CASTING DOC WALKS AMONG US

Michael Miller (third from the left in the image above) is, to date, the only actor to portray Lt. Col. Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, aka Monk, on screen. Monk was the world class chemist on Doc Savage's team of aides, otherwise known as The Fabulous Five. Once again, let's look at possible casting choices for Monk in the Doc Savage films that were never made (but should have been).

William Bendix

Neville Brand

Ed Asner

Frank Sutton

Charles Bronson

Buddy Hackett

What do you think?

MY MEN'S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES 3

Here's the cover for BLUEBOOK FOR MEN for April, 1962. I picked this one up at a City Wide Garage Sale in 2012. 

REVENGE OF CASTING DOC

Actor Darrell Zwerling, pictured above, played the part of Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, aka Ham, in the 1975 DOC SAVAGE film. Ham is of course, a dapper and debonair lawyer and is a vital member of Doc's Fabulous Five. Continuing the fantasy parlor game of casting an imaginary series of Doc Savage films from the 1930s on, which actors would have made good Hams over the years? Here are some choices.
David Niven



Clifton Webb



George Sanders

Robert Vaughn



J.D. Cannon



Michael Rennie



Lloyd Bochner

What do you think? 

MY MEN'S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES 2

Pictured above is ARGOSY for August 1960. I purchased it at a City Wide Garage Sale in 2012.

ARGOSY was another long-lived title that began its' life as a pulp magazine printing adventure fiction. Over the years, it slowly changed into a magazine size and format featuring a mix of fact and fiction. The cover painting on this one is of Captain Edward L. Beach, author of the classic WWII submarine novel RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP (which was turned into a terrific 1958 Robert Wise directed film starring Burt Lancaster, Clark Gable and, believe it or not, Don Rickles).

CASTING DOC

To date, only one man can lay claim to having portrayed  Doc Savage on the screen. That man is, of course, Ron Ely, who was one of the few good things about George Pal's otherwise disappointing 1975 film version of the Man of Bronze. As of this writing, no one knows who will play Doc in the recently announced film to be written and directed by Shane Black. And in a recent post, I wrote about how Chuck Connors almost became Doc in 1966. But what about other actors in other decades playing Doc? What if Doc Savage movies had been made on a regular basis beginning in the 1930s? Who would have played Doc in those imaginary films? Here are some of my choices.

 Joel McCrea, pictured above with the lovely Fay Wray, in a scene from the pulp adventure classic film THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932).

Randolph Scott

Buster Crabbe

Steve Holland, who really was Doc Savage. Holland was a model/actor who posed for artist James Bama for his cover paintings of the Doc reprint paperbacks published by Bantam.

Race Bannon. If there had been a Saturday morning Doc Savage cartoon show in the 1960s, Hanna-Barbera already had the character design in Race Bannon from the dearly beloved JONNY QUEST animated series. Heck, JQ was a Doc Savage cartoon show!   

MY MEN'S ADVENTURE MAGAZINES

For some time now, I've posted random images of men's adventure magazines on this blog, none of which I own. For a change, I thought I'd share with you the men's "sweat" magazines that I do own. There aren't nearly as many as I'd like, but I'm working on that. 

First up is ADVENTURE for June, 1953. ADVENTURE was one of the longest lived pulp fiction magazines of all-time. It began publication in 1910 and published it's last issue under the original title in 1966. 

ADVENTURE featured pulp fiction stories of adventure (duh!) for many years. The last pulp size and format issue was published in June, 1950, at the extreme end of the pulp era. The magazine went on hiatus for a few years and resumed publication in January, 1953 in the traditional magazine size format. ADVENTURE now featured a mix of fiction and "fact" stories but still emphasized adventure stories of every kind. The issue above was only the second to be published in the standard magazine format. 

I purchased this beauty in 2012 at one of the City Wide Garage Sales. 

WHAT IF?

In 1966, spurred by the tremendous success of the James Bond films and the Batman television show, producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman (best known for their television game shows) attempted to secure the rights to produce a DOC SAVAGE feature film. Sales of the Bantam paperback pulp reprint series (with cover art by James Bama) were going strong at the time and the property wouldn't require too much development. The pre-existing Doc Savage mythos was a natural complement to Bond and Batman with a fantastic hero, plenty of scientific crime-fighting gadgets, larger-than-life villains, a colorful supporting cast, exotic locales and tons of action.

The plan was to use THE THOUSAND HEADED MAN pulp story as the basis for the film and towards that end, Gold Key comics published a one-shot DOC SAVAGE comic book that contained a condensed version of that story with artwork by Jack Sparling. The cover art was taken from the Bantam paperback. I have a copy of this book in my collection.

Goodson and Todman also planned to feature Chuck Connors (who had starred in the television series THE RIFLEMAN, BRANDED and COWBOY IN AFRICA) as Doc. There's no word on any other casting choices from that period but I've been watching a lot of episodes of THE RIFLEMAN (recorded off of AMC) lately and the more I watch the show, the more I'm convinced that Connors, who was big, blond and square-jawed, would have been an excellent choice for Doc. Unfortunately, Goodson and Todman were unable to secure the rights to the property and the Doc Savage movie had to wait several more years to be made. But so as not to let the talents of Connors go to waste, G & T produced a western film, RIDE BEYOND VENGEANCE with Connors in the starring role.

The photo at the top of this post (http://comicbookcatacombs.blogspot.com) appears to posit some choices for actors to fill the parts of Doc's aides. J.D. (MCCLOUD) Cannon looks to be Ham, Neville Brand is Monk, Ray (MY FAVORITE MARTIAN) Walston is either Johnny or Long Tom and Fred (THE MUNSTERS) Gwynne is Renny. At least, I think that's how these images would match up.

My dream cast for a mid-1960s Doc Savage film would star Connors as the Man of Bronze.

Here are my choices for the fabulous five.

Robert Vaughn as Ham.

Charles Bronson as Monk

Clint Walker as Renny

Whit Bissell as Long Tom

William Schallert as Johnny

Tina Louise as Pat

There you have it, my dream cast for DOC SAVAGE (1966). What do you think?