MY L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP STORY

Since I mentioned it yesterday here on my blog, I thought I'd take a moment and tell my L. Sprague de Camp story. First of all, let me preface this by saying there are some details regarding this encounter that I frankly do not remember. I ask your forgiveness for these gaps in my memory.

In the 1990s, my buddy Bob Parker lived in Brownwood, Texas. I would often go up there for a visit and the two of us had several adventures in that city (and in Cross Plains), involving our much loved literary hero Robert E. Howard. For instance, we visited (more than once), the family plot in the Brownwood cemetery where Howard, his mother and father are all buried and, again, more than once, we visited Cross Plains, where Howard lived and died. I have some more detailed stories about those visits but those are for a future blog post.

On one of my visits to Brownwood, sometime in the 1990s, Bob and I decided to go over to Howard Payne University and check out their collection of Howard material. By the way, my niece, Elizabeth, is going to be attending HPU this fall as a freshman but I digress...

We found the right building and the right room and while we were looking around, a nice lady came up to us and asked, "are you going to be here this evening for the de Camps?"

We looked at her and admitted that we had no idea that the de Camps were going to be there that evening but that we would certainly plan to attend. L. Sprague de Camp had a long and illustrious career as a writer of science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction and some non-fiction, including a biography of Robert E. Howard. de Camp and his wife, Catherine Crook de Camp, lived in Plano at the time so it was fairly easy for them to make the trip to Brownwood to give a talk.

The trouble was, since we didn't know in advance about the de Camp's appearance, I had none of his books with me to get signed. Still, this was a chance to see and hear a man who, for better or worse, had contributed material to the Conan saga and signed books or not, we weren't going to miss this one.

de Camp, looking much like the photo above, was everything I expected from such an august man of letters that evening. Tall, thin, bearded and erudite, the man knew his stuff. He had a slightly regal, imperious air about him but he spoke with authority and conviction about Conan, REH and other topics. It was a very enjoyable evening, even if I have no signed books to show that I was there.

de Camp and his wife's book, DARK VALLEY DESTINY: THE LIFE OF ROBERT E. HOWARD, was published in 1983. I have a copy on my shelf. The book caused quite a bit of controversy in Howard fan circles as de Camp attempted to force his Freudian psychology on Howard, calling him "neurotic" and "Oedipal", among other things. I must shamefully confess that I haven't read the book so I can't comment on the validity of these criticisms. I do know that the book pissed a lot of people off.

Another Howard biography is THE LAST CELT: A BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT ERVIN HOWARD by Glenn Lord. It was published by Donald Grant in 1976 in a limited edition of 2,600 copies. Sadly, I do not have a copy of this book.

I do, however, have a copy of ONE WHO WALKED ALONE: ROBERT E. HOWARD: THE FINAL YEARS by Novalyne Price Ellis. WALKED ALONE, first published in 1986,  is the only Howard biography written by someone who actually knew him and it was the basis for the film, THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD (1996), which starred Vincent D'Onofrio and Renee Zellweger. The film was shot in and around the Austin and Bastrop areas and when it opened in Austin in 1996, I wrote a sidebar about Robert E. Howard that ran in the American Statesman along with a review of the film.

Finally, there is BLOOD & THUNDER: THE LIFE & ART OF ROBERT E. HOWARD by Mark Finn, published in 2006. I don't have a copy of this one but I understand it's a good one.

If you're interested in reading more about Robert E. Howard, see if you can find a copy of one of these four books.

"TAKE ME HOME LITTLE BOY, YOU WILL LOVE ME!"

There's a story that the late Forrest J. Ackerman told often and with great relish. Heck, he told it to me both times I had the honor to be in his presence (and remind me to tell my Forry stories some day). It goes something like this:

"When I was a boy, magazines could talk. I saw the cover of the first issue of  AMAZING STORIES (April, 1926) when I was a young lad and the magazine spoke to me. It said, take me home little boy, you will love me!" Of course, Forry took it home (after paying for it) and love it he did. It became one of the touchstones of his long and celebrated life as a science fiction fan (among many other appellations).

I had a similar experience when I was twelve-years-old. It was 1968. I was in the seventh-grade at O.Henry Junior High School. My buddy Steve Cook and I had gone to see a movie downtown at either the Paramount or the State Theater. I don't remember which theater and I don't recall the film but I do know that afterwards, we went into a bookstore (Garner and Smith?) across Congress Avenue from the theaters to poke around for awhile before we caught the bus for our ride home.

I was looking around at the science fiction and fantasy books and there I saw it. A paperback, published by Lancer, called CONAN THE AVENGER. I had no idea who this Conan dude was but I sure knew the cover artist. It was none other than Frank Frazetta, whose work I had admired on various covers of Warren Publishing's CREEPY and EERIE black-and-white horror comics magazines. Frazetta was an incredible artist and this was one terrific image. This one scene with Conan charging in, bat-winged demons in the background, a semi-naked female on a slab, a mad wizard with a wicked knife held above his head and a gator and an octopus climbing up the steps of the altar from the primordial depths, blew my mind. You bet this baby spoke to me and you know what it said.

I bought the book and devoured it over the course of the weekend. I was immediately hooked on Conan the Barbarian as a character and sword and sorcery as a genre. I made a note to look for more of these cool books with the barbarian pulp hero and cover art by Frazetta. The irony is that the story in the book, THE RETURN OF CONAN, wasn't written by the great Robert E. Howard. It was penned by Bjorn Nyberg and L. Sprague de Camp (and remind me to tell my story about meeting him one of these days). In fact, the only pure Howard material in the book was THE HYBORIAN AGE, PART 2, which, honestly, kinda bored me. I became a Conan fan without having read an actual REH Conan story.

Of course, that soon changed when I purchased my next Lancer Conan paperback and discovered the storytelling magic of Howard. He quickly became one of my all time favorite writers (a position he still holds to this day). I've got quite a few stories to tell about REH involving Brownwood and Cross Plains, Texas and one of these days, I 'll get around to telling them here.

But for now, I just want to confirm that Forrest Ackerman was right. And was there ever any doubt? When I was twelve-years-old, a paperback book spoke to me in a voice I've never forgotten.

ANALYZE THIS

"Him, I don't know."

Back before we were married, many years ago, Judy and I used to enjoy a once a week movie night. I'd stop at the local Blockbuster (remember them?) and rent a fairly recent comedy for us to watch. On VHS. Judy hadn't yet made the transition to a DVD and there were still VHS tapes available for rent. I'd then proceed to her home in Elgin where we'd enjoy popcorn and a soda while we watched the movie. I usually picked a winner, but there were a few films that we didn't enjoy.

One of the movies I picked back then and one which we did like was ANALYZE THIS (1999). I recall getting some real belly laughs out of it. When I found a DVD of the film for two bucks at the thrift store, I knew I had to get it so we could enjoy it again. Judy and I have recently started a Friday night comedy movie night. We watched (and enjoyed) THE IN-LAWS (1979)  a couple of weeks back and last Friday evening, we laughed all the way through ANALYZE THIS. Again.

Robert De Niro is a gangster in need of therapy. Billy Crystal is the psychiatrist who, through a crazy series of events, finds himself counseling the anxiety ridden mobster. That's all the set up you really need because these two pros take the movie from there and run with it. Crystal is fine but the real treat here is De Niro, as the type of character you'd usually find him playing in a Martin Scorsese film. He's both a great gangster and a very funny man. There's also a great dream sequence that is copied shot for shot from Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece THE GODFATHER (1972).

Directed by Harold Ramis from a screenplay by Kenneth Lonergan, Peter Tolan and Ramis, ANALYZE THIS proved successful enough to warrant a sequel, ANALYZE THAT in 2002. I recall that Judy and I watched that one as well but I don't remember it being as funny as the first one.

ANALYZE THIS is a very funny movie and I highly recommend it. We enjoyed watching it again and I can't wait for our next movie night. I'm thinking we may have to revisit a certain Navin R. Johnson. Stay tuned.

SOLARIS

I have a rather checkered history regarding Stanislaw Lem's science fiction work SOLARIS as both a book and a film. I tried to read a paperback edition of the novel when I was in college. I had brought the book along on a church sponsored ski trip and I tried to read it on the plane and during all too infrequent down times. I would always get a few pages in and then stall for various reasons. The story just wasn't working for me. It wasn't grabbing me and making me want to continue reading. I had purchased the book because of all of the tremendous praise that was printed on the book covers. Was it all just hype? Is this novel really as good as its' reputation would have me believe? Was it poorly translated into English from the original Polish language version? I don't know. I couldn't get through the book then and I have no desire to pick it up and try it again.

A few years ago, my buddy Kelly Greene and I attended a screening of the Russian film version of SOLARIS (1972). We had both heard good things about the film and as both movie and science fiction buffs, we decided that it was something we should see at least once in our lives.

 Once was enough. I found the film, with a running time of 165 minutes, incredibly slow and boring. There's an unbelievably long tracking shot from inside an automobile as it drives along a freeway in Japan that may still be going on somewhere for all I know. The story seemed to take forever to get going and when it did, it still moved at a glacial pace. I know I nodded off a couple of times. It was a cerebral, psychological, ambiguous and yes, lyrical and poetic, piece of film making that just wasn't to my taste. I can say I've seen the Russian SOLARIS but I can't say I'd ever want to watch it again.

But I took a chance the other day on the American version of SOLARIS from 2002. The film had a great pedigree. It was produced by James Cameron, written and directed by Steven Soderbergh and starred George Clooney. And, with a running time of only 99 minutes, it was definitely shorter than the original version. What did I have to lose?

How about those 99 minutes? To it's credit, the 2002 version gets our hero, Chris Kelvin (Clooney), to the space station orbiting the planet Solaris a lot faster than it took in the original. But once there, things grind to a halt as Chris finds only two people still alive, a whacked out young man, Snow (Jeremy Davies in an incredibly annoying performance, full of tics and stutters) and Dr. Gordon (Viola Davis). Oh yes and Chris's dead wife, Rheya (the gorgeous Natascha McElhone) somehow mysteriously appears in Chris's room while he's sleeping.

She's not a ghost however. She's a physical manifestation of Rheya taken from Chris's thoughts, dreams and memories of her and made manifest and whole, living, breathing flesh and blood, by Solaris itself, which is not only a planet, it's a sentient alien being.

Chris and Gordon want to get the hell out of the vicinity of Solaris and return to earth. But Chris has a change of heart at the last minute, stays behind on the space station and eventually ends up reunited with Rheya on what appears to be earth. But of course, it's merely yet another manifestation created by Solaris. Is Solaris a god? Or is it God himself? Is the life and environment that Chris and Rheya inhabit at the end of the film truly heaven? Your guess is as good as mine because the film, like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) (a far better film, by the way), doesn't spoon feed viewers with information and explanations. Everything is ambiguous and slowly paced, with many long fade outs to black that last and last and last. The sets are claustrophobic and the musical score by Cliff Martinez is exceptionally annoying.

Cameron and Soderbergh are on record as envisioning this film not so much a remake of the Russian version but a new interpretation of the original Stanislaw Lem novel. It's certainly well made and Clooney and McElhone  are two extraordinarily good looking people. SOLARIS was pitched as a love story, a chance for two people to try and rebuild their relationship, one which ended tragically the first time. Okay, I get that and it's not a bad idea for a science fiction story. But the telling takes far too long for me to be fully engaged and invested in the outcome.

If you have to watch a film called SOLARIS, this is the one to see. It's not great but it's shorter and more accessible than the Russian version.

 But not by much.

 

ROLLERBALL

As a rule, I hate remakes. If the film being remade was a good one to begin with, why bother? Other than putting some fresh new faces into the cast, giving it the spit and polish of CGI and maybe changing the basic story up a bit, what's the point of redoing a film that's already been done? Some would argue that there's an entirely new, young audience that has never seen the original film and that the remake is for that generation, not the previous one. That used to be somewhat true but it's not any more. Almost every movie ever made is literally just a click and a download away for many people these days, so that theory isn't as sound as it used to be. I've always thought, why spend all of that money, time, talent and energy to do something that's already been done? Why not put all of that creative capital (and blood, sweat and tears) into something new, fresh and original?

Case in point. The original ROLLERBALL (1975) was not a classic by any stretch of the imagination. It was an interesting film however, certainly worth watching if for no other reason than to see how remarkably prescient the movie was about the partnership between major league sports and corporate media, especially television. Set in a future in which corporations rule the world, Rollerball, the game, is bread and circuses for the masses, a televised opiate of extreme violence and brutality. Jonathan (James Caan), is the game's best player but when he becomes larger than the game itself, he threatens his rich masters who plot to have him killed during a game. The game of Rollerball is an amalgamation of roller derby, football and motor cross as players skate and ride motorcycles around an oval track in an effort to place the spherical, metallic "rollerball" into the scoring receptacle.

That's about all there was to the first film. It was a good, but not great film. However, when compared to the 2002 remake, the original film looks like a bonafide masterpiece. Director John McTiernan's hot mess of a movie is full to bursting with gratuitous nudity, extreme violence, stunts, stunts and still more stunts, a downhill skateboard/luge race in San Francisco, an extremely loud and extremely annoying score by Eric Serra and enough lens flares to get J.J. Abrams through the next half dozen STAR WARS films.

Our hero is, once again, Jonathan (Chris Klein, who has absolutely no screen presence whatsoever), a young daredevil with no back story and no real motivation (other than money) to compete in this new version of Rollerball. The story takes place in 2005 where the game is played throughout Central Asia, Russia, China, Mongolia and Turkey. The action takes place on a figure 8 track which includes ramps and a clear Plexiglas tunnel suspended above the action. There are motorcycles, of course, but the old fashioned roller skates of the original film have been replaced by in line skates. Oh, and the teams are all both co-ed and internationally mixed. A comic book reference digression: the women team members sport costumes that look like they were stolen from the wardrobe of Jack Kirby's Female Furies.

Jonathan's best friend is Marcus Ridley (LL Cool J), a former professional athlete who recruits Jonathan with the promise of big money. Aurora (Rebecca Romjin-Stamos) is their teammate and Jonathan's main squeeze. Alexi Petrovich (Jean Reno) is the inventor/league commissioner of Rollerball and he has many shady, wealthy backers. Oh, and betting on Rollerball is not only allowed, it's encouraged.

The games are televised with a real-time audience ratings meter. The more violent the game, the higher the ratings. You can see where this is going, right? When players are brutally assaulted, crippled and left for dead, the ratings go up. Jonathan and Marcus decide they've had enough and engineer an escape across the Mongolian desert to the Russian border, an escape attempt that is shot entirely in green tinted "night vision" for no apparent reason. Marcus is killed and Jonathan is forced to play one more game (in which he's supposed to die). But Jonathan, Aurora, the players on both Rollerball teams and the fans all revolt against the ruling elite at the end of the film with Jonathan killing both Alexi and his right-hand man. There's no more Rollerball and there's no more movie. Remember kids, when the monster's dead, the movie's over.

Director John McTiernan shows little of the action film auteur credibility he established in the trifecta of  PREDATOR (1987), DIE HARD (1988) and THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (1990), all of which are better than ROLLERBALL. McTiernan's career hit the skids with the disastrous LAST ACTION HERO (1993) and none of his films since (DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (1995), THE 13TH WARRIOR (1999) and the remake of THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (1999)) made much of an impression.

If you've got to watch a film called ROLLERBALL, make sure it's the original. It's not great but it's certainly better than this piece of cinematic junk.

"SERPENTINE! SERPENTINE!"

The other night, while Judy was preparing our dinner, she made some crazy, funny little move in the kitchen and called out "Serpentine! Serpentine!"

We both laughed and then she said, "what movie was that from?"

"The IN-LAWS, with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin," I replied.

"That was a funny movie," she said. "If you ever get a chance to get a copy of that, do it. I'd love to see it again.

Duly noted and filed. A couple of days later, I was in one of the thrift stores that I frequent looking for bargain DVDs. Imagine my surprise to find a used copy of THE IN-LAWS on the shelf! For two bucks, I couldn't go wrong. I bought the DVD and when I got home that evening, I told Judy that we were going to have a movie night on Friday but that the film we would be viewing was going to be a surprise.

Sure enough, I genuinely surprised her when I produced the IN-LAWS DVD on Friday evening. She popped some popcorn in the microwave and we sat down to enjoy the film.

For the life of me, I can't remember where I saw this film for the first time. I don't recall going to the theater to see it in 1979. I might have. But I also think I may have seen it on either HBO or Cinemax, back when those two cable channels ran movies and pretty much only movies. Either way, I had seen it way back when (as had Judy) and we both enjoyed it. We enjoyed it again the other night.

The film stars Peter Falk and Alan Arkin as about to be in-laws. Falk's son is set to wed Arkin's daughter but not before Falk, a crazed "is-he-or-isn't-he?" CIA agent embroils button-down, conservative (and well-to-do) dentist Arkin in a madcap scheme involving currency engraving plates stolen from the U.S. Treasury and a visit to a third world banana republic led by a corrupt and bat shit crazy dictator.

Director Arthur Hiller does a good job with Andrew Bergman's screenplay and keeps things moving at a brisk pace. There are occasional lapses in continuity, especially at the beginning of the film where an armored car is hijacked in what is clearly Los Angeles, only to have one of the bandits subsequently enter a building and emerge upon a rooftop in Washington, D.C. (!).

That's a minor quibble because the real joy here is watching the performances by Arkin and Falk, especially Falk, who steals the show as the unhinged, make-it-up-as-you-go-along CIA operative. There are several truly funny set pieces with the duo, including the famous "serpentine, serpentine" scene and Senor Pepe is an absolutely inspired bit of lunacy. 

THE IN-LAWS isn't the funniest movie I've ever seen but Judy and I both got a lot of laughs out of watching it again. The film was remade in 2003 with Michael Douglas, Albert Brooks and Candice Bergen. I've not seen that version but I can't imagine it's an improvement on the sheer madness that is the original. Worth seeing. 

THE SHADOW: THE CREEPING DEATH

I finished reading THE CREEPING DEATH last night. Originally published on January 15th, 1933, it's the 22nd Shadow pulp adventure. The paperback edition I read, which is pictured above, was published by Pyramid Books in May, 1977. The terrific cover is by the legendary comic book artist Jim Steranko.

I've read quite a few Shadow novels over the last few years and each and every one of them I've read aloud to my lovely wife Judy. I read while she cooks our suppers and then I clean up the kitchen after we eat. When we take any long car trips, she drives and I read aloud. We've been able to enjoy dozens of books this way. It may take a little longer to read something aloud but the pleasure we both get from the experience is well worth the effort. Besides, when I read a Shadow yarn, I get to practice my sinister Shadow voice and laugh.

THE CREEPING DEATH finds The Shadow up against an insane inventor who means to rule the world by flooding various countries economies with fake gold, a substance that he can create in his laboratory. He means to eventually own all of the real gold in the world, and replace it with the fake stuff. Sounds like a certain Bond villain, doesn't it? Lucien Partridge is the gents' name and he has operatives working in various countries to pass the counterfeit bullion. But dead men tell no tales and Partridge has begun doing away with his associates by using the Creeping Death. It's a deadly, slow acting toxin that Partridge wears on his lab gloves. When he shakes hands with someone, they are doomed to die an agonizing death  in a matter of hours.

Of course, The Shadow investigates the murders and finds the trail leading to Partridge's heavily guarded upstate mansion. He's aided by secret service agent Vic Marquette, whom the Shadow must rescue from certain death more than once. Things come to an explosive climax when Partridge's hideout is bombed and a small army of gunmen invade the grounds where a deadly gunfight erupts with the Shadow and Marquette caught in the middle. There's a struggle to the death above a sheer cliff between the Shadow and Partridge and only one survives. Guess who?

THE CREEPING DEATH is a fast paced, action packed Shadow adventure that features a unique method of murder, a mad genius and plenty of gun play. That's pretty much what you expect from a pulp thriller and this one definitely delivers the goods. Judy and I both enjoyed it and if you're a pulp fan, you will too.