Month: February 2023
Wednesday Pulp: Ranch Romances, Second October Number, 1949
There’s round-up action on the cover of this issue of the long-running pulp (indeed, the last to end publishing as a pulp). I like the image, but I can’t make out the artist’s signature. Ranch Romances is reputed to have fairly hard-boiled stories around this time, and I’ll be interested in seeing whether that is …
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Action in Arabia (1944)
George Sanders ably handles the opposition in this story of intrigue in Damascus in the early years of World War II, with Nazi agents seeking to bring the Arab tribes into the war on behalf of the Axis, and a journalist (Sanders), aided by an off-duty American diplomat (Robert Armstrong), seeking to stop them. Complicating …
Monogram Monday: The Wolf Hunters (1949)
Trapper Paul Lautrec (Edward Norris) is shot and framed for a string of fur robberies and killings, and it’s up to Mountie Rod Webb (Kirby Grant), aided by his faithful dog Chinook, to untangle the scheme. This is another entertaining programmer in the Monogram series starring Grant and Chinook. Recommended. Otto finds this one pleasing …
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Weekly Reader — February 5 – 11
I finished four books during this week, as well as one 1920 issue of the pulp magazine The Black Mask. Books Swords and Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy, Volume 4, ed. by David A. Riley — the fourth anthology in the continuing series, published in June 2022, offering eleven stories of varying interest but overall …
Sunday Fun: Mister X
The Double (1963)
An amnesiac with vague memories of killing someone is brought back to England from Africa, where his arrival sets in motion a chain of unusual events and harrowing crimes. His intrepid nurse eagerly investigates in order to find out the truth, despite discouragement from the private detective she has hired, while her sister draws closer …
Funny Friday: Busy Beavers
Headin’ for the Rio Grande (1936)
Tex (Tex Ritter) and his pal Chili (Syd Saylor) drift down toward the Rio Grande country, apparently cowboys with no particular aim, though Tex has a reason for the trip — to visit and help out his brother (Forrest Taylor), a local lawman facing criticism for failing to put a stop to a cattle herd …
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Monogram Monday: The Moonstone (1934)
Wilkie Collins’ famed novel was brought to the screen as a fairly standard low-budget mystery movie by Monogram in 1934. The film is competent but nothing more, though it is enlivened a bit by Elspeth Dudgeon as a housekeeper and Gustav von Seyffertitz as a moneylender. Mildly recommended. Otto judiciously thinks this movie is OK.