The March 20, 1923, issue has the expected assortment of long and short fiction, including two serial parts, filled out with a few short bits and the famed letters column, “The Camp-Fire.” The principal contents are as follows, with my comments. Novelettes “Bad Men Make Good Pickings,” by Frederick J. Jackson. A former Texas Ranger …
Read the full post →“Wednesday Pulp: <em>Adventure</em>, March 20, 1923”
I finished two books during this week, as well as one pulp magazine issue. Books The Interlopers, by Matt Helm. Matt Helm takes the place of a murdered courier so that another agency can identify all the people making up the spy network for which the dead man worked, but Helm has an assignment of …
One of the best and most widely read of the pulps was Adventure, which started in 1910. The magazine’s content was aptly described by its title, and the reader can expect plenty of action. The March 10, 1923, issue has the expected assortment of long and short fiction, including one serial part, filled out with …
Read the full post →“Wednesday Pulp: <em>Adventure</em>, March 10, 1923”
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)”
Charles Starrett, best known for his long-running series as the Durango Kid, essays an early role in this rather soapy picture. A shipwreck strands a young woman (top-billed Anita Page), her fiancé (Kenneth Thomson), the man (Starrett) she believes guilty of a murder for which her brother was imprisoned, and that man’s sidekick (Eddie Borden) …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: <em>Jungle Bride</em> (1933)”
It’s muscleman versus the Mongols in this sword-and-sandal movie, originally titled Maciste alla corte del Gran Khan. Gordon Scott is the titular hero, whether known as Samson, Maciste, or (as in another alternate title) Goliath, and he wanders through Asia in his skimpy garb, trying to assist a Chinese prince and princess fend off the …
Read the full post →“<em>Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World</em> (1961)”
Three black-clad agents — the Tigresses: Emily, Diana, and Barbara — battle the master criminal Garrick, who is after a secret formula, though their efforts are complicated by the fact that one’s boyfriend actually works for the evil villain. A maid who wants to become an agent herself provides some comic relief. A fairly entertaining …
This entry in the sword-and-sorcery genre stars Lee Horsley as the hero out to avenge his parents’ deaths upon the wicked king (Richard Lynch) who called forth a demon to strike down his opponents, but it also features, in the form of the protagonist’s triple-bladed swords, one of the silliest of wonder weapons. Particularly entertaining …
Read the full post →“<em>The Sword and the Sorcerer</em> (1982)”
Tarzan (Lex Barker) finds a young boy (Tommy Carlton) and brings him home, while at the same time he and Jane (Dorothy Hart) receive a visit from a man purporting to be Tarzan’s cousin (Patric Knowles), though in fact one of two crooks (the other played by Charles Korvin) who have murdered the real cousin …
Read the full post →“<em>Tarzan’s Savage Fury</em> (RKO, 1952)”
In the days leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a somewhat shady nightclub owner (Preston Foster) gets tangled up with a British spy (Lynn Bari) and the Japanese forces in Shanghai when his club is used as the delivery spot for a coded letter with explosive contents. The leads are unimpressive, but …
Read the full post →“<em>Secret Agent of Japan</em> (Twentieth Century Fox, 1942)”
