Dr Hermes Retro-Scans

Come on over to MORE RETRO-SCANS!

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 23:46:37 GMT

Well, it's happened. I seem to have used up all the space available on this journal. (Gosh, how could that have happened?) So when I try to post, I get a cold clinical warning to knock it off. ("What are you trying to do, crash the Internet itself?") But since I still have so much more to say, I have opened the new site DR HERMES' MORE RETRO-SCANS. (I think you see how much anguish I suffered coming up with that title.) Remember, our motto is "What the heck, give it a shot."

Come on over, everyone! I have come to really enjoy your comments and corrections and the game of picking a Mystery Guest has been habit-forming. Just click here:

http://dochermes.livejournal.com/

Hope to see you all.

Make your own boomerang

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 23:51:46 GMT

Oh, those youths in the Colonies do enjoy their fun.

Scientist warns of large aggressive spiders in Southwest

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 01:29:49 GMT

He was not available for further comment.

Today's mystery guest

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 00:27:51 GMT

No, I don't think the face rings a bell. Maybe if I could talk to him?

A clue? He gave voice to likeable but not noticeably intelligent characters.

Chow time in the trenches

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 00:13:51 GMT

Uvulas of the stars

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 23:54:45 GMT

Gosh, it's been way over a year since our last installment of this exciting attempt to create a new fetish. Here is Julie McCullough showing off her uvula (and a lovely little one it is).

"The Bride of Dewer" (ick!)

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 23:19:37 GMT

From the July 1930 issue of WEIRD TALES, it's Jules de Grandin dragging Dr Trowbridge along again to tackle another loathsome manifestion of sheer "Ewwww". (Let's see, just eighty more of Seabury Quinn's de Grandin stories to go....)

This is a story that frankly would go over with many readers today about as well as strolling into Newark Airport with a rifle over one shoulder. A sweet innocent young bride (this was 1930, remember) suffers a Fate Worse Than Death. Yep, and not only isn't she spared at the last second, the offender is no ordinary brutish cad but a particularly gross froglike monster. Ick and more ick.

Jules de Grandin and his crony Dr Trowbridge attend a marriage of an especially nice young couple, Walter and Rosemary, wishing them all the best, but, well, this IS Harrisonville New Jersey and you can expect things to go dreadfully wrong. That very night, the dazed and brutalized bride is dumped at her family's house while the equally shell-shocked groom drives aimlessly around and eventually winds up in the pycho ward of the city hospital. This is more of a disaster than most wedding nights, that`s for sure.

It turns out that the groom was in fact warned in his youth by his family never to get married because of the family curse. "Scoff and folderol", he smirks and goes after his sweetie anyway. Little does he know what happened way back in the Eleventh Century. An ancestor of his named Sir Guy de Quimper was losing the crucial battle of Ascalon and, orthodox prayers not seeming to help much, he made a desperate pact with an ancient Saxon god named Dewer. (I know many perfectly decent pagan gods and goddesses were unfairly demoted to demonhood after Christianity muscled in... but in Dewer`s case, it`s appropriate.) Swinging his big ol` sword, the unatttractive being slaughters the enemy. saves the field for Sir Guy and then names his price.

Dewer has a craving for warm human loving, and he forces Sir Guy to accept him as his liege. So when any of the Quimper marry, there will be a nasty intruder in the bridal suite as Dewer claims his droit de signeur, the traditional feudal right of a noble to pluck the rose, so to speak.

Did I mention what Dewer looks like? "Not more than four feet tall, very stooped and bandylegged, with no covering except a thick, horny hide the color of toadskin and absolutely no hair of any kind upon its body anywhere. Above the great, wide grinning mouth there hung a fringe of drooping, wart-like tentacles and another fringe of similar protuberances dangled from its chin..." Not a handsome guy in the conventional sense, and when he rushes into the bedroom of young Rosemary back in the present (well, 1930) to claim his desserts, it`s no wonder she goes into hysterical shock. And when her new husband Walter comes to her rescue and is easily clouted senseless by the monster, he understandably goes to pieces as well.

Dewer promises to come back for more, and things look fairly hopeless but fortunately there is this French ghostbuster named Jules de Grandin living in the very town. De Grandin is at his most insufferable here, calling everyone stupid to their faces and praising himself, but you have to admit he gets the job done. A little research with an antiquarian friend of his reveals that, sure enough, there is an escape clause in this curse (most family curses have a loophole somewhere). It only remains to be seen if poor Rosemary is up to the deed...

Seabury Quinn got away with an awful lot in his WEIRD TALES stories that less popular writers might have found edited out. Many of the de Gandin tales have a strong sexual element that`s still startling today. In "Bride of Dewer", young Rosemary`s ordeal isn`t prevented in the nick of time and Dewer goes away satisfied ("Her nightclothes were ripped to tatters... the trousers almost ripped away, and there were stains of blood upon them"). For that matter, Dewer isn`t destroyed or even punished, just sent away never to bother the couple again.

As much as Jules de Grandin vexes me with his ludicrous dialect and cockiness, every now and then he has a moment that suddenly shows a real human being behind all that posturing. Congratulating the young couple, the middle-aged detective suddenly has tears in his eyes as he wishes them "...may you and Monsieur Whitney be always as happy as I should have been, had not 'le bon Dieu' willed otherwise!" I don`t know why but a sudden vulnerability like this in such a smug character seems very touching.

The creepiest seals you'll ever see

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 02:05:42 GMT

This is from THE UNSEEN# 14, a mediocre 1954 horror comic. But check out those seals' faces. This gives the legend of the Selkie a new unsettling quality.

That's the Seal of Disapproval, if you ask me.

Songs you may not have heard in a while Department

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 01:25:00 GMT

Worth turning up your speakers and settling back for a few minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP5lymQugXI

Today's mystery guest

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:28:50 GMT

Usually on screen with a partner.

The answer Stan Laurel.

Steed and Mrs Peel vs adrenalin-junkie military officers

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 23:45:33 GMT

"The Danger Makers" Dec 12, 1966

Adrenalin junkies in the military. Great. just what we need, thanks ever so much. A secret society of thrill-seekers has gathered in Her Majesty's Army and the RAF. Middle-aged officers (who should know better) play chicken on motorcycles against trucks, try climbing St Paul's, pull reckless stunts in new jets and generally carry on like hormone-crazed teenagers. It's just bad form, you're only supposed to place yourself in dangerous spots in the Army when you're ordered to do.

John Steed and Emma Peel are called in to investigate, and seem to do so in a rather half-hearted way at first, as though they're not taking this assignment all that seriously. Things heat up though, and by the close of the case we find Emma negotiating a very tense initiation ritual while Steed faces a murderous opponent counting to three across a table on which a pistol lies.

The basic premise of the plot is fine. Most of us enjoy a mild scare, if we're assured it won't get out of hand; rollercoaster rides, rappelling, entering the freeway at rush hour. Some folks do get hooked on the adrenalin and go in for extreme sports which frankly seem idiotic to those who don't share their thirst for danger. And like most addictions, thrillseekers get diminishing returns after awhile and have to look for stronger doses. The idea in this story is that a small percentage of men exposed to combat get to like the nerve-wracking fear and anxiety, and find they want more, which in peacetime is not as easy to find. ("Today, Mrs Peel, there just isn't enough war to go around.")

(This idea has been used before in thrillers. Many of the great pulp heroes like Bulldog Drummond, Richard Wentworth, Doc Savage and his gang were all hooked on excitement and action during the Great War. Simon Templar couldn't go more than a week or so without stirring up some peril for himself.)

As our two heroes infiltrate the Danger Makers (headed by someone known only as Apollo), they meet fewer than usual of the unconventional characters which populate the landscape of the Avengers universe. There's Colonel Adams, an elderly ex-WREN (if I've got the terminology correct) who tends a military museum. She's an appealing and slightly lost old woman who seems unaware that the Danger Makers are using the museum to hold their meetings. The other touch of eccentricity is that the sinister Major Robertson has another hobby besides the occasional game of solo Russian roulette; he's interested in phrenology. This leads to a quasi-innocent remark from Steed that Mrs Peel should show the Major her bumps.

As her initiation into the Danger Makers, Emma undergoes a ritual rather more challenging than she had expected. It's the highlight of the episode and a well-done bit of suspense. She has to walk up and then down two succeeding planks on fulcrums (like teeter-totters) while sliding a long hoop on a handle along an overhead wire, one in each hand. But she must not let the hoops make contact or she will suffer fifty thousand volts through her supple little form. Diana Rigg is (as almost always) excellent in these scene. She looks as if she's taking it all with deadly seriousness and is completely convincing.

One thing that I love about her portrayal of the character is that Mrs Peel is brave but not foolhardy; she shows a reasonable amount of alarm and concern when facing risky business but takes a breath and goes ahead anyway. Of course, since she is voluntarily getting herself into Steed's missions, it's clear she has a large dose of thrillseeking herself. In fact, when she gives the Major her spiel about how life is too safe and boring these days, I think Emma's just expressing what she really feels.

Steed himself has two outstanding scenes. One involves his facing the Major across a table on which a pistol lies (Steed solves the situation with more prudence than gallantry) The best moment is a wonderful little bit where he reacts to Emma receiving a box of chocolates as if they might contain a nuclear warhead. Directing her to stand clear, he gingerly unfastens the package and solemnly inspects one of the chocolates. "I thought so. I've seen them before... Whatever you do, don't touch the wrapped ones." Mrs Peel asks why not, and Steed pops one in his mouth. "Cause I like 'em," he replies. It's cheeky moments like these, not necessary to the plot but always a delight, that give THE AVENGERS much of its charm for me.

As an American of the baby boomer generation, I found most of the details shown of British military lore fascinating. The black rose of courage and the four feathers of cowardice I had read about, and it's pleasant to see them appear. Steed rather casually hurling a grenade to strike right on the target others had trouble getting near is a nice touch. It's also interesting how many times our heroes end up battling the bad guys with old-style weapons, in this case swords. As in "Murdersville", Emma provides a startling moment, this time when she literally leaps lengthwise over a table like Daredevil and tackles two men. (Once she decides to fight, she goes for it.) She also has a wonderful expression of mild annoyance when she scrambles out from under that table at one point to find her opponents have run for it.

My one misgiving about this episode is that, when the mastermind calling himself Apollo is revealed, his ultimate scheme is a letdown. Yes, robbing the crown jewels from the Tower is a big enough caper for straightforward criminals (it was worth Moriarty's attention in a Basil Rathbone's Holmes flick), but it's not quite what I would expect would appeal to these characters. A raid on a summit meeting of gangsters or some sort of landmine obstacle course would be more their style but then, of course we can take this as Apollo just using their psychological problems for his own purposes. Apollo is just the sort of urbane, polished gentleman villain that I remember about THE AVENGERS.

I don't see how this movie made any money

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 23:38:05 GMT

Fur trim is BACK!

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 23:23:46 GMT

Finally. About time women can start wearing fox-fur collar and cuff outfits without being ostracized... no, wait. This is from July 1969.

Never mind.

What is it we love about Summer Glau and Kate Beckinsale?

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:09:13 GMT

...The twinkle of mischief in a bright eye?
The gleam of a fresh cheerful smile?
The delicate arch of a slender neck?
The low throaty chuckle of genuine good nature?

Yes, all these and much more.

_

It's raining buffalo

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 01:26:33 GMT

This is from THE CHIEF (later INDIAN CHIEF), a 1950s Dell comic. The practice of stampeding herds of buffalo over a cliff is so dramatic that I'm surprised it hasn't been depicted in a movie. (Unless it has and I missed it.)

Pull that balloon over, if you please

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:52:22 GMT

A charming scene from a 1901 issue of L'ASSIETTE AU BEURRES. I like the stolid policemen directing traffic.

"The Colossus of Ylourgne"

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:47:07 GMT

From the June 1934 issue of WEIRD TALES, this is one of Clark Ashton Smith's longer tales. "The Colossus of Ylourgne" is a Monster On the Loose epic that is hard to beat for sheer gruesomeness. It's 1281 in the province of Averoigne, and the sorcerer Nathaire is near to dying. This triple threat warlock (alchemist, astrologer and necromancer) is twisted in every sense of the word. A particularly wicked and malicious villain, he is also a deformed dwarf, lame because of a cobble thrown at him by a mob. Like the similarly aggrieved Narthos in "The Black Eidolon", Nathaire is not one to quickly forgive and he has long nursed a bitter hatred for the town of Vyones.

With his ten apprentices, Nathaire abruptly drops from sight but is soon spotted in the ruins of the castle of Ylourgne. You'd have to be a deranged little sorcerer to consider taking up residence in this haunted rubble, "built by a line of evil and marauding barons now extinct". A mile away on the opposite side of the valley, the brothers of Cistercian monastery can't help but notice strange lights and suspicious noises coming from the ruins at night.

Even for Averoigne, which has quite a long history of assorted monsters and demons, things get out of hand as corpses start digging their way up out of the graves and rushing through the countryside toward the castle. Only freshly deceased men in good condition are summoned this way, and (as you might imagine) the morale of the population is not improved by experiencing weeks of migratory stiffs leaving their resting places to run off eagerly for some unknown reason.

What exactly is Nathaire up to? Why has he smashed out the interior walls of the old castle to make one immense chamber? Why are his disciples hacking up the newly arrived cadavers into chunks of flesh and separate bones? What the hell, dude? When two monks rather bravely enter the ruins, they find their crosses and holy water and prayers don't work worth a dime. Nathaire humiliates them and sends them back with the suggestive warning, "They that came here as many shall go forth as one."

Gasard du Nord is a former student of Nathaire's, who dropped out of the classes when he saw they were going to be a bit TOO unholy and vile for him to take. He's as close to a traditional hero as Smith seemed to get; even then, he's a sorcerer himself who believes only black magic can fight black magic. Gaspard suspects his former teacher is planning some tomfoolery that no one in the countryside is likely to survive; he goes to investigate but ends up thrown in a slimy pit. Now it seems like this might be the final Averoigne story, as Nathaire's Colossus rears his ugly pale head up one hundred feet above the ground and sets out.

The Colossus is not your mere Japanese kaiju lumbering about and causing destruction without noticing it, nor is he a sympathetic ape searching for the waif who won his heart. Nope, this atrocity is actively evil. He stomps all over the landscape, "leaving behind him, as a reaper his swath, an ever-lengthening zone of havoc, of rapine and carnage." Even worse, he deliberately defiles and abuses his victims in ways we'd be better off not knowing about. The Colossus doesn't even bother to pluck arrows and spears from his carcass as he cheerfully makes Nathaire's darkest wishes come true.

You get used to Smith's esoteric vocabulary quickly enough. Even when a word is so obscure it's almost unfair to use it, the context helps. So there are no places where you are baffled enough to lose track of what's going on. Smith also has a skill at choosing exactly the right phrase to give a medieval atmosphere, provide a strong visual and add to the grisly nightmarish quality of the story -- all at the same time. In fact, Smith's wordcraft is so polished and precise that I was jarred when he repeated himself. "Like a death-drunken Cyclops" and "like a maniacal Cyclops" appear a few pages apart, and there are very few pulp writers who I would notice using similar phrases like that. (In fact, most pulpsters repeated themselves so much that certain tags and descriptions became almost like comforting slogans.)

You might notice too that organized religion is in for some abuse in Smith's tales. Sorcery, necromancy, black magic and that sort of mischief work just fine. But holy symbols and prayers are repeatedly shown to be quite useless. The monks who assail the castle of Nathaire have their large heavy crosses taken away and are then beaten with them. Adding insult to injury, I calls that. It's understandable that Nathaire is out specifically to smoosh cathedrals and monasteries under the Colossus' unattractive feet; he was forced to flee his abode because of the threat of the Inquisition.But there's a certain glee in the way the Colossus degrades his clerical victims, which makes me wonder about Smith's religious views and whether he had some philosophical grudge. I'd like to see G.K. Chesterton read a few of the Averoigne stories while hooked up to a blood pressure monitor.

The final fate of the Colossus is quietly haunting and rather macabre, but frankly, it's a bit of an anticlimax after the monster's rampage. I was expecting a more dramatic finale, but the final image sticks in the memory. There's a temptation to go on a binge of Clark Ashton Smith stories, but I think he's a writer better taken in doses spaced out so the experience lasts longer.

A school full of gas masks

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 23:44:23 GMT

Children in Honolulu following Pearl Harbor. The use of poison gas was widely feared in WW II, but it doesn't seem to have been carried out. It was one of the worst horrors of the first World War. Hawaiian residents were issued gas masks and were supposed to keep them handy at all times.

Does Toblerone have bears?

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 01:35:09 GMT

Today's mystery guest

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:49:20 GMT

He had nothing to do with killing Rasputin and he did not hide Anastasia in his attic. His contribution to the world was refined and pleasant.

His line of fine products bore his name, leading to people being slightly surprised that, like Dr Scholl, he was a real person.

And This is Georges V Matchabelli, the original "Prince Matchabelli."

I vote to let her swim

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:35:36 GMT

From 1962, a lovely pin-up from the great Gil Elvgren.

Right now, it's 11 degrees outside at 5:30 PM; it was 8 below zero this morning. The hard, ice-crusted snow is piled up so it sometimes feels like you're driving through a tunnel on the back roads and it's not even February yet. Looking at this art is a healing experience.

THE SQUEAKING GOBLIN

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:26:24 GMT

From August 1934, this is a real treat and a lot of fun for Doc fans. 1934 was in my opinion the best year for the series-- Lester Dent had developed the characters and themes, he had real enthusiasm and attention to detail in his writing, and the larger-than-life melodrama of that time still works today. In this particular book, Dent keeps the story moving briskly and convincingly and he builds up to one of the most satisfying endings of any of the books-- everything is neatly explained and settled.

THE SQUEAKING GOBLIN is a bit diffferent from most of the early books, as the menace is not world-threatening but more localized and believable. The gadgets get used used pretty lightly (Doc only uses one anesthetic ball, and that on a dog) but the bronze man does get to show genuine investigative ability. All five aides appear and are shown as competent, skilled crimefighters in their own rights. It's very refereshing that, for the first half of the story, Doc works with just Renny and Long Tom (two aides who usually don't interact much).

The Squeaking Goblin himself is one of the great villains of the series. Allegedly the ghost of old Columbus Snow (shot between the eyes eighty years ago), he appears as a lurking, phantom figure dressed in a Daniel Boone-like outfit, completely with doeskin blouse and high coonskin cap. He has a dead, lifeless face with deep empty eye sockets (eek!). The Goblin has killed over twenty people as the story opens, firing his long rifle (which makes a loud squeaking noise instead of the usual report and the bullets he shoots mysteriously disappear right after they hit.
Skulking about and sniping at people, disappearing when pursued, the elusive spook is a real candidate for the gallery of top foes which includes the Mystic Mullah, John Sunlight, the Annihilist, Dan Thunden, and Mo-Gwei.

The Goblin has stirred up the dormant feud between the Kentucky mountain families of the Snows and the Raymonds, until a full scale state of war exists. The feuding hillbilly theme is almost forgotten today, but (while it may not have been historically that accurate), that type of story was enormously popular in movies and pulp stories for decades. Dent does a very good job of setting the scene, describing the action and making the bloodshed seem genuinely horrifying and tragic. Perhaps his dialect seems a bit overdone by today's standards, but then local accents were in general more extreme before the influence of television homogeneized the way people speak.

I have one word of caution for crooks captured by crimefighters. If the heroes are going to interrogate you, insist on being taken indoors and away from windows. TWICE in this story, just as a prisoner is going to spill the beans, a bullet plows through his head right in front of Doc and his men. The most dangerous spots to be in are first, being interrogated by the bronze man, and second, trying to reach the 86th floor and inform him of the villain's evil scheme. You are more likely to be killed in those situations than in any other way (well, at least in a Doc Savage story).

Doc himself is in good form this time out. He can check the trouser cuff of a victim and identify the leaves and debris as coming from the Kentucky mountains, and at the same time, he can punch a big thug so hard that the bottom of the man's moccassins show. That's our boy. Once again, he deduces the identity of the villain very early on but he refuses to tells his aides who the Goblin really is, even at the very end of the chase. You'd think that Long Tom or Renny would blow up at least once and shout, ""What IS it with you, Doc? Stop screwing around and just give me the guy's name!" but it's ultimately a way to keep the reader in suspense.

The cover to the Bantam paperback is one of James Bama's better efforts. Against a gray sky with the moon low over the mountains, Doc is confronting the title phantom. While Doc is painted a pale gold with lots of shadows, the Squeaking Goblin is gray, surrounded by fog. In his buckskin outfit and coonskin hat, clutching a long rifle in one bony hand, the Goblin's face is shown as an actual skull with a thin layer of skin. Whoa! How could you not be intrigued by a cover like that?

Original KING KONG not so great, after all?

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:20:20 GMT

I don't know how many times I've seen the 1933 KING KONG in my life. On broadcast TV (Channel 9 WOR from New York), once on the big screen at the Rhinebeck Art Cinema, on VHS and DVD. And I've always fallen under its spell. But now, I don't know why, something has changed. It just doesn't seem so convincing. Look at this scene and see if you agree.

Oh, all right. Seriously, this is from a Technicolor comedy short feature produced right after KING KONG was a smash. It's called THE LOST ISLAND and the gimmick was that the human characters were represented by puppets, while the dinosaurs and other giant beasts were played by live people in costumes. That's Charles Gemora in the ape suit.

Maybe Gerry Anderson should have tried this.

Early maps of Australia

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:37:33 GMT

This is fascinating, I never realized before that the first maps made of Australia showed a central lake where there wasn't errrr wait a minute.

Okay, who is sneaking pictures of Summer Glau and Kate Beckinsale in here!? I am certain absolutely no one wants to look at them!

Today's mystery guest

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:24:20 GMT

Oh, I don't like the looks of this joker.