The Hooded Terror Strikes!

The House of Hate is now on DVD!

You should see this. It is a rare piece of film history. Thought lost for ages, then found in Russia and rescued, restored and translated back to English. It's full of action and suspense. It has an amazing villain- "The Hooded Terror" and the queen of silent serials, Pearl White is the heroine. She was no wilting violet and would have stood her ground just fine in a Mad Max movie! I was startlingly mesmerized upon seeing the first episode. 

The Hooded Terror is really something. A mix of insane and intelligent, brutal and devious. Something akin to Fantomas or The Joker and with a super-strength to wreck havoc on everyone that gets in its way. 

Full disclosure; I donated a little bit of research for this project, but solely out of my pure fascination and admiration of it. And I'm plugging The House of Hate because it's a really top of the line example of what the best of silent serials were all about.

NAKED CITY: DVD Update

A couple of years ago I posted about the detective/crime drama NAKED CITY. At the time there were a few "Best of" DVD collections. But now the complete series is out in a boxed set (four seasons on 29 DVDs!).  From the episodes I've sampled so far the image and sound quality is great. amazon has it on sale at $99 which is 44% off retail.

I have nothing to complain about since this is presented in excellent quality and at a decent price. I do wish there had been an effort at some behind the scenes features or a few commentary tracks. Be that at is may, this is an extraordinary chance to get all 138 episodes.

Wellman Audiobooks

As of October 22nd 2013 audible.com will be releasing two audio adaptations of what looks to be the NightShade Books collections of Wellman stories. Volumes 1 & 2 will be THIRD CRY TO LEGBA AND OTHER INVOCATIONS and THE DEVIL IS NOT MOCKED AND OTHER WARNINGS. The producers seem to promise that all five of the NightShade collections will be adapted. Special thanks to Bill Ekhardt for the heads up!

THIRD CRY TO LEGBA is described thus: "This audiobook collects Wellman’s John Thunstone and Lee Corbet stories, written between 1943 and 1979. These stories combine the mystical and horrific with traditional Southern folk tales and legends. These stories also reveal a post-World War II modernism that make them much more then pulp romanticism. The paranoia and cynicism of modern weird icons, such as The X-files, may well have had their genesis in the pulp musings of Manly Wade Wellman. Indeed the intensely driven, idealistic occult investigator, John Thunstone, could be a pulp/noir stand-in for Fox Mulder. ©2000 Frances Wellman (P)2013 Audible, Inc."

And THE DEVIL IS NOT MOCKED as: "Wellman’s work will be remembered, and should be preserved because it combines the dark gothic tradition of the American pulps with a detailed snapshot of regional history and culture. This mixture is shown through the lens of the American modernist tradition, revealing something that is larger than the sum of its parts. Volume two of a five volume set collecting all of Wellman's Appalachian fantasy stories. ©2001 The Estate of Manly Wade Wellman (P)2013 Audible, Inc."

Also available now are GIANTS FROM ETERNITY in the audio collection A GALAXY TRILOGY Vol 3 and an audiobook adaptation of the single Wellman adaptation to THE TWILIGHT ZONE, Still Valley.
This article is re-posted from manlywadewellman.com

The First American Superhero

Fans of old stuff seem to delve ever-backwards in time to find the earliest incarnations of what they enjoy. For instance curious fans of Star Wars might become interested in cliffhanger serials such a Buck Rogers and Flash Gorden, and WWII aerial combat movies to see where Lucas' influences come from.  Fans of Superman and Batman might search out the pulps of The Shadow, The Spider and Doc Savage.  But where did the inspiration for pulp heroes such and Doc and The Shadow come from?

A Victorian Caped Crusader:
Spring-Heeled Jack

Before getting strictly to the pulp heroes, this is speculation on my part about who an earlier Batman was. Even before the pulp Black Bat, Spring-Heeled Jack is from the British penny dreadful books of the 1800s. A character once broadly thought of as a bogyman of literature and urban legend, by the 1860s eventually became a winged and masked vigilante. From an earlier post I stated:

A rich young man loses his parents to a tragedy at sea. When trying to claim his ancestral home he finds the estate and even his family name stolen from him by his villainous cousin. When fleeing for his life after a murder attempt Jack Dacre decides to create a costume and his Springed Heel apparatus in order to start a new life as a vigilante.

So we have a rich kid who loses his parents, dips into madness and becomes a terrifying vigilante that uses gadgets to fight crime. Sound familiar?  All that in the 1860s. You can read one rendition of the story here.

Prototyping Pulp Heroes:
The Grey Seal
When it comes to the pulp heroes of the early to mid- 20th Century there are some names that repeatedly come up as the antecedents to that era's characters.  The Scarlet Pimpernel, Captain Clegg (the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh) and Zorro to name a few.  But in my opinion there are two that are more immediately accessible (and inspirational) to the pulp writers of the '30s and '40s . And they worked in ways that wind up being obvious inspirations to the heroes who follow.

One of them is The Grey Seal (who in turn was probably inspired by European anti-heroes such as Arsene Lupin, Raffles and indeed probably The Scarlet Pimpernel).  No, this is not an aquatic animal who you'd want to feed fish to.  The Grey Seal was Jimmie Dale, a rich dilettante by day who for fun cracked safes at night. He also fought crime for the sheer moral righteousness of it. Much like The Spider and Batman he was always a razor's edge away from being caught as the bad guy by the official establishment; the newspapers and police. And also as The Spider would do (and other later imitators) he left the eponymous Grey Seal, a diamond-shaped grey sticker, behind at his heists and on the forehead of criminals he'd defeated.

The Grey Seal had a mysterious contact, a woman who left cryptic notes which lead him from fighting one criminal to another. A story element that very likely influenced the 64 episode "Black Arrow" story arch of the Lone Ranger radio show.

There's one character though that seems to me to really be the arch-prototype for all these guys and anticipated even Zorro and The Scarlet Pimpernel by a few decades. Strangely, out of this gallery of heroic grandpas, he seems to rarely get mentioned in this group. This American-born dime novel detective started doing his stuff even before Sherlock Holmes.

The First American Superhero:
Nick Carter
There are surprising things about Nick Carter, Master Detective. Things I didn't know about because for some reason no one ever talked about it that much.  Maybe it's because he is most famously known as "a detective". Which in the truest sense, he is not. He's a private investigator and consulting detective, but not on the police payroll.  The things I found out were because I finally decided to start reading some of the original stories, which I think maybe most modern pulpsters haven't done. Probably because he just sounds like some old-timey book version of a Keystone Kop, and that may not be very interesting to readers who are into pulp heroes.

Well, let's see who this Nick Carter sounds like. From Jess Nevin's quote of a Nick Carter story:

Giants were like children in his grasp. He could fell an ox with one blow of his small, compact fist. Old Sim Carter had made the physical development of his son one of the studies of his life. Only one of the studies, however. Young Nick's mind was stored with knowledge--knowledge of a peculiar sort. His grey eyes had, like an Indian's, been trained to take in minutest details fresh for use. His rich, full voice could run the gamut of sounds, from an old woman's broken, querulous squack to the deep, hoarse notes of a burly ruffian. And his handsome face could, in an instant, be distorted into any one of a hundred types of unrecognizable ugliness. He was a master of disguise, and could so transform himself that even old Sim could not recognize him. And his intellect, naturally keen as a razor blade, had been incredibly sharpened by the judicious cultivation of the old man.

I think we've just found the origins of Doc Savage, the techniques of both The Shadow and The Avenger.  And later in Nevin's article he quotes J. Randolph Cox as to his further relationship with The Shadow:

There are a number of facets of the Nick Carter stories, even in these early days, which suggests an unconscious influence on one of Street and Smith's later characters, The Shadow. The disguises, the separate identity maintained in another office, and later on (in 1905) there is a private room at police headquarters where someone waits at the end of a special communication line for word [from] Nick. The response, "On deck, sir!," to Nick's call was reversed to The Shadow's "Report," when he would call Burbank or one of his agents from his secret room. Likewise, the method Nick uses in Nick Carter Library #90, "9-19-29, or, Nick Carter and the Policy Sharpe," 22 April 1893, to assume another identity is suggestive of The Shadow. Nick sends a message to a known figure in Wall Street to "disappear," thus making it possible for him to replace the man without arousing suspicion.

Even from the first Nick Carter that I read, I could see that he wasn't an everyday detective. He is super strong, able to knock out any normal opponent in a single blow. As mentioned above he's a master of disguise, able to change a complete makeup in just a minute or two.  He's super intelligent and happens to be an expert in any subject under the sun that will help in his adventures, including swimming, running, fluent in many languages, great with gadgetry, weapons and so on.  His adventures were more than mundane as well, encountering lost races in South America and the Himalayas, facing off against super criminals.  Did I mention he's described as having "bronzed skin"?  Of course one major difference between Nick and Doc is their height. Nick is five foot four to Doc's six foot eight. Appropriately Nick Carter's nickname was the "Little Giant".

Are you pulp hero fans interested yet? There are several early Nick Carter adventures floating around in public domain. You can find some at Munseys here and here.  Also, Anthony Tollin's Sanctum Books which has been doing an amazing job of reprinting Doc Savage and The Shadow is now starting to reprint the pulp version of Nick Carter. As opposed to the dime novel version. This is a big deal because even though most of the pulp heroes have gotten a good deal of latter day coverage through reprints, Nick Carter hasn't. So now you'll be able to sample both the public domain dime novels and check out the pulps.

On an interesting note, the Nick Carter, Master Detective radio series had many of the early episodes written by The Shadow's Walter Gibson. You'll find one of those scripts along with a Carter comic in this first issue of Tollin's new reprint series.

If you want even more info on Nick, check out Thrilling Detective and Nevin's webpage.  Also, though supposedly the same character, a long line of novels came out in the 60s and 70s called Nick Carter; Killmaster where he is a spy.

The Mill at Calder's End

Whether you've been lucky enough to see it in full at festivals or at least the trailer, you may have been drawn to Kevin McTurk's curious puppet show-turned-short film called THE NARRATIVE OF VICTOR KARLOCH.  The imagery is stark and powerful, the atmosphere electric with fear of the unknown. All of the major visuals and characters brought to life via puppets, practical effects and miniature sets.

Karloch was produced by Heather Henson's Handmade Puppet Dreams project and the Jim Henson Foundation. The film hit the festival circuit and on special occasions had live performances.

If you have been aching to see this supernatural puppet show but hadn't the chance. Soon you will, and even more, you'll be able to help contribute to the next installment of the "Spirit Cabinet" series, of which Karloch is the first.  McTurk is now raising funds for THE MILL AT CALDER'S END. Another Victornian ghost story cut from the clothe of Poe, Lovecraft, Bava and Hammer films.

Artistic contributors to the project include Hellboy's Mike Mignola and B.P.R.D. and The Marquis Guy Davis. Karloch starred the voices of Elijah Wood and Christopher Lloyd while Calder's Mill stars Barbara Steele and Jason Flemyng.

Head over to the kickstarter page to check out more in-depth info on the production!

Mysteries of Myra UPDATE!

Deep contrast and wide spectrum of mid-tones.
A framegrab from the surviving footage

Below this nerd-out rant is the original Pulp Reader post about the silent serial The Mysteries of Myra. It has been considered long lost but The Serial Squadron's Eric Stedman edited together the novelized story and press materials into a book. And a mighty fine book it is too.

Well there is now an update to the status of Myra. On the tail of the announcement that Trail of the Octopus will be out on DVD any time now (exciting news indeed!), it was also announced that some found footage of Myra will be shown at the Serial Squadron's streaming website "Chapters" just in time for Halloween, starting on October 27th.

The "Thought Monster" escapes!
Another frame from the footage.

I was honored to be able to preview the footage and it is pretty outstanding to see. It once again reaffirms (in my opinion at least) that the era of the silent serials was truly the height of the art form. At the time, made more for adults than children, the subject matter was more daring and psychologically intense, with more artful cinematography and story-lines you would find in the best of the thriller pulps. Those stark Noirish tonal ranges and shadows you may associate with the likes of Fritz Lang are common in many of the early silent serials. And speaking of visuals, a lot of this footage seen here is in really great shape, with very sharp image, great contrast and very stable. 

I won't spoil anything that goes on in the footage you will see, but will say that it is more than worth seeing. The only regret is that it leaves me wanting to see the rest of the serial. But it is an amazing and rare opportunity to see what still exist and who knows, as Eric states below, even more footage will hopefully, eventually show up. Many serials have been previously considered lost and have since not only turned up but have been made available to the public.

Entrance to the Lair.
Click on the pic to see more of the crisp detail

Here's what Eric has to say about the footage and what is being done with it:

...there's about a half hour's worth of footage left which I've already put together and restored, including the last reel which is knock-out amazing, and the quality of the transfer is eye-popping, without question the highest quality transfer of any serial I've ever seen, done in new digital HD/Blu-ray quality, with an image size about 8 times larger than regular DVD resolution. One reel is in another archive which we're expecting to get ahold of later on. We may not have it by Halloween but it's not impossible. Anyway what exists has already been put together and is ready to go in case the new reel comes in and has to be added more quickly. We're not going to put it all on DVD at the moment pending decisions as to how to handle possible re-creation of the rest of the serial, which we want to do a good job of if we embark upon such a major project.

It was a thrill to see the footage and I'm inspired to re-read the book in time to catch the official stream release at Halloween time.  The cool thing is that you can too!  And no, I don't work for Eric or the Squadron, but I love to share cool stuff (that's what the blog is all about after all) and this is really cool!

Aleister Crowley  would be proud!
Another frame grab and another amazing scene.

Original Post about the publication of the book:

I love pulps. I also love cliffhanger serials. And maybe more than anything, I love behind the scenes info and history about movie and television production. As my poor suffering wife can attest, my bookshelves are jammed with reference books and guides about pulp characters, old movies, radio dramas and T.V. shows.

Enter Eric Stedman, an entrepreneur who dedicates long hours to the restoration and preservation of many cliffhanger movie serials. At The Serial Squadron you can get a taste of the massive amount of work he has put into the genre through his line of restored movie DVDs along with relevant books and audio.

One of Eric's latest projects (one of many ongoing productions) is the novelization of a lost serial from 1916. THE MYSTERIES OF MYRA is a strange brew of action, intrigue, magic, spiritualism, monsters and zombies. As Eric put it "an X-Files of 1916". Unfortunately quite possibly all prints of MYRA were lost in a warehouse fire. At least at this date it is still considered a lost serial. This is truly unfortunate as from the evidence at hand and eloquently shown in this book, MYRA may be one of the most astoundingly put together serials of the silent and talkie era. From the looks of the stills and behind the scenes photos and info, this was a lavish production with impressive sets and intriguing special effects.

The process of this production was a painstaking one, as Eric explains:

Tracy Burton ... took on the job of interpreting fuzzy microfilm versions of the newspaper serializations of the story -- virtually all of which were incomplete, damaged, or otherwise messed up, which means after her pass through it and interpretations she was able to make, it took two other guys (me and Dr. Daka) hours and hours to fill in the missing words and correct errors. Daka discovered ... that there were about 5 different versions of the text, also, which all appeared in different newspapers, with different illustrations.

Along with reconstructing the various newspaper serializations of the story into a coherent novel, Eric delved deeply into researching the production history of MYRA, which is contained in a lengthy introduction and includes many production photos and biographies of cast and crew.

So here we have it; a novel that any pulp writer would dream to write, which is based on a legendary serial that no longer exists, along with a lot of tasty background info and photos. A perfect storm of entertainment for anyone who is into pulps, serials and movie history bound into one handsome tome.

This is the sales blurb for the book, which concisely explains what it's all about:

BEWARE THE BLACK ORDER! So comes the warning from the spirit of Myra Maynard's father, who reaches out to her from beyond the grave to warn her of danger from the masters of the occult arts that lurk in the shadows and mark her for murder on her eighteenth birthday. Only the world's first psychic detective, Dr. Payson Alden, and his friend Haji the Brahman mystic, can save clairvoyant Myra from the terrors of The Grand Master of the Order, who tries to claim not only her fortune but her life by means of suicide-inducing spells, invasion of her chamber by spirit assassins, and even reanimation of the dead by a fire elemental. Originally a fifteen-episode serial shot in Ithaca, New York (before Hollywood became the center of American movie-making) in 1916, painstakingly reconstructed from the original screenplay, novelization, and existing stills. Includes background information, behind-the-scenes photos and cast biographies.

At $25 it is well worth the price of admission and I urge you to head over to the Serial Squadron and pick up a copy.

Jonny Quest: The Stop Motion Episode

In my humble opinion, the absolute pinnacle of pulp adventure translated to a visual medium was the 1964 cartoon Jonny Quest. There's been nothing like it before and nothing that has measured up to it since.

Also, as a kid who grew up fascinated by the wonders of Willis O'Brien's King Kong, the works of Ray Harryhausen and the stop motion animated dinosaurs of Land of the Lost, I've had a life long passion for animation and especially stop motion.

Now the two have come together.  Roger Evans, who did the scene by scene recreation of the Jonny Quest intro which went viral last year, has put some thought behind "converting" an entire episode. I think that would be fantastic! The thing is, is that he'll need some help as it will be a full time job to pull it off. This is something that I think is truly worthy of any pulp adventure fan's efforts.

 Take a look at this behind the scenes diary of everything that went into making the opening credits happen. I tell ya it is a LOT of work!  If you click on a picture, it will open to a page showing a whole in depth look at the process of how that scene was constructed.

Jonny Quest Opening Titles from Roger D. Evans on Vimeo.

Please check out his kickstarter campaign and help out if at all possible! Unfortunately I had not heard about this earlier as this campaign seems to have gone much less viral than the original opening credits film did. There are only 8 days left as of today September 18, 2012.