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 …
Read the full post →“<em>Headin’ for the Rio Grande</em> (1936)”
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.
Weekly Reader — January 29 – February 4
I finished three books during this week, as well as one 100-year-old magazine issue. Books Saints of the Christianization Age of Central Europe (Tenth-Eleventh Centuries), ed. by Gábor Klaniczay — a collection of five hagiographical works especially on missionaries and martyrs (often the one condition leading to the other): the Passion of Saint Wenceslas, by …
Read the full post →“Weekly Reader — January 29 – February 4”
Funny Friday: The Butler Didn’t Do It
Tarzak Against the Leopard Men (1964)
An imitation Tarzan known as Tarzak (in the Italian original, titled Tarzak contro gli uomini leopardo) or Zoltak (in the dubbed English version I watched) must rescue surviving members of a scientific expedition who ended up in the hands of a newly warlike tribe of “leopard men” intent on sacrificing them — a situation in …
Read the full post →“<em>Tarzak Against the Leopard Men</em> (1964)”
January Haul — Books, Magazines, and Movies
A library sale late in the month helped boost my acquisitions in January. I got 27 books in total (including one gift), as well as one magazine and 13 movies on DVD. Highlights include several of the Horatio Hornblower novels, which I’ve never read; Murray Leinster’s The Forgotten Planet, which I’ll be reading in March …
Read the full post →“January Haul — Books, Magazines, and Movies”