ACROSS THE PACIFIC

I have only the vaguest memory of watching ACROSS THE PACIFIC (1942) on late night television many, many years ago. I watched it again the other day, remembering nothing from that first viewing, so the whole thing was new to me. This two-fisted WWII spy thriller, produced by Warner Brothers, reunites director John Huston with stars Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet, all of whom at worked together on Huston's debut (and masterpiece) THE MALTESE FALCON (1941). In fact, ACROSS was the first film Huston directed after FALCON.

The action in the film takes place in November, 1941 (before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor).  Bogart stars as Captain Rick Leland who is court-martialed (by John (Perry White on ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN) Hamilton, no less) from the U.S. Coast Guard Artillery at the beginning of the film. Leland tries to enlist with the Canadian Army but he's turned down. He decides to become a solider of fortune and sell his talents to the highest bidder, which just happens to be Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek. To get to China, Leland books passage on a Japanese freighter where he meets fellow Americans Alberta Marlow (Astor) and Dr. Lorenz (Greenstreet). These people are clearly hiding something as is the entire crew of the ship which sets sail for the Pacific via the Panama Canal.

During a stop in New York City, it's revealed that Leland's court-martial is a fake. It's a cover to get him on board the ship to discover and stop whatever nefarious plan of sabotage is being cooked up. The ship eventually reaches the Panama Canal zone where Leland finds out that Dr. Lorenz has plans to blow up one of the locks of the canal using a small plane piloted by a Japanese suicide pilot/bomber. Of course, Leland foils the scheme in an exciting, action packed climax.

About that climactic action sequence. The story is that Huston had directed all of the film up that point in the story when he left the production to serve in the military. Director Vincent Sherman stepped in and finished the film without the shooting script (which Huston took with him). Huston explained to Sherman, "Bogie will know how to get out."

There are several things worth noting about ACROSS THE PACIFIC. First, despite the title, no one ever gets to the Pacific Ocean, much less across it as the film ends in Panama. The montage sequences were edited by future director Don Siegel (a job he also performed on CASABLANCA (1943)), while the special effects are the handiwork of Byron Haskin, who went on to work with producer George Pal as director of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953). The trio of Bogart, Astor and Greenstreet are all terrific. Every time I see Greenstreet on screen, with his rotund jocularity masking depths of hidden menace, I always picture him as playing a Marvel Comics super-villain like The Kingpin or The Owl. Astor is lovely, Bogart is Bogart and the whole thing is a heck of a lot of fun.

Thumbs up.

"ADMIRAL NELSON, WE'VE FOUND THAT MISSING FLYING SUB"

The other day, I re-read SUB-MARINER #16, published by Marvel Comics in August, 1969. I was thirteen-years-old when I read this for the first time. I enjoy going through my long boxes and re-visiting some of these old comic book friends. It's a real blast from the past and I get much more enjoyment out of  a nearly 50 year old comic book than I do from much of what's currently published. The story, THE SEA THAT TIME FORGOT is a good one. It's by the team of Roy Thomas (my all-time favorite comic book writer), Marie Severin and Joe Gaudioso. Check out that Atlantean craft depicted in the left and middle panels above. Look familiar?

Of course, it's the fabled Flying Sub from the ABC-TV series VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. Who knew Namor and Admiral Nelson had the same team of designers and engineers? 

CLECT

Judy and I are big fans of the series INSIDE MAN with Morgan Spurlock that airs on CNN. The show recently ran it's second season of episodes in which Spurlock investigates a given subject, profession, culture, etc. He's covered everything from NASA, to professional video game players to the toxins in our everyday environment to just what the heck is a bit coin anyway? Each episode is engaging, compelling, sometimes humorous and always interesting. Spurlock has a great on-camera presence and a relaxed (but far from sloppy) style of reporting. He comes across as a regular guy with an enormous sense of  curiosity. By the way, Spurlock first gained widespread attention through his award-winning documentary film SUPER SIZE ME  (2004) which recounts his quest to eat all three daily meals for an entire month only at McDonald's restaurants. The results almost killed him but it's one hell of an incredible story and a film that I highly recommend.

The other night, Judy and I were watching an episode of INSIDE MAN in which Spurlock journeyed to California's Silicon Valley to investigate the business of start ups. What makes a good start up company, why do some fail, while others succeed? Who are the gurus and angel investors behind the scenes that make all of this work? And most importantly, does Spurlock's own pitch for his start up website have what it takes to succeed?

Spurlock reveals himself in this episode to be an uber nerd, a collector of action figures, comic books, horror movie ephemera and other geek culture artifacts. His idea was to create a website in which collectors of all sorts of things could come together to share their various interests. It's like a virtual "show and tell" where you get to post images of the treasures in your collection for likes and comments from other collectors while you do the same. The site combines aspects of  eBay and Facebook with a buy, sell and trade function promised to go live in September.

Spurlock hones his pitch and delivers it to a variety of investors, one of which agrees to buy 10% of the company for $500,000. As Spurlock says on camera, "that just happened." The result is that Clect is now up and running and waiting for collectors to get involved and make the site grow and develop.

I registered as a Clect member the morning after I saw the show. The site is easy to navigate and user friendly. The idea is simple and cool. Each collector creates various "Cards" which are images of individual items in his or her collection. You identify what the item is and tell a little bit about it and then post it into a "Pack" that you also create. Your Pack contains Cards of a similar nature. For instance, I've created two Packs, one for my pulp magazines, the other for my men's adventure magazines. I have followers and likes already and I plan to continue to add to my Packs and create others as time goes by. Also, once the buy-sell-trade function goes live, I hope I can make some deals with fellow collectors.

Clect is a great idea that deserves support from all collectors of geek/nerd material in order to succeed. It doesn't cost you a dime to join and you have the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of something that may eventually turn out to be really big.

Go to Clect.com and check out my Packs. Sign up while you're there and join in the fun. Tell 'em I sent you!

5 CARD STUD

Poker played a part in four major Hollywood films in the 1960s. Beginning in 1965 with THE CINCINNATI KID, each year brought a film that featured the game of poker as either a major plot point or as a memorable scene. Consider A BIG HAND FOR THE LITTLE LADY (1966), a terrific western "sting" film, COOL HAND LUKE (1967) with the classic line, "sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand" and 5 CARD STUD (1968) which starts with a deadly poker game.

Dean Martin stars as professional gambler and card player Van Morgan. A man is caught cheating at a poker game and all of the other players, including ringleader Nick Evers (Roddy McDowall), want to lynch the cheater. Morgan tries to stop the hanging but he's knocked out by Evers. Disgusted with the town of Rincon, Morgan leaves for Denver. In his absence, gold is found outside of Rincon which leads to a boom. Among the new residents of the town are Reverend Jonathan Rudd (Robert Mitchum) and barber shop/whore house proprietor Lily Langford (Inger Stevens).

The men involved in the lynching are murdered one by one which brings Morgan back to town to investigate. Spoiler warning: Rudd is the killer, the brother of the hanged man. He's out for revenge and the victims are identified to him by Evers. Morgan is the last man standing which leads to a shootout between him and the deadly pastor.

Martin barely takes things seriously here. While not on the level of his performances in the Matt Helm films, Martin swaggers through the film with a shit-eating grin on his face most of the time. He delivers a few one-liners with a smile and a twinkle in his eye and let's us know that everything is going to turn out right because, hey, he's Dean Martin. Mitchum's character and performance plays heavily on his classic film noir, NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955). All he needs is the words "love" and "hate" tattooed on his knuckles. For eye candy, there's the always gorgeous Inger Stevens (who ends up with Martin at the end) and the very lovely Katherine Justice as Roddy McDowall's sister. Add in supporting players Yaphet Kotto, Denver Pyle, John Anderson and Whit Bissell and you've got a fun, entertaining western

Director Henry Hathaway had a long career making a name for himself in both film noir and westerns. His noirs include THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET (1945), THE DARK CORNER (1946), KISS OF DEATH (1947), 13 RUE MADELEINE (1947), CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948), FOURTEEN HOURS (1951) and NIAGARA (1953). Hathaway westerns include RAWHIDE (1951), FROM HELL TO TEXAS (1958), NORTH TO ALASKA (1960), HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1962), THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER (1965), NEVADA SMITH (1966), TRUE GRIT (1969) and SHOOT OUT (1971). Hathaway never achieved the rarefied air of contemporaries Howard Hawks and John Ford but he made solid, durable films that still stand up today.

DEAD WAKE

The first popular history book by Erik Larson that I read was THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY (2003). This page-turner real life thriller combined the story of the 1893 Chicago's World Fair with the crimes of one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. It was an absolutely riveting, can't-put-it-down read and to this day remains both my favorite Larson book and one of my all time favorite books of any kind. After DEVIL, I was hooked and I quickly sought out Larson's previous book, ISAAC'S STORM (2000), which told the incredible story of the great Galveston hurricane of 1900, which is still to this day, the greatest natural disaster in American history. 

When THUNDERSTRUCK was released in 2006, I quickly purchased it and read it. It's a fascinating tale, another story in which Larson weaves two parallel narratives together (as he did in DEVIL). This time it's Marconi's invention of the wireless and it's use in tracking and catching a murderer fleeing from London to New York by means of a trans-Atlantic steamer. He followed this thriller of invention and manhunt with IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS (2011), a compelling account of the U.S. ambassador to Germany during the 1930s. He's a veritable sheep among the wolves as Chancellor Adolph Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) party come to power and begin their reign of terror. All four of these books are highly recommended. You think you don't like reading history? You've just never read someone like Larson who expertly locates the story in history and brings the past to vivid, detailed and thrilling life. 

He's done it again with DEAD WAKE: THE LAST CROSSING OF THE LUSITANIA (2015) which I finished reading the other day. By the way, I've read all five of Larson's books aloud to my beautiful wife Judy and she's enjoyed them as much as I have. As the title indicates, DEAD WAKE recounts the sinking of the British liner Lusitania in May, 1915 by a German U boat. Larson takes his time setting the stage for this epic maritime tragedy. He tells the story of the ship itself and the Cunard line and paints portraits of its' captain, William Turner, key crew members and various passengers rich and poor (some survive, some don't). We learn much about the German navy during World War I and it's campaign of submarine warfare. Larson takes us aboard U-20, sharing sweaty, suffocating space with commander Schwieger and his men. We go into the mysterious Room 40, the nerve center of British naval intelligence where German messages are decoded and where young Winston Churchill must decide how to use this vital information. Finally, we get a look into the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, recently widowed and struggling mightily to keep the United States neutral and out of the ongoing global conflict. He's smitten and lovestruck by a young woman and we watch as this budding romance and relationship takes shape. All of these elements are painstakingly recounted and drawn. They are all pieces on an immense oceanic chessboard in which moves of life and death are played out. 

We know from the very beginning that the Lusitania is doomed but Larson expertly manages to generate a fair amount of suspense by introducing us to various people, making us care about them and then wondering if they will survive the sinking or not. The cat and mouse game between the immense liner and the sub has all of the elements of a thriller. When the deadly torpedo finds it's target, Larson begins an almost minute-by-minute account of the sinking (it took 18 minutes to sink) by placing us on board along with the increasingly terrified passengers and untrained crew. It's riveting and heart stopping. 

Larson does a great job of recounting the aftermath of the sinking and its effect on America, Great Britain and WWI. There is some evidence to support the theory that the Lusitania was deliberately allowed to be targeted and sunk by the Germans in the hope that it would spur the US into joining the war on the side of the Allied powers. Like most people, I mistakenly believed that that's what happened. The Lusitania sank,, the United States declared war and immediately starting sending troops to Europe. The United States did finally join the war but it was two years after the sinking of the Lusitania. 

DEAD WAKE combines the elements of a wartime spy thriller, a horrifying maritime disaster and loss of life, a rich and complex cast of characters and a rock solid sense of you-are-there details and immediacy. If you have never read any of Larson's books, you're really missing out on something. He's one of the best writers of popular history currently working. All of his books are highly recommended and I cannot wait to see what his next book will be. 

BEND OF THE RIVER

The five western films director Anthony Mann made with James Stewart in the 1950s rank among some of the best of the genre. The combination of Mann and Stewart was right up there with the teams of John Ford and John Wayne and Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott when it came to making superlative western films during that decade.

Mann and Stewart began their collaborations with WINCHESTER '73 (1950), followed by BEND OF THE RIVER (1952), THE NAKED SPUR (1953), THE FAR COUNTRY (1954) and THE MAN FROM LARAMIE (1955). Mann, who helmed several classic films noir including T-MEN (1947), RAILROADED! (1947), HE WALKED BY NIGHT (1948), RAW DEAL (1948) and SIDE STREET (1950), brought some of that noir sensibility to his westerns. Even though they take place in the great outdoors instead of urban jungles, Mann's protagonists, as portrayed by Stewart in these films, are flawed, desperate men with dark secrets, haunted pasts and violent streaks that lurk just under the surface.

Such is the case in BEND OF THE RIVER which I watched for the second time yesterday afternoon. Stewart stars as Glyn McLyntock, a former border raider during the Civil War who is in charge of a small wagon train headed for Oregon. The members of the party are unaware of his past and he's seeking a measure of redemption by helping them out. He saves Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy) from a hanging and Cole later saves McLyntock from an Indian attack. Trouble is Cole was also a Missouri raider and knows the truth about McLyntock.

They party encounters many hardships and trials along the way but Stewart is always on the side of the angels, no matter how tempting it is to give in to his old ways. The supporting cast is superb and includes veteran character actor Jay C. Flippen as the leader of the wagon train, the gorgeous Julie (CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON) Adams as his daughter, Lori (REVENGE OF THE CREATURE) Nelson as her sister, Frances (Aunt Bee!) Bauvier, Harry (DRAGNET, M*A*S*H) Morgan and Rock Hudson as a riverboat gambler.

Filmed on location in Oregon in Sandy River, Mount Hood and Timberline, BEND OF THE RIVER features beautiful Technicolor cinematography by Irving Glassberg. The screenplay by Borden Chase (from a novel by Bill Gulick), is solid as is the score by Universal Studios maestro Hans J Salter. Everything is expertly orchestrated by director Mann. He keeps things moving at a brisk clip with well mounted action scenes and quieter dialogue scenes that thrum with buried tension.

I highly recommend BEND OF THE RIVER along with all of the other Mann-Stewart westerns. They're some of the best the genre has to offer.

THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES

"Murder was easy. The tricky part was getting away with it."

Just finished reading THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES by Lawrence Block. This original crime novel was first published last year by the ever reliable Hard Case Crime (my favorite contemporary publisher) and it sports a nifty cover by the late Glen Orbik.

Ex NYPD detective Doak Miller now works as a private detective in a small town in Florida. Now and then he does odd jobs for the local county sheriff. The sheriff, Bill Radburn, hires Miller to pose as a hit man in order to find out more information about a woman who has hinted that she wants to hire someone to kill her husband. The woman, Lisa Yarrow, is the titular girl with the deep blue eyes and when Miller meets her, he falls for her. Hard.

He quickly clears her of any suspicion and the two begin a torrid affair. Lisa's not the only woman that Doak is fooling around with. There's Barb, a real estate agent with a nice ass whom Miller introduces to the pleasures of anal sex. There's a pregnant milf that Miller enjoys an afternoon tryst with. But it's Lisa who has his heart. She's his fantasy girl. She's the woman he'll commit murder for. Because, why not, he's already killed one man.

While Miller plots his perfect crime, he watches several classic film noirs on TCM: DOUBLE INDEMNITY, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, IN A LONELY PLACE. In all of these films, people who commit murder and think they've plotted the "perfect crime" are doomed. And Block sets us up to expect the inevitable twist in the final chapters. Lisa will of course be a femme fatale, a treacherous woman who has set up a sap to take the fall for the gruesome murder of her husband. Of course Miller will be caught. Of course he won't get away with.

Oh, there's a twist all right.

THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES is fast paced thriller that I devoured in the course of a couple of days. Be warned, it is definitely for adult readers. There is graphic sex and lots of it. But we're in the hands of a true master here. Block executes a perfect magic act of misdirection. He sets you up to expect one thing and then pulls the rug out from under you and gives you something else entirely.

Thumbs up.