, along with a Dutch-accented commander. (OK, not everybody in the IIST is American or British.) The vessel is launched from the Moon, which allows us to see some very nice Soviet models of a lunar base.

The Oceano gets hit by a so-called sunburst on the way to Mars, forcing them to use extra fuel and causing some damage. They find the alien spaceship, occupied by one dead extraterrestrial. They figure out that some sort of lifeboat must have carried away the survivors of the crash.


In other news, home sales increase.

Because the Oceano II isn't ready yet — couldn't they think of another name? — Allan and Tony volunteer to take the much smaller Meteor to help with the search for the lifeboat. They can't land the tiny vessel on Mars and then take off again, due to limitations on how much fuel they can carry, but they can land on Phobos, due to the lesser gravity. (Hey! Some real science!)


The view from Phobos. Nice work, comrades.

The logistics of the space voyages get pretty complicated here. After the guys on the Meteor find the sole surviving alien on Phobos, thanks to pure dumb luck, it turns out that Allan can travel to Mars to join the crew of the Oceano with his extraterrestrial passenger aboard the Meteor's own lifeboat, but that Tony has to stay on Phobos and wait to be rescued by the Oceano II when it shows up in a week.

We finally get to meet our title character. She's well worth waiting for. Looking very much like a human woman, except for her green skin, she remains mute throughout the film. This makes her all the more intriguing.


Czech actress Florence Marly as the Queen of Blood.

Communicating with the Earthlings strictly through facial expressions and gestures, she clearly coveys a sense of friendship for the males, but dislike for Laura. Paul soon teaches her to drink water from a bottle, but she refuses all offers of food. She also reacts violently when Laura tries to take a blood sample from her, knocking the syringe to the floor in anger.


Paul demonstrates how to use a squeeze bottle. The Queen of Blood is more interested in another liquid.

Well, given the title, you can probably guess what comes next, and who the first victim will be. Suffice to say that the Queen of Blood was quite right to be suspicious of Laura, who turns out to be the film's real hero.


Queen of Blood eggs, suggesting that there should be a question mark at the end of the above phrase.

A Bloody Good Time

I won't claim these two films are masterpieces. Both have serious flaws.

Blood Bath is incoherent, to say the least. It does have some moody scenes, however, and its lack of plot logic gives it a dream-like feeling that may be appealing.

Queen of Blood suffers from the cheapness of the American scenes, obviously filmed on small stages, as opposed to the sweeping vistas of the Soviet scenes. On the other hand, Florence Marly's performance is compelling.


Oh, that's where the question mark went.

If you enjoy these movies, maybe you'll be inspired to do a good deed of some sort once you leave the theater.

The Journey is once again up for a Best Fanzine Hugo nomination — and its founder is up for several other awards as well! If you've got a Worldcon membership, or if you just want to see what Gideon's done that's Hugo-worthy, please read his Hugo Eligibility article! Thank you for your continued support.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[February 12, 1966] Past?  Imperfect.  Future?  Tense. (March 1966 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Straight From the Horse's Mouth

The Noble Editor and my Esteemed Colleagues always do a fine job of informing our fellow Journeyers about what's happening on Earth and in outer space. There is one small piece of news, however, which seems to have escaped notice.

The last episode of Mister Ed appeared on American television screens last week. For those of you fortunate enough not to be familiar with this program, it's about a talking horse.


The star of the program. I believe there are some human actors as well.

I find it remarkable that a show with a premise that does not lend itself to a large number of variations has lasted for more than five years. For those of you who are counting, that's five times as long as the excellent, groundbreaking series East Side/West Side.


George C. Scott as New York City social worker Neil Brock. He doesn't seem happy about being outdone by a loquacious equine.

To add insult to injury, Mister Ed wasn't even original, but an obvious imitation of a series of low budget movies about Francis the Talking Mule, who appeared in no less than seven films from 1950 to 1956.


In Hollywood, changing a talking mule to a talking horse is known as creativity.

How Green Was My Valley

If the success of Mister Ed proves that entertainment was less than perfect in the recent past, a new novel suggests that the future of popular literature may lead to some tension among sensitive readers.


Every Night, Josephine! is a nonfiction book about the author's dog. I can't seem to get away from animals, can I?

Jacqueline Susann's first novel, Valley of the Dolls, appeared in bookstores a couple of days ago. The word on the street is that it is quite racy. I expect the author will earn a fair amount of greenbacks from this fledgling work of fiction.

A Songbird Flies Back

In the world of popular music, even a song a few weeks old can seem dated. A little more than a year ago, multilingual British singer Petula Clark had a Number One hit in the USA with her upbeat number Downtown, which I quite like. I might even say her past success is far from imperfect.

Now she's back with another smash hit. It makes me a little tense to realize that My Love isn't as good a song as Downtown, but I have to admit that the lady can sing, and I wish her more success in the future.


You're going to the top of the charts, dear.

Half a Century for Half a Buck

Given the fact that Fantastic and its sister publication Amazing are now filling their pages with lots of reprints, not all of them classics, we have plenty of evidence that speculative fiction's past hasn't always been perfect. The latest issue goes back in time nearly fifty years, but also features a couple of new works. Appropriately, many of the stories deal with threats from the distant past, while the only futuristic tale describes a tense situation that may confront the people of tomorrow.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul, reprinted from the back cover of the November 1940 issue of Amazing Stories, as shown below.


I don't think this is a very accurate picture of what the surface of the moon Titan might be like.

The Bells of Shoredan, by Roger Zelazny


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

We've already met Dilvish, a warrior who escaped from Hell, a couple of times before. He returns to the material world to defend his homeland, with the aid of a being that takes the form of a steel talking horse. (There's that again! Francis and Ed, what hath thou wrought?)

In this adventure, he journeys to the ruins of an incredibly ancient, seemingly deserted citadel. His quest is to ring enchanted bells that will summon soldiers from the limbo where they have been trapped for an immense amount of time. Along the way, he acquires a temporary companion in the form of a priest.


The unlikely pair witness a ghostly battle.

Dilvish is an intriguing character, and the author gives readers just enough information about his past to make them want to know more. This sword-and-sorcery yarn is full of imaginative supernatural happenings and plenty of action. I could quibble about the author's attempt to sound archaic — he has a habit of inserting the word did before verbs in order to sound old-fashioned — but that's a minor point. Overall, it's a solid example of the form. I'd place it somewhere between Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, and a little bit higher than John Jakes.

Four stars.

Hardly Worth Mentioning, By Chad Oliver


Cover art by W. T. Mars.

From the pages of the May/June 1953 issue of the magazine comes this tale of unexpected rivals of humanity from the mists of prehistory.


Illustrations by Ernie Barth.

A team of archeologists digging in rural Mexico discovers a plastic disk in a layer of soil from pre-Columbian times. The apparent paradox leads the protagonist to discover that another humanoid species, distinct from Homo sapiens, has been directing human history since the beginning. They even have the ability to travel in time, in order to correct little mistakes, like leaving the plastic disk where it could be found centuries later.


An army of the time travelers arrives in an ancient Indian village.

When the archeologist discovers the truth, the humanoids hurt him in the worst way possible. Knowing that he cannot fight them directly, he resolves to protect the future of humanity in a different way.

The author is an anthropologist by profession, so his portrait of the related field of archeology is completely convincing. The price the protagonist must pay for learning too much carries a powerful emotional impact. I was pleased and surprised to find out that the story avoids a melodramatic battle between the two species, but instead ends in a quiet, hopeful, bittersweet fashion.

Four stars.

Axe and Dragon (Part Three of Three), by Keith Laumer


Illustration by Gray Morrow.

In the first two parts of this novel, we journeyed with our hero, one Lafayette O'Leary, into another reality, that he seemed to create through self-hypnosis. After many wild adventures, he wound up getting blamed for the disappearance of a beautiful princess. Now he sets out to rescue her from a legendary ogre and his dragon.

This segment starts off with an even more comedic tone than the others, bordering on the just plain silly. Lafayette meets with some folks who are obviously intended to be cartoon versions of Arabs. They remind me of a famous novelty song from a few years ago, Ahab the Arab, by comic singer Ray Stevens. As an example of the goofiness, at a feast they not only consume Chinese and Hawaiian dishes, but bottles of Pepsi.

Anyway, Lafayette goes on to acquire a loyal steed in the form of a friendly dinosaur, and finally meets the ogre. The ogre has a very strange brother indeed. After an unexpected scene of bloody violence in such a lighthearted story, Lafayette returns to the palace. He meets an old rival, learns the truth about the king's mysterious wizard, saves the princess, discovers who was behind her kidnapping, finds out about his own special background, and gets the girl (although maybe not in the way you'd expect.)

The whole thing moves at a furious, breakneck pace, so that you don't realize it doesn't always make a whole lot of sense. Lafayette's ability to change reality, for example, seems to come and go, depending on how the author needs to propel the plot. There's a scientific explanation, of sorts, from the so-called wizard about what's really going on, but it might as well just be pure magic. It's entertaining enough to keep you reading, but hardly substantial.

Three stars.

Keep Out, by Fredric Brown


Cover art by Clarence Doore.

The March 1954 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this brief tale, from a master of the short-short story.


Illustration by John Schoenherr.

From birth, a group of people are bred to survive on the surface of Mars. The narrator is one of these folks, and reveals their plans.

Some of Brown's tiny tales are masterpieces of a very difficult form. This one is not. I saw the twist ending coming. Maybe you will, too.

Two stars.

The People of the Pit, by A. Merritt


I have been unable to find out who drew this cover.

We jump back to the January 5, 1918 issue of All-Story Weekly for yet another yarn about danger from the remote past. It was reprinted in the March 1927 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

Some folks head for a remote part of the Arctic in search of gold. A man who is nearly dead crawls to their campsite and relates his strange story.

It seems that there is an immense pit, bigger than the Grand Canyon, beyond a chain of mountains. Not only that, but a gigantic set of stairs, carved in the remote past, leads down into it.

The fellow descends into the pit, and encounters bizarre beings who enslave him. He tells how he finally escaped, and managed to crawl his way back up to the surface.


Illustration by Martin Gambee.

This story reminds me of H. P. Lovecraft, with its unimaginably old structures and creatures who are almost beyond the ability of the human mind to conceive. Given the original date of publication, I presume Lovecraft was influenced by it. The author creates a genuine sense of weirdness and menace. The old-fashioned use of a narrative-within-a-narrative slows things down a bit, and it's mostly description rather than plot, but it's not bad at all.

Three stars.

Your Soul Comes C.O.D., by Mack Reynolds


Cover art by Leo Summers and Ed Valigursky.

Once you get beyond the face of Joseph Stalin on the front of the March 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures, you'll find the original appearance of this variation on a very old theme.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

A guy intends to summon a demon in order to exchange his soul for a good life. Before he can even perform the necessary ritual, however, a being appears, ready to make a deal. The man gains forty years of true love, prosperity, and a happy family. When it comes time to pay the price, he finds out what he bargained for.

A story like this depends entirely on the twist in the tail. I have to admit that the author took me by surprise and came up with a new version of the sell-your-soul premise.

Three stars.

How Did You Enjoy Today's Grammar Lesson?

Example of the past imperfect: I was reading Fantastic magazine yesterday.

Example of the future tense: I will finish this article today.

Well, that may not be the best way to study the structure of English, but it gives me something to think about while I sum up my feelings about this issue. For the most part, it was pretty good. Only the Fredric Brown reprint was disappointing, because I expected more from him. There was a good old story, and a good new story. The rest of the stuff was decent filler.

If you don't care for the way I'm acting like a language instructor, maybe you'd prefer something a little more technologically advanced.


Don't blame me if you don't like math.

The Journey is once again up for a Best Fanzine Hugo nomination — and its founder is up for several other awards as well! If you've got a Worldcon membership, or if you just want to see what Gideon's done that's Hugo-worthy, please read his Hugo Eligibility article! Thank you for your continued support.




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Movies

[January 24, 1966] The Sincerest Form Of Espionage (Agent for H.A.R.M., Our Man Flint, and Other Bond Imitations)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

My Word Is My Bond

The late Ian Fleming certainly didn't invent spy fiction, but he started an explosive interest in the genre with the publication of his 1953 novel Casino Royale.


And he designed the cover art, too.

Introducing British secret agent James Bond, also known as 007, the book was followed by eleven more novels, as well as the story collection For Your Eyes Only.

Spies On The Screen

Of course, the current craze for all things Bond-related didn't really get started until the release of the film adaptation of Dr. No, making an international superstar of Scottish actor Sean Connery in the role of Bond. Since then, we've seen movie versions of From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball. It seems certain that there will be more to come, at least until they run out of Fleming titles.

It's no surprise to find out that other filmmakers around the world have jumped on the bandwagon. Many of their productions, made in Europe, have yet to appear in the USA, so are beyond this discussion. (I presume that some will eventually show up, in heavily edited and badly dubbed versions, on American television.) Let me mention, at random, a few that have appeared in Yankee movie theaters.

Hot Enough For June stars Dirk Bogarde as an ordinary fellow looking for a job who gets mixed up in international intrigue because he happens to speak Czech. Known as Agent 8 3/4 on this side of the pond, just in case we ignorant Americans didn't realize it was a spy movie, it offers both action and fish-out-of-water comedy, in the form of the reluctant secret agent.


As you can tell if you've seen the trailer, it also offers Sylva Koscina's legs.

A similar combination of laughs and thrills appears in the French film That Man from Rio (L'Homme de Rio), one of the few foreign language Bond imitations to reach English-speaking audiences.


The clever screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award. You can enjoy watching the trailer at your local art cinema house, if you don't mind subtitles.

We go from semi-comic adventures to out-and-out farce with Carry On Spying, one of the many films in the long-running Carry On series of lowbrow British comedies. Given that the evil organization in this movie is called STENCH, you realize that this isn't exactly subtle wit.


The oddest thing I found out when I saw the trailer is that it's in black-and-white. The genre screams for bright, bold colors.

The United Kingdom doesn't have a monopoly on silly spy spoofs. The great Vincent Price has the title role in the American comedy Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. It's so goofy that it reminds me of the beach movies to which I am addicted. And the Supremes sing the groovy title song!


Catch the trailer to see Price parody his role in The Pit and the Pendulum.

There are other followers of the Bond formula that are more dramatic. Despite a few sly references to you-know-who, Licensed to Kill is mostly a serious imitation of the original.


It was re-edited and given a nutty new title for American audiences. They also added a title song performed by Sammy Davis, Jr.

Idiot Box Intelligence Agents

Secret agents also populate our living rooms on the small screen. One of the most popular television versions of the espionage game comes in the form of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., starring Robert Vaughn as the improbably named operative Napoleon Solo and David McCallum as his Russian partner Ilya Kuryakin. Together, they fight each week against the sinister organization THRUSH.


U.N.C.L.E. stands for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. THRUSH doesn't stand for anything but evil, as far as I know.

There's also the relatively new series I Spy, with a pair of secret agents pretending to be a semi-pro tennis player and his trainer. The show manages to be both serious and comic, and benefits from the playful dialogue between the two leads.


Comedian Bill Cosby as Alexander Scott and Robert Culp as Kelly Robinson.

Also recently arriving is a series that combines the popular Western genre with the gadgets and evil megalomaniacs of spy fiction. The Wild Wild West features two secret agents working for President Ulysses S. Grant. Their adventures often involve bizarre science fiction technology, far beyond what you would expect in the Nineteenth Century.


Ross Martin as Artemus Gordon, Master of Disguise, and Robert Conrad as James West, the Bond of the Old West.

While I was working on this article, the Noble Editor informed me that the whodunit series Burke's Law, some episodes of which were written by Harlan Ellison, has changed its name to Amos Burke, Secret Agent. The millionaire playboy police captain is now a millionaire playboy spy.


The Noble Editor also informs me that it's not very good.

Naturally, we have a situation comedy based on spy stuff. Get Smart pits the good guys of CONTROL against the bad guys of KAOS (who obviously don't spell very well.)


Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, and Barbara Feldon as the otherwise nameless Agent 99.

The Young Traveler has already waxed poetic over the British import Danger Man (known as Secret Agent in the USA, because we have to have everything spelled out for us), so I won't go into any detail.


Patrick McGoohan as John Drake. In some ways, he's the antithesis of James Bond.

I've heard good things about another TV show from the UK, but it hasn't reached these shores yet. I'm talking about The Avengers, a tongue-in-cheek adventure series starring another Patrick, this one surnamed Macnee. It started broadcasting in 1961, before the first James Bond movie was released.


Patrick Macnee as John Steed and Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale. Blackman left the series to play a character with an unusual name in Goldfinger.

I understand that the American Broadcasting Company has purchased the rights to the series, and will begin showing it in the USA in a couple of months.


Wearing Steed's bowler is his new partner, Emma Peel, portrayed by Diana Rigg.

Mad About Spies

I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't mention a series of cartoons appearing in Mad magazine, of which I am a regular reader. Cuban expatriate Antonio Prohias writes and draws Spy vs Spy, which shows a Black Spy and a White Spy taking turns destroying each other. Once in a while, the female Gray Spy shows up and gets the better of both of them. This femme fatale is drawn in a more-or-less realistic fashion, unlike the pair of cone-faced male spies.


The feature changes its name to Spy vs Spy vs Spy when she arrives. For those of you who don't read Morse code, the message says By Prohias.

Double-Oh Double Feature

Speaking of Spy vs Spy, a pair of would-be Bonds arrived in American theaters this month, ready to take on each other at the box office. Who will prevail? Let's take a look at the earlier arrival first.

In H.A.R.M.'s Way


The trailer emphasizes Danger! rather than Women!

We begin with a couple of guys running through a tunnel. A soldier chases them, but gets shot down by one of them. The two reach safety, they think, but the man they meet, who was supposed to help them cross the Iron Curtain, betrays them. He shoots one of them with a funny-looking gun that makes a kind of a hiss when it fires. We'll find out that this thing is a spore gun, and it turns people into bubbling green fungus.


Who ordered an extra large spinach and pepperoni pizza?

The other guy overpowers the traitor and gets away. It turns out that this is a defecting scientist, who apparently created the deadly spore and who is working on a cure for it.


Carl Esmond as Spore Guy.

After the semi-abstract title sequence, which seems to be mandatory for this kind of thing, we get to meet our hero, Adam Chance, Agent for H.A.R.M., played by Mark Richman. In proper Bond style, he's a real ladies' man. He's got a date with his boss's secretary, but has to break it to take on a new assignment.


She's a very minor character, and I wasn't even going to mention her, but I wanted you to see her truly amazing two-tone beehive hairdo.

He also gets some smooching from a female agent he's training in judo and marksmanship. Although she's no amateur when it comes to martial arts, he overcomes her, because he's all manly and stuff.


Romance, Adam Chance style.

Adam goes to visit the scientist in his oceanside home. Also present is his niece, whom he hasn't seen in twenty years. We find out right away that she's really an imposter, working for the Commies. Attention girlwatchers: She spends almost the entire movie in a skimpy bikini. (By the way, our hero often wears a green turtleneck with a pale yellow sweater. Somehow that doesn't seem as elegant as Bond's tuxedo.)


Barbara Bouchet, as the phony niece, reacts to Adam's choice of attire.

It seems that the Bad Guys plan to spray the spores over American crops, so those rascally capitalists will turn into slimy green goop. They've got their headquarters in a little house just over the border in Mexico. They also have only about four or five guys, and one small plane, so I assume they're on a budget.


"Tell me the truth, boss; do I look more like Stevie Wonder or Johnny Mathis?"

Well, there's no need to go over the rest of the slow-moving plot. There's a lot of running back and forth between the beach house and the Bad Guys' hacienda. There are some sub-Bond gadgets. (Adam has a tape recorder disguised in an electric shaver. During a conversation with the scientist, he has to casually ask if he minds if he shaves while they talk.) Our hero gets a flat tire, so he steals a motorcycle. Don't try that the next time you get a flat.

Oh, you'd like to know what H.A.R.M. stands for?  The movie reveals this in a shot that lasts a fraction of a second, above a sort of computer map gizmo that keeps track of where the agents are located.  Are you ready?

Human Aetiological Relations Machine.

Don't ask me what that means, or why this American organization uses the British spelling.

Originally an unsold pilot for a TV series, this thing was released to an unsuspecting public as a feature film. The low budget and cramped sets of a television show are visible in every scene. The only way to enjoy it, I think, is to get together with some friends and make fun of it.

The Lighter Side of Espionage


Watch the trailer and you'll understand my lighter joke.

Next to arrive on the silver screens of America was Our Man Flint, with James Coburn playing the title role. We start with scenes (stock footage, with maybe some stuff stolen from other movies) of disasters all over the world. For a moment I thought I was watching Crack in the World again.

Cut to the headquarters of some kind of international organization. Although an establishing shot tells us we're in Washington, D.C., there are folks of different nationalities standing around. The boss is played by Lee J. Cobb. We'll find out later that the organization is known as Zonal Organization World Intelligence Espionage — Z.O.W.I.E.!


On the phone with the President of the United States. This telephone has its own special ring.

Desperate to defeat the mysterious villains behind these events, all the assembled representatives of world governments write down their desired qualifications for the perfect agent. The computer spits out only one name: Derek Flint. Cobb has to call on Flint to convince him to come out of retirement to save the world.

Flint lives in this really cool place, full of all kinds of gadgets. He can change the paintings and statues instantly, with one push of a button. He's got private practice areas for martial arts, fencing, and so forth.


Just part of a routine day for Derek Flint.

He also lives with four women, each of a different nationality, who apparently combine the characteristics of servants — barber, valet, etc. — and girlfriends.


Flint bids a temporary farewell to the ladies

Flint prepares himself for his assignment by stopping his heart for a couple of hours, a talent that will come in handy later. This requires him to maintain what seems to be a rather uncomfortable position.


Coburn is really doing this, without special effects.

After refusing to accept the usual spy gadgets, because he has his own — remember the lighter? — he immediately dispatches a couple of Bad Guys disguised as military guards.


He knows they're phonies because they're wearing ribbons for the Battle of the Bulge, which don't exist. Silly Bad Guys.

The plot gets really complicated from this point, so let me just outline it a bit. Our movie's Bad Girl, played by Israeli beauty Gina Golan, tries to kill Flint by shooting a poison dart at him with the strings of a harp.


Our femme fatale. How much do you want to bet that she falls into our hero's arms?

Traces of the ingredients for Marseilles-style bouillabaisse on the dart lead him to the French port city. Then, after exchanging information with agent 0008 while they have a fake fight, he learns that an organization known as GALAXY is behind the disasters. Golan tries to blow him up with a bomb in a jar of cold cream.

The cold cream leads him to Rome, where he encounters Golan again. Complications ensue when his four girlfriends are kidnapped. It all leads up to the final battle at GALAXY headquarters, situated on a volcanic island.


The Bad Guys have great interior decorators.

It seems that three Mad Scientists want to create a world without war and want, using the disasters they create to blackmail the world into accepting their benign dictatorship. They also use mind control to transform Flint's ladies, and a bunch of other women, into Pleasure Units, to serve the needs of their male minions.

This takes the form of entertaining them in fantasy rooms, where they play the roles of go-go dancers, maidservants of ancient times, and so forth. The most amusing of these is the room where they park in cars with the men in a simulated drive-in theater and smooch on them.

Will Flint defeat GALAXY and get his four girlfriends back? Are you kidding me?


Make that five girlfriends.

Our Man Flint is a very amusing movie. The main source of humor is the fact that Flint is incredibly competent at everything from emergency surgery to cliff diving. Coburn plays the role with just the right sense of cool assurance.

Unlike the poverty-stricken Agent for H.A.R.M., this film obviously has a real budget. The sets are lavish, and the special effects are pretty good, although you can tell that some things are just models. The action sequences are done with excellent stunt work. The movie seems to be making money, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a sequel in the works.

I'm sure there will be countless more books, movies, television series, comic books, and whatnot inspired by the spy fad. Who knows where a secret agent will show up next?


Maybe in board games. That doesn't look a whole lot like Sean Connery, by the way.




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