-30-

The more of Jack Webb's work I see, the more I admire this vastly underrated auteur of mid-twentieth century American film and television. Often imitated and more frequently dismissed because of his perceived wooden acting style, Webb was both a consummate craftsman as a filmmaker and a man with a singular vision when it came to telling stories in as realistic and hard hitting a manner as possible. 

Case in point, -30- (1959), which I watched for the first time yesterday. This taut little thriller depicts a night in the life of a Los Angeles metropolitan newspaper with a varied cast of characters. All of the little dramas and comedies are played out against the backdrop of the "big" story and all of the action is confined to the newsroom which managing editor Sam Gatlin (Webb) watches over. He's aided by city editor Jim Bathgate (William Conrad), an unnamed wire editor (Howard McNear),  layout man Hy Shapiro (Joe Flynn) and staff "artist" Chapman (Richard Deacon). There's also a young copy boy (does anyone remember when newspapers had such employees?) Earl Collins (David Nelson) while the smoking hot Whitney Blake plays Sam's wife, Peggy.

The "big" story on this long rainy night is a young girl missing in the sewer drains beneath Los Angeles. As the night wears on the rain continues to fall, causing the storm sewers to fill to capacity, limiting the hopes of finding the girl alive. Gatlin orders as much coverage as possible, holding the crucial front page until the very last dead-or-alive headline. 

Webb, aided by screenwriter William Bowers, keeps the action moving at a good clip, allowing plenty of time for various character vignettes while also giving a peek behind-the-scenes of a how a big city newspaper worked in 1959. Not all of the humor works and Conrad gets to deliver the obligatory monologue about how important the work of a newspaper is (and I agree with everything he says), but this is Webb's baby from start to finish. He treats the men and women in the newspaper business as professionals first, human beings (with all of their inherent problems and troubles, including his own pending adoption of an orphan boy) second. Webb walks a fine line between thriller and docu-drama with the result an utterly fascinating and compelling film that deserves to be seen by anyone with an interest in journalism or the work of Jack Webb. 

Although it's his work on both iterations of the DRAGNET television series that made Webb an immortal, the man had a sizable body of work outside of that legendary series that is long past due for re-discovery and re-consideration as an important part of mid-century American cinema. 

Recommended.

ASTOUNDING

I've had a lifelong interest in science fiction so when I spied a copy of this book late last year, I knew I had to have it. I received a copy as a Christmas present and I finally got around to reading it last week. 

ASTOUNDING: JOHN W. CAMPBELL, ISAAC ASIMOV, ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, L. RON HUBBARD, AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION by Alec Nevala-Lee is a massive (over 500 pages), biography of one magazine and four men, all of whom played a crucial role in the development of literary science fiction in the 20th century. 

Despite it's length, Nevala-Lee writes in a highly readable style and I tore through this book in a matter of days. Of course, it helps when the subject matter is so incredibly fascinating. I never had the chance to read an issue of ASTOUNDING when I was a kid, primarily because the magazine had become ANALOG by then. I still never picked up an issue, preferring instead the two long-running stalwarts AMAZING and FANTASTIC for my sf magazine reading. Still, ASTOUNDING was, for a time, regarded as the cream of the crop of the science fiction pulp jungle, publishing stories by the very best authors in the field and, incidentally, paying more than any of the competitors. 

All four of the men profiled within ASTOUNDING share similar traits. Campbell, Asimov, Heinlein and Hubbard were all incredibly bright, super smart, highly talented men as both writers and would be scientists. They were also extremely quirky individuals with Campbell exhibiting horrifically racist viewpoints, Heinlein becoming a grumpy old right-winger, Hubbard going down the rabbit hole of his own invention that is Scientology with Asimov, the youngest and most prolific writer (fiction and non-fiction) of the bunch, still pinching women's fannies into his old age. 

Nevertheless, these men all had a vision for the future that could be expressed, investigated and promoted through the genre of science fiction. Science fiction allowed these writers (and others), platforms from which to launch ideas about technology, society, psychology, warfare and other pertinent concerns. Indeed, Campbell did such a good job of imagining the atomic bomb (based solely on bits and pieces of information and his own knowledge of nuclear physics) that the FBI paid him a visit after he published a story that too closely predicted the then-in-development atomic bomb. "We guessed right" was Campbell's response.

The end result of reading a book like this is to make the reader want to seek out and read the works of the featured writers (and others mentioned in the text). That's just what I've set out to do. I'm currently reading THE BLACK STAR PASSES by John W. Campbell and hope to post a review as soon as I've finished it. 

In the meantime, I give ASTOUNDING my highest recommendation. Any reader who has an interest in science fiction, will enjoy this book. Whether you're a long time fan or a newcomer to the genre (through some current gateway drug into the world of SF), this book is an absolute must read. 

Here are the issues of ASTOUNDING that I have in my collection of pulp magazines. These beauties were purchased from a comic book shop in Waco, Texas in the summer of 2016. Enjoy.

THE TREMBLING EARTH CONTRACT

Philip Atlee's Joe Gall series of men's adventure paperbacks ran from 1951 to 1976 for a total of twenty-three novels featuring the CIA's top contract killer. I'd never read a Joe Gall novel until recently, although I've had a couple of the paperbacks sitting on my shelf for quite some time. 

I took the plunge and gave THE TREMBLING EARTH CONTRACT a read the other day. The tenth Gall adventure was published in 1969 and it shows its' age. The title sets you up to expect Gall up against some type of menace involving earthquakes but nothing could be further from the truth. The "Trembling Earth" of the title refers to the type of soil to be found in the Southeastern United States, an area in which The Republic of New Africa, a para-military organization ala The Black Panthers, is buying up land and business in the hopes of establishing a new, independent country for dispossessed African Americans. The Republic recruits Vietnam veterans and other young men, trains and arms them and then sends them out to wreak havoc throughout the white dominated Southern states. 

Gall is a target of one of these hit teams in the opening pages of the book wherein he meets Melissa, an attractive young attorney who has come to Gall's Arkansas retreat to offer him a job as a security consultant with a giant Houston based law firm. Gall is tempted by both the offer and the woman but he's loyal to the CIA who has given him the assignment of infiltrating the Republic of New Africa. 

As a black man.

That's right folks, Joe Gall dons an Afro wig and takes a drug which darkens his skin and somehow manages to pass as an African American, fooling an entire army of black men. What, the CIA didn't have any qualified African American operatives in 1969? It's like that scene in SILVER STREAK where Gene Wilder tries to pass as black with help from Richard Pryor. It's hilarious because in no way does the white Wilder come across as a black man. I guess Gall was somehow more convincing. Hell, he even fools Sarah, the pretty young black woman who takes him to the Republic's hidden training base.

If you can swallow this insanely un PC concept, the story is not bad at all. The action moves at a good clip with Gall managing to thwart a multiple assassination plot during Mardi Gras and later escaping from his swamp prison when his real identity is eventually uncovered. 

But then Atlee throws in an incredibly rushed action scene in the last two (!) pages of the book in which a small army of Republic troops launch an assault on Gall's home forcing Gall and Melissa to arm themselves and return fire before Attlee abruptly ends the book in the middle of the action. It just stops. I wonder if Atlee had a page and/or word count that he absolutely couldn't exceed and thus, whenever that limit was met, that was the end of the book, no matter what was happening on the page. 

I dunno the real reason (or if there even is one) but everything stops fast enough to give a reader whiplash.

So, politically incorrect narrative gimmick and stop-on-a-dime ending aside, Joe Gall proves to be an interesting enough character for me to try another book in the series. On the American 1960s paperback spy series scale I'd rank Gall behind Matt Helm and Sam Durell and ahead of Nick Carter. 

Worth checking out if you're not easily offended by horrific racial tropes. Remember, this was written in 1969. That doesn't excuse the mess but it does provide some context for explanation.  

DOC DOUBLE HEADER

I hadn't read an original Doc Savage novel since the summer of 2015 so I decided it was high time I did something about that. I've been re-reading the Bantam Doc reprints in numerical order over the last several years starting with MAN OF BRONZE, followed by THOUSAND HEADED MAN, METEOR MENACE and POLAR TREASURE. Next up, BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF, the 5th Bantam Doc paperback novel.

Gotta love the cover art by Mort Kuntsler. Unfortunately, no scene even remotely like this occurs anywhere in the book. There is simply no werewolf, real or otherwise (I'm talking Scooby-Doo here). There's only a literal brand (more like a dirty smudge) containing the facial features of a werewolf that is left behind at the scene of various murders. 

When Marvel Comics adapted BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF into a two-part comic book adaptation for their short lived 1970s DOC SAVAGE comic book series (issues #7 & 8), writers Gardner Fox and Tony Isabella and artists Ross Andru, Frank Springer, Rich Buckler, Tom Palmer and Jack Abel all opted to depict an actual werewolf character (like that seen above) in the story. The "werewolf", complete with green trousers, ala Marvel's Werewolf By Night character, was eventually revealed to be a man in a werewolf costume, so at least Marvel's version was a Scooby-Doo. 

BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF, first published in January 1934, is an important chapter in the Savage super-saga as it features the first appearance of Doc's fetching cousin (and only surviving kin), Patricia Savage. Pat, of course, would go on to share many adventures with her cousin Clark and his Fabulous Five but it's in BRAND that both the readers and Doc and his men meet her for the first time.

The story starts with Doc and his men aboard a train speeding through the Canadian wilderness. Their destination is his uncle's cabin on the wild and desolate Pacific coast where Doc and his aides hope to enjoy some well earned rest and relaxation by doing some fishing and hunting. This being a Doc Savage adventure, it's not long before things go wrong (there's a murder of a minor character in the first chapter alone). Doc is soon cast into a mystery involving some sinister Spaniards, the mysterious "brand of the werewolf" and an odd ivory carved cube that holds the secret of a long lost treasure. 

When Doc and his men finally reach Pat, they discover that her father has recently been killed, a victim of the "werewolf". Pat is aided by two Indian characters, both of whom (along with the Spanish villains), are all grotesque, un PC caricatures of real people. There's an obese Indian woman nicknamed "Tiny" and her no-good husband, tagged "Boat Face". 

Doc and his crew, along with Pat, face all sorts of danger before finally solving the mystery and discovering the final resting place of the fabulous lost treasure. 

BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF is a solid Doc adventure. It's a nice change of locale to have all of the action take place away from his New York City headquarters. All five of his aides are included: Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom and Johnny. The introduction of Pat Savage stands as an important part of the Doc Savage mythos.

If you look past the racial stereotypes and just know going in that there's no "werewolf", BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF is a great way to spend a late winter afternoon. 

I've also been reading over the last several years, some of the "All New Wild Adventures of Doc Savage". These are handsome trade paperbacks published by Altus Press, written by Will Murray and featuring spectacular cover art by Joe DeVito. I've thus far read THE DESERT DEMONS and THE FRIGHTENED FISH and, after finishing an original Doc in the form of BRAND, decided to read one of the newer Doc novels. 

HORROR IN GOLD was published in 2011 and it's a corker. Someone has developed a weapon that causes gold to explode and has begun wreaking havoc on the streets of New York City. First, two men, both of whom have gold teeth in their mouths, meet their deaths when their heads explode on a busy Manhattan street. A jewelry store collapses, a bank vault implodes, a plane is blown apart in the sky above New Jersey and the rear end of one of Doc's custom automobiles is vaporized. 

A masked villain calling himself (or is it herself), A. Alchemist, starts making demands. New York City becomes a ghost town as residents flee the city and business grinds to a halt. Doc, Monk, Ham and Long Tom (who has teeth made from a gold alloy, teeth which replace the pair he originally lost in, believe or not, BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF), race back and forth across the city from their 86th floor headquarters in an effort to discover the identity of the fiend and put a stop to the madness. They cross paths with an emaciated inventor and an obese attorney, both of whom have designs of their own on an improved version of the gold destroying device.

The chase finally leads to an Alaskan volcano where Doc and his men are joined by Renny and Long Tom, along with Monk's secretary, Lea Asher (who is captured by the bad guys). The full scope of the mad scheme is revealed and it's up to Doc to turn the tables and put a halt to the plan that could wreak financial havoc across the globe.

Kudos to author Murray who does a superlative job of channeling the spirit, writing and plotting style of the late Lester Dent into this page turner. The narrative starts out like a house on fire and I was turning the pages as fast as I could. But I must confess, the middle section of the book seemed a little padded and repetitious to me, with things merely running in place before moving the action to Alaska in the third act. It's a minor quibble as I nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed HORROR IN GOLD.