Nick Cardy

The Witching Hour 49

"Bride of Satan"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Vicente Alcazar

"The Prisoners of Mortuary Island"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by E.R. Cruz

"You Can't Kill a Corpse"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Romy Gamboa

Peter: Raymond wants to marry the lovely (and more important, wealthy) Tess. Since he's a poor sap and not all that handsome to boot, he does what anyone else in the DC Mystery Universe would do: he makes a bargain with Satan for instant wealth. When Tess finds out, she's mortified and makes her own bargain with the devil: she'll become the "Bride of Satan" if he'll release Raymond from his bargain. Sizing Tess up and remarking he won't find a babe like this one in Hell, he quickly agrees. The happy couple are married and then Tess drops the bomb on her new hubby: she's actually an ugly old crone who was looking for just the right man. Now she has him. So the devil has the power to grant instant wealth, long life, and better television shows, but he's not smart enough to know when the con is on? And what's the next step for Tess? It's not like she inherits any new powers. A really dumb script with mediocre Alcazar art.

The devil is a dumbbell

Jack: It isn't the Devil, it's Baal, an ancient near-eastern god reviled in the Old Testament as a competitor of Yahweh. But it's still the same old twist where the beautiful girl is revealed to have been an ugly witch all along.

by Jack Seabrook

Woolrich's story was first published here

The second episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to be adapted from a Cornell Woolrich short story was "Momentum," broadcast on CBS on June 24, 1956, as the last episode of season one. The story on which it was based is "Murder Always Gathers Momentum," which was first published in the December 14, 1940 issue of Detective Fiction Weekly.

As the story begins, Richard Paine waits outside the window of Mr. Burroughs, recalling that he had been a faithful employee of Burroughs's company who was owed $250 in back pay when Burroughs declared bankruptcy to avoid paying his debts. Paine and his wife have suffered from lack of money and are about to be turned out of their apartment for unpaid rent. He sees Burroughs talking to another person and watches as the old man opens his safe, takes out a stack of bills, and gives money to the unseen person, who leaves. Paine hides from view and cannot see who is leaving.

Once the visitor is gone and Burroughs has retired upstairs, Paine summons his courage and breaks into the house through a window. He opens the safe, having memorized the combination minutes before, and is suddenly bathed in light as Burroughs appears, alerted by a silent alarm. Burroughs holds a gun on Paine and tries to pull off the handkerchief covering his face. Paine wrestles with Burroughs, deflecting the gun and knocking the old man to the floor. Burroughs grabs the handkerchief and identifies Paine, who shoots and kills the old man with his own gun. Taking only the $250 he was owed, Paine escapes unseen but fears that "Murder, like a snowball rolling down a slope, gathers momentum as it goes."

Skip Homeier as Dick

He goes to a bar and orders two drinks, certain that the bartender suspects him. Moving to the washroom to take out a stolen bill to pay the bar tab, Paine is followed by the bartender, whose surprise entrance leads to a struggle, a gunshot, and another murder on Paine's conscience. "Two in less than an hour. Paine didn't think the words, they seemed to glow out at him, emblazoned on the grimy washroom walls in characters of fire, like in that Biblical story." The story to which Woolrich refers is, of course, the story of the prophet Daniel and the writing on the wall. The words written on the wall are translated roughly in part as "you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting"; this applies to Dick Paine in "Murder Always Gathers Momentum" most clearly after he has committed his second murder, and the doom implied by the ancient sentence foretells his end.

Joanne Woodward as Pauline

Outside the washroom, in the bar, Paine finds a drunk, who demands to be served; Paine pretends to be the bartender, giving the man a bottle and shooing him out the door. Staggering home to his apartment,Paine sees his wife Pauline asleep and passes the rest of the night alone, kneeling on the floor of the outer room, head and arms buried in the sofa cushions. Pauline finds him in the morning and he tells her not to mention the name Burroughs. Claiming to have borrowed the much-needed cash from a friend, he becomes paranoid and thinks that people on the street below are coming after him. However, the first person he fears turns out to be the building's janitor, showing the Paines' apartment to a prospective new tenant.

Dick tells Pauline to pack so they can leave in a hurry. He thinks he sees someone outside waiting for him and tells Pauline to go to the train terminal, buy two tickets to Montreal, and wait for him on the train. After she leaves, he crouches by the window, running outside when he thinks the man is after Pauline. Of course, the man is waiting for someone else, but Dick immediately sees another man loitering on the sidewalk and scurries back into his apartment. The man comes to the door and Dick shoots him as he enters, only to learn he was just a loan shark. Dick races out but the gunshot attracted attention and he exchanges gunfire with a policeman, killing the cop but being wounded himself in the process.

Watching through the window

Bleeding badly, Paine enters a taxi and asks the cabbie to drive him around the park to kill time before meeting Pauline at 8 o'clock. Turning the radio on, the cabbie hears a report about the dangerous fugitive in his cab. Dick shoots the cabbie as he attempts to run away, dons his cap and coat, and drives to the terminal. Barely able to maneuver the cab from loss of blood, Dick reaches the station and staggers up the stairs and onto the train. He makes his way through the cars, near death, and reaches Pauline. Falling into the seat beside her, he causes her to drop her handbag and a packet of bills falls out. She explains that she had gone to see Burroughs the night before and he gave her the money he owed Dick, but since Dick had told her that morning not to mention his name, he never knew that she was the unseen figure he saw Burroughs talking to as he watched through the window.

"Murder Always Gathers Momentum" has as its backdrop the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the financial difficulty faced by Richard and Pauline Paine would have been familiar to readers of the detective pulp magazine in which it appeared. When the story was adapted for television about fifteen years later, times had changed. World War Two had come and gone, as had the Korean War, and by 1955 the nation was at peace and the economy was in much better shape than it had been in 1940. The title of the story was shortened to "Momentum" and, despite a teleplay by Francis Cockrell and direction by Robert Stevens, the episode is less than the sum of its parts. It bears a copyright date of 1955 but was not broadcast till the end of June 1956, suggesting that the producers realized it was a weak episode and held it till the end of the season, when viewership declined.

Homeier superimposed over stock footage of New York City; note "The Phenix City Story" on the marquee, dating the shot around summer 1955

As is often the case on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the televised version of the story begins with scenes depicting events that were already in the past when the print version of the story began. We first see Dick Paine superimposed over stock footage of crowded city life as he comments in voiceover on the "rat race." Voiceover and superimposed shots continue as he looks for a job unsuccessfully; it is confusing that the stock footage appears to be of locations in New York City, while the action of the episode later seems to take place in California rather than in New York, as it did in Woolrich's story.

A scene of Dick and Beth (not Pauline) at home follows, where we learn of their money troubles and the tension that this brings into their marriage. Dick stops in a bar and tries unsuccessfully to borrow money from the bartender; he drinks some Dutch courage before heading to Burroughs's house, where we pick up with the start of the original story. Knowing the surprise ending, it's hard to believe Paine cannot see his own wife through the window, though her identity is shielded from the viewer's eyes by a well-placed curtain. The day for night filming in this scene is not very effective, leading to some confusion as to the time of day. The scene is so well-lit that it's hard to believe Paine does not see his wife walking away from the house.

High-contrast noir lighting is used in this shot, where Ken Christy as Burroughs points a gun at Paine

Unlike the story, Paine does not try to mask his identity by tying a handkerchief over his face; this suggests that the theft was a spur of the moment decision rather than something he planned in advance. Burroughs recognizes Paine right away but neglects to mention that Dick's wife just left the premises. Oddly enough, the situation, the lighting, and the use of voiceover all suggest a noir aspect to "Momentum," but the episode never really coalesces and fails to maintain the noir atmosphere from start to finish.

After Paine leaves Burroughs's house, the visit to the bar is omitted from the TV show, so Paine does not commit a second murder. Perhaps this was a conscious decision by Cockrell to make Paine more sympathetic. The sense of paranoia that Paine feels when he is back in his apartment is also much less; rather than thinking  that the janitor has it in for him, the janitor just barges into the apartment and shows it to a prospective tenant. Again, it is hard to accept that Beth would not tell her husband about her visit to Burroughs, but the twist ending depends on her keeping silent. Cornell Woolrich had the ability to pile one coincidence on top of another and to make the reader forget about lapses in logic due to the propulsive nature of his writing. The TV version of "Momentum" does not succeed in this way, leaving the viewer to wonder why people fail to say and do the things that one would expect them to do.

It is strange that Dick tells Beth to buy two bus tickets to Mexico, then changes it to San Diego. Why alter this detail from the story, in which they live in New York City and he tells her to buy train tickets to Montreal? The change from train to bus lessens the suspense, as the final scene does not have Paine struggling his way through crowded train cars. In fact, he never boards the bus, but rather happens on Beth sitting on a bench outside the station.

Harry Tyler is on the right in one of his 11 appearances on the series

Paine also does not shot the loan shark in the TV version, nor does he exchange gunfire with a policeman and get fatally wounded. Instead, a bill collector (standing in for the loan shark of the story) enters Paine's apartment and Paine is accidentally shot in a struggle. Paine locks the bill collector in the bedroom and escapes. Presumably, Cockrell decided (or was told) that TV censors would not accept a multiple murderer as the protagonist of this episode, and so Paine's progress is changed so that he only kills Burroughs, and that is by mistake. Even the poor cabbie who picks up Paine is spared--Paine hits him over the head with his gun rather than shooting him.

The biggest problem with "Momentum" is that it lacks the title attribute and never really builds suspense. Paine dies in Beth's arms  at the end and his last words circle back to the comment he made at the beginning of the show: "It's a rat race--you run all day." Unfortunately, despite a talented writer, a skilled director, a competent cast, and various noir touches, "Momentum" is a letdown and does not live up to the promise of Woolrich's original story. Francis M. Nevins sums it up this way: "this all-too-straight-forward little picture left out most of the Depression Era desperation and anguish . . . that permeate Woolrich's story."

Francis Cockrell (1906-1987), who wrote the teleplay, started his career in movies in 1932 and moved to TV in 1950. He placed many short stories in pulps and slicks in the '30s and '40s and wrote a serial called "Dark Waters" with his wife Marian Cockrell that was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post, published as a novel, and adapted as a film. In addition to writing four episodes of Batman, he wrote 18 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Back for Christmas,""De Mortuis," and "The Dangerous People."

Mike Ragan as the cabbie

"Momentum" was directed by Robert Stevens (1920-1989), who began as a TV director in 1948 and added movies in 1957. He directed two episodes of The Twilight Zone; among the 44 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that he directed was "The Glass Eye," for which he won an Emmy.

Playing the lead role of Dick Paine is Skip Homeier (1930- ), who began his acting career as a child on radio and successfully navigated his way through growing up on camera into a long career as an adult. He appeared in films from 1944 to 1982 and on TV from 1950 to 1982; he was on The Outer Limits, two episodes of Star Trek, and two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Joanne Woodward

Joanne Woodward (1930- ) plays Beth Paine. She started on TV in 1952 and in film in 1955. Her many films include The Three Faces of Eve (1957) and The Drowning Pool (1975). She was married to Paul Newman from 1958 until he died in 2008 and this was her only appearance on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Among the familiar faces filling out the cast of "Momentum" are Ken Christy (1894-1962) as Burroughs, Mike Ragan (1918-1995) as the cabbie, and Harry Tyler (1888-1961) as the old man looking at the Paines' apartment. Tyler was one of the most prolific of character actors on the Hitchcock series, appearing in a total of 11 episodes.

Was this insert shot added later to match the air date in late June 1956?

Prior to being adapted for television in 1955, "Murder Always Gathers Momentum" had been adapted for radio (as "Momentum") and broadcast on October 27, 1949, as part of the series Suspense, with a radio play by E. Jack Neuman and starring Victor Mature and Lurene Tuttle. The radio version may be heard online here. Like the version televised in 1956, this version reflects the economic conditions of the times--Dick Paine is lazy and does not want to look for work, even though his wife says that everyone who wants a job has one. The multiple murders are present, but Paine's first killing is over royalties he thinks he deserves from an invention rather than unpaid back wages.

The TV version of "Momentum" is available on DVD here or may be viewed for free online here.

Sources:

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 137

"Too Many Sergeants!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Bring Back the Admiral!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: An old soldier nicknamed Ramrod is the newest recruit to join Easy Co., but Rock realizes that the man's long history of fighting means that this company has one "Too Many Sergeants!" Ramrod tells his fellow men stories of the old days, when cavalry charges were done on horseback and fighting was man to man. He does not like modern fighting methods involving machinery and insists on standing tall and charging the enemy every chance he gets. Realizing that this is a recipe for disaster, Rock does his best to protect Ramrod and the rest of his men, who are energized by the old soldier's tactics and begin to take dangerous chances themselves. In the end, Ramrod leads Easy Co. in a charge on a hill manned by Nazis; Rock and his men take the hill and Ramrod breathes his last.

"Too Many Sergeants!"

I don't think it's a coincidence that, in the flashbacks to Ramrod's cavalry days, we see him in the 7th Cavalry, which foolishly charged at Little Big Horn and paid the price. Kanigher and Kubert are at their best in "Too Many Sergeants!"

Peter: While it's really just another in the long string of "new recruit" stories, "Too Many Sergeants!" veers off into uncharted territory and scores a bullseye. Ol' Ramrod's mid-battle rants probably wouldn't have been tolerated in the real army and he'd have been sent back for observation but the poignant scenes and dialogue made me ignore the script's weaknesses. The old-timer's flashback discussion with his horse ("Our time will come, Laddie! Man against man! Mount against mount! Standard against standard! With the sound of the bugle liftin' us like the wind!") is both heart-breaking and chilling. This guy really digs war and without war he's simply another man with too much time on his hands, it seems. We've had senior citizen officers in many of the tales we've read before but I've never seen one as a "replacement." Was this common or simply a plot device? "Too Many Sergeants!" is a welcome return to the quality Sgt. Rock we've been missing the last few months.

"Bring Back the Admiral!"

Jack: A new Navy recruit keeps a promise to his mother to "Bring Back the Admiral!" despite enemy attempts to prevent him from succeeding. The admiral is his father, who knows secret battle plans and tells his son not to let the enemy take him alive. Sometimes I read a story and try to guess the writer and artist before looking at the GCD for the credits. From the first panel, the art was obviously by Jack Abel, and it wasn't long before I recognized the prose stylings of Hank Chapman. No one else uses phrases such as "magnetic boom ball" and "barrel of doom."

Peter:

Dad: "Son, you have to make sure I don't fall into enemy hands!"
Son: "But, dad, I promised mom I would bring the admiral home!"
Dad: "Yes, but son, you have to make sure I don't fall into enemy hands!"
Son: "Yes, I know, dad, but I promised mom I would bring the admiral home!"
Dad: "Yes, but son..."

Half-star extra credit for the Donna Reed cameo.

Russ Heath

All American Men of War 100

"Battle of the Sky Chiefs!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Irv Novick

"Ace in Reverse!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: Johnny Cloud is surprised to learn that his squadron has just been joined by a new recruit known to Cloud as Proud Eagle. Years before, Johnny's father was chief of their tribe and Proud Eagle's father, Great Wing, attempted to snatch that crown away. The fight ended in Great Wing's death and Proud Eagle's vow to someday knock Johnny Cloud from his pedestal in a "Battle of the Sky Chiefs!" Despite the differences between the two men, they head off to destroy an enemy dam. When Proud Eagle's jet is damaged and he is faced with retreat, he instead flies into the dam, killing himself and blowing up the dam. Another in the seemingly endless string of tales of braves with chips on their shoulders and Johnny Cloud the target of their spite, "Battle" redeems itself with a knockout punch of an ending. There's no miracle rescue here; Proud Eagle bites the dust but somehow gets what he wanted by proving himself "the better chief" with his sacrifice. This dam looks an awful lot like the one Major Ben Wade blew up last month in "The Brainwashed Jet."

Proud Eagle makes his mark on the terror dam!

Jack: After a dull start with still more air battle action, this story got interesting with an unusually long flashback sequence and a surprise ending. I love when one Indian says to the other, "This prairie is not big enough for the two of us!" With a straight face, yet. The non-Indian members of Johnny Cloud's team call the two Indians "poker faces," which resulted in that stupid song getting stuck in my head.

Peter: Lt. Blake has had such bad luck lately, losing plane after plane, that the boys around the base have dubbed him an "Ace in Reverse!" Desperately trying to shrug off that moniker, Blake heads out on a dangerous mission and is struck by lightning. His plane crashes into the POW camp overseen by German killer ace, Major Von Muller, but flying bullets and exploding oil barrels are not enough to keep Blake from clearing his name. Deadly dull and incredibly lame. Hilarious that Blake manages to crash land his crippled plane in the very camp that the terror of the skies calls home, escape hails of machine gun fire, and blow up an entire runway without so much as a singed eyebrow, but even funnier is the scene where Blake and his rescuing ally, Captain King, hold a conversation as they fly by one another!

Mental telepathy perhaps?

Jack: At the end of the year we get one of the worst stories of 1963. Major von Muller's flying menagerie looks like planes decorated by a kindergarten class. More classic lines from the pen of Hank Chapman:

Nick Cardy

Ghosts 34

"Wrath of the Ghost Apes"
Story by Leo Dorfman
Art by Alfredo Alcala

"The Phantom Fists of Calvados"
Story Uncredited
Art by E.R. Cruz

"The Yawning Mouth of Hell"
Story by Leo Dorfman
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

Jack: It's 1954, and Lt. Victor Arlen is a British soldier and ladies man who is transferred to Gibraltar, where his grandfather has served in the 19th century. Gramps had loved and betrayed a local lass and killed some of the local apes that live in caves nearby, leading to his having been haunted by the "Wrath of the Ghost Apes." When young Victor follows the same path, the apes attack and he kills them. To the surprise of no reader, he is then tortured by ghost apes himself and disappears. Is the wild-haired savage man later seen hiding in the caves Lt. Arlen himself, driven mad by the apes? NOW do you believe in ghosts?

Don't you hate when that happens?

Peter: Not one of Alfredo's best, I'm afraid, but that may be due to a lack of inspiration. I know it's silly to point out useless plot points but how is it possible that Captain Edgar Arlen got married and impregnated his wife in between the the few panels that he killed the apes and went bananas himself? Did he bed a fellow inmate? The best thing about "Wrath of the Ghost Apes" is its title, which evokes those great old shudder pulps from the 1930s.

Jack: In 1937, Alan Walters visits the Halls of Calvados, a castle in France. When a storm comes, they close and bar the doors and windows before "The Phantom Fists of Calvados" pound away, trying to get in. Alan learns that this ghostly occurrence dates back to a 13th century land grab, and the man who was betrayed has been trying to regain his property ever since. Fast forward to WWII, and Alan is a prisoner of Nazis who hole up in the Halls of Calvados. A storm comes up and the pounding begins, but this time Alan throws open the doors and lets the ghost in to ravage and kill. Fortunately, only Nazis are targeted, since the ghost "wants revenge against those who would steal, who would spill the blood of others in their greed to rule." Not sure how Alan guessed this, but he's lucky the ghost wasn't a bit more reckless in its destruction!

The ghost only goes after Nazis

Peter: I salute Uncredited for raiding "the pentagon's files" and presenting us with this true story (only the names have been changed to "prevent unwanted notoriety!"), a quite exciting one if I'm to be honest. The final act reminded me, of course, of the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark. These crazy evil spirits always seem to know that the Nazis are some bad dudes.

Jack: In 1902 Martinique, Auguste Lipare dreams that the local volcano will erupt and cause widespread destruction. He tries to warn the villagers but no one listens and he is thrown in jail for his trouble. Of course, the volcano erupts, unleashing "The Yawning Mouth of Hell," and 40,000 people die, but not Auguste, who was protected by the jail's stone walls. Nary a ghost to be seen here, just a premonition.

Jerry G strikes again!

Peter: It would seem that there are varying degrees to Jerry Grandenetti's artwork. There's Mildly Awful. Pretty Awful. Particularly Awful. And, evidenced by "The Yawning Mouth of Boredom," Gawdawful. I'm still not clear why August Lipare was spared by all that flowing lava. Not even a hot foot while the rest of the jail was decimated. Was this that rare type of lava that doesn't flow down stairs? Yawn.

Luis Dominguez

The House of Secrets 127

"The Headsman of Hell"
Story by Marv Wolfman and Len Wein
Art by Abe Ocampo

"A Test of Innocence!"
Story by Mike Pellowski
Art by Mike Sekowsky and Bill Draut

"Death on Cue!"
Story by David Michelinie and Russell Carley
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Peter: In 18th-Century France, the guillotine and axe are a daily rite but Andre LeBlanc has had enough. One night, out with his friend, Jacques, Andre also has too much wine and mouths off in public about the beheadings. Later that night, the "committee of public safety" sends their henchmen round to Andre's to collect him to stand trial for treason. Andre manages to elude his would-be captors and hightails it to Jacques' house, only to find his friend has already ratted him out. A swift trial and then on to the blade. Swearing he'll see the face behind the headsman's cowl, Andres swipes at the mask, only to find the headsman is headless! I expect dopey material like this from Boltinoff or Wessler but not from writers who should know better. A complete waste of paper, "The Headsman of Hell" is punctuated with one of the silliest climaxes of all time. Should I remind Len and Marv that headless men can't laugh? "But, Peter..." I hear Jack sigh, "Headless men can't wield an axe, either!" As usual, my colleague has a point.


Peter: Harry Sykes has happened into a good situation: he's murdered a friend who held a treasure map and headed off into the jungle, searching for millions in emeralds. When he finds a tribe worshipping a jewel-laden statue, Harry hatches an elaborate plot, involving "A Test of Innocence," that enables him to get away with the jewels. What he didn't count on was an Amazon full of piranha. The DC Universe seems to be filled with jungle tribes just waiting to be bilked out of their treasure by nasty American con men. I think I'd rather dip my head in the Amazon and take my chances rather than read another story illustrated by the team of Sekowsky and Draut.


Peter: Small-time pool hustler Eightball O'Brien has run into a bad bit of luck and can't seem to win a game to save his life. Threatened with broken legs if he tries to hustle again, Eightball falls into a fit of depression until he happens upon an old man with a magical pool cue that seems to make any shot possible. O'Brien liberates the old man of both his cue and his life and heads down the road to recovery. Soon, Eightball O'Brien is a name to contend with and the only hustler in town left to beat is "Slim" Scarfield. A match is set and Eightball arrives early to the pool hall, only to find the ghost of the old pool player, challenging Eightball to a game for the highest stakes. The specter wins and reduces Eightball to a miniature, placing him on the table that the match was to be held on. Warming up, "Slim" breaks and then notices an odd red splotch on the cue ball. "Death on Cue" is a hum-drum ghost story, enlivened by a genuinely sick final sequence of panels, one of the nastiest in recent DC history. We don't see the graphic "CLUNK" but we sure can imagine it! This Michelinie must have studied under the great Michael Fleisher.

Jack: Better than average, but not a four-star effort, either in story or in art. It's funny, when Ruben Yandoc's art graces a terrible story by Wessler or Kashdan, it's the best thing about the story, but when it comes to deciding whether a tale gets four stars in my notebook, I don't think Yandoc's work will ever earn that rating. The story is well-told and the ending is nice and yucky but, as you point out, it's basically a hum-drum ghost story.

Nick Cardy

The Witching Hour 50

"Those Eerie Eyes in the Grinning Skull"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Fred Carrillo

"Nightmare Village"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"Let the Hangman Wait"
Story and Art Uncredited

Jack: Fresh out of prison, Roland Coe does what any self-respecting DC horror comic crook would do when trying to locate his old partner and the $50,000 they stole in a heist seven years before--he visits a boardwalk shop called Magda's Coven and steals a skull with one red eye and one green eye. Like a traffic light, "Those Eerie Eyes in the Grinning Skull" lead him on an accident-filled quest for the money, one which ends in a swamp, where he discovers that Magda followed him. Now pay attention: Magda grabs the $50,000 being held by the skeleton of Roland's dead partner, Roland sinks into the muck and dies, and an undercover cop dressed as a hippie arrests Magda. You have to read this stuff to believe it, and you have to read it at least twice to try to summarize it.

We have reached this point!

Peter: Any month that features both "Those Eerie Eyes..." and "A Coffin for Bonnie and Clyde" (see House of Mystery #228) proves one thing: Jack and I are working too cheaply. Awful script, inane climax, and butt-ugly art.

Jack: Chester Butts convinces the inhabitants of a certain village to let him build an amusement park called The Haunted Village on their land in order to take advantage of the local history of vampires. Soon, a visitor is killed by a real vampire, and it's up to Angus MacDevit, descendant of the local vampires, to take a wooden stake and end the new menace in this "Nightmare Village." He finds Butts resting in his coffin but Butts turns into a bat and flies away. Unfortunately, this bat appears to be nearsighted, because he flies smack dab into a very pointy tree branch and ends up with a makeshift stake through his batty little heart. Just then, underground gas tanks explode and a fiery conflagration destroys the amusement park. This story topped the prior one in this issue for two reasons: Yandoc's usual decent art and the utter hilarity of a vampire bat flying into a pointy tree branch.

See, we didn't make it up!

"Let the Hangman Wait"

Peter: Could this be the world's dumbest vampire? Spends a fortune building a Haunted Village amusement park (and does a lousy job based on the explosion that rocks the final panels) to camouflage his vampirism and then impales himself on a tree limb. In need of spectacles, perhaps? This is fast becoming a landmark issue of The Witching Hour.

Jack: Roy Mackey decides to "Let the Hangman Wait" and escapes from prison before he can be executed for murder. He hides out in the cabin of a witch who tells him that, for 50 pounds, she can send him back in time so he can avoid the killing. He does so and she brings him back to the present, where he is no longer a murderer. That doesn't last long, as she demands payment and he kills her. Her son arrives right then and he is arrested and right back where he started. Well, at least this one is only four pages long.

Peter: A witch who has "vast powers" and can manipulate time and yet needs to pimp out her talents for 50 quid? Smells fishy to me.

Luis Dominguez

Weird Mystery Tales 15

"Doom on Vampire Mountain"
Story by Michael Fleisher and Russ Carley
Art by Jess Jodloman

"Drive-In Death"
Story by Paul Levitz
Art by Frank Redondo

"Blood Moon"
Story by David Michelinie
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Peter: Caroline and Herman have come to the small village of Gazebo Junction to claim Caroline's inheritance of her Uncle Phil's estate. Arriving in town, they are immediately told by the sheriff that Uncle Phil's house is no longer safe as a bevy of vampires is nesting in its rotting corridors and it would be certain "Doom on Vampire Mountain" should they ignore his cautions. Caroline is understandably skeptical and she harangues Herman into driving up the mountain anyway, since it was long rumored that Uncle Phil buried a treasure in the stairway of the mansion. The driveway ends at the bottom of the mountain, so the couple must camp out in the woods overnight and hike up in the morning. After Caroline falls asleep, Herman becomes convinced he can hear noises in the woods and explores, witnessing several vampire bats taking wing, heading straight for Caroline. Though his wife has cuckolded him for years, Herman is still in love with her so he distracts the bats before they can discover Caroline. The vampires rip the man to shreds and head back up the hill, sated. The next morning, Caroline wakes and, finding Herman gone and thinking the man had lost his spine, heads up the hills and digs out the treasure. Heading back down the cliff, and blissfully ignorant of Herman's shredded corpse, Caroline muses that, as soon as she gets home, she's dumping her husband since he's never done a thing for her in their entire relationship.

"Doom on Vampire Mountain"

Here's where Michael Fleisher shows us how good a writer he is. Fleisher takes a cliched plot and a cliched character (the shrewish wife) and works them both into an engaging story and effective climax (not so much shocking or twisted as dripping with irony). The vampires are almost an afterthought here; we get nothing of their backstory or why they're terrorizing this village in particular (and that's a stunning splash, by the way), only bits of information provided to move the story along. Never mind those vampire questions, the most obvious head scratcher, to me, was that this gorgeous, buxom blonde (albeit a ball-crushing babe) was married to schlemiel Herman. Usually, there's a reason for that, be it family fortune or... well, that's the only reason, isn't it? Here. the opposite is true; it's Caroline who's about to be the zillionaire and Herman will remain a dork. Some readers might have been disappointed by the rather abrupt climax (where the greedy party escapes scott-free while the good soul is trampled) but I appreciated its nastiness.

The ironic climax of "Doom..."

Jack: I thought that the highlight of this story would be the way Jess Jodloman lovingly depicts how well Caroline fills out her tube top and bellbottoms, but then I got to the ending and was impressed by its subtlety. Having read countless DC horror stories for this series of posts, I was expecting Herman to return as a vampire and menace Caroline in the last panel. But no! Something much more understated and well done. The vampire bat attacks on humans are also rather brutal.

Peter: Chemist Henry Cooper only wants to live the good, simple life but wife Sarah is hounding her husband to hire a chef. She's tired of cooking and now that Henry has been promoted to Chief Chemist, it's about time they took the plunge. Henry insists they can't afford a chef and so Sarah effectively goes on strike, refusing to cook. Henry seems okay with the prospect of eating out every night until the shrew he's shackled to insists they eat nowhere but Happy Harry's Hamburger Heaven, a fast food dump with very familiar golden arches. After an extended period of time, Henry decides he's had enough and Sarah has to go so he kills her with a slow-acting poison that leaves no trace and buries her huge corpse in the woods. Dining in French restaurants follows but, very soon after, Henry experiences the same symptoms Sarah exhibited after her poisoning and becomes convinced his wife somehow guessed what was going on and set into motion her revenge before she died. Henry visits his doctor and confesses to his heinous act but the doc insists his patient must confess his sin to the police before he's cured. In the end, Henry is off to jail and the doctor confides in police that Henry has nothing more than a bad cold.

"Drive-In Death"

"Drive-In Death" is a badly-illustrated hunk of junk. I might be a little more tolerant of its inane plot and silly wrap-up if it wasn't for the amateurish scribbling that's meant to show us what's going on. Obviously meant to be a cautionary tale of the perils of fast food decades before Super Size Me, told by yet another young writer convinced he could save the world (hence the witch above the golden arches). A couple of silly questions: Are we to infer from Harry's suspicion that he told his wife about the poison? Why else would he suspect she had poisoned him? And, if you murdered your wife, would you confess it to your physician? There's no need to. All Herman would have to do is tell the doc he thinks he's been poisoned. Did I mention the lousy art?

"Drive-In Death"

Jack: Henry sums it all up with this remark: "it's a wife's duty to feed her husband properly." I think we can give Paul Levitz a break here, since this may be his first published story. He was probably all of 18 years old when he wrote it. Gerry Conway's work at that age wasn't much to write home about, either.

Peter: Oil man Harper Grey can only watch helplessly as a werewolf maims and kills the men of his team in the Florida marshlands. Harper is convinced that local activist, John Littletrees, is responsible and guns the man down. Turns out lycanthropy runs in the family as Mrs. Littletrees and the little ones all sprout fangs and tear the oil man limb from limb. "Blood Moon" has a very amusing twist (Harper is stuck in a cabin, with mama werewolf outside and little wolves at his heels) and gorgeous artwork but it suffers a tad from "mean SOB employer" syndrome. These heartless oilmen/architects/ railroad guys are getting to be a dime-a-dozen. I should at least thank David Michelinie there's no shrewish wife on display (yet another cliche overworked this month).

"Blood Moon"

Jack: Ruben Yandoc's artwork never quite rises to the level of gorgeous for me. I thought this story was over at the end of page four when the wife turns out to be a werewolf, but it dragged on for two more interminable pages before ending with a thud. Initially, I thought Harper had killed an innocent man when he shot the husband, but if the wife and kids are all werewolves then it stands to reason that the husband was, too, and Harper made the right call in putting a silver bullet through his heart.

Frank Robbins & Luis Dominguez

The House of Mystery 228

"The Wisdom of Many, the Wit of One"
Story by Doug Moench and Frank Robbins
Art by Frank Robbins

"Stamps of Doom"
Story Uncredited
Art by Ruben Moreira
(reprinted from House of Mystery #23, February 1954)

"The Rebel"
Story by Michael Pellowski and Maxene Fabe
Art by Alan Kupperberg and Neal Adams

"The Wizard's Revenge"
Story Uncredited
Art by Bill Ely
(reprinted form House of Secrets #41, February 1961)

"The Man Who Murdered Himself!"
(reprinted from House of Mystery #179, April 1969)

"A Coffin for Bonnie and Clyde!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jack Sparling

"The Dragon of Times Square"
Story Uncredited
Art by Bob Brown
(reprinted from House of Mystery #74, May 1958)

"Seven Steps to the Unknown"
Story Uncredited
Art by Bill Ely
(reprinted from Tales of the Unexpected #4, August 1956)

"Wheel of Fate!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Carmine Infantino and Frank Giacoia
(reprinted from Sensation Comics #108, April 1952)

"The Fireworks Man!"
Story by Russell Carley and Michael Fleisher
Art by Gerry Talaoc

Peter: Scott Caswell just wants to protect his gorgeous wife, Martha, from the vampire who's been terrorizing the city. Little does Scott know that Martha's already fallen under the bloodsucker's spell and the two of them plan to off the caring husband. Carswell buys the necessary tools to rid the world of evil but, upon arriving home one night, he must reluctantly use them on his dear Martha when she attacks him, fangs bared. Once he's put his wife down, he heads for the vampire's tomb and dispatches the monster. "The Wisdom of Many, the Wit of One" (a really stupid title, by the way) provides yet another classic example of the DC mystery pointless plot device, when the vampire admits that taking Carswell's wife is a means to get to the man's money. What does a vampire need with money? Can't he get just about anything he desires with his teeth? I'm not sure if it was Doug Moench or co-writer Frank Robbins who came up with the bright idea of peppering the captions with proverbs ("Recklessness needs no restraints"-Scotch proverb) but my money's on the Moenchster, who liberally doused most of his Marvel work with such pretensions. I've got one for Doug: "The House of Mystery is like a box of chocolates..." - Peter Enfantino

"One man's trash is another man's..." Well, how could this be anyone's treasure?

Jack: For some reason, Martha is dressed for an evening of B & D. The captions with proverbs are intrusive and the story is dreadful, matched by the art. Why do Scott and Martha live in a "pop-art pad"? Who was using the term "pop-art" in 1975? Frank Robbins, that's who.

Peter: In an apocalyptic future, David Armstrong is "The Rebel" and the bad guys are going to catch him this time. When they do, they transform him into one of them. "The Rebel," despite having some nice Kupperberg/Adams art, is really nothing more than an idea rather than a story. That final panel, of a David who's been freshly operated on, is pretty potent but why not take a few more pages (say, five or six from that opening nonsense?) and give us some back story?

He's a "Rebel"

Jack: Even though the story is slight and predictable, being a takeoff on Twilight Zone's "Eye of the Beholder," it's such a pleasure to see any work by Neal Adams that I'll take it.

Peter: Undertaker Caleb Thorne hires the notorious Bonnie and Clyde to stand guard over his newest invention, an indestructible coffin. Unfortunately for Caleb, the machine gun-toting couple decide that this should be "A Coffin for Bonnie and Clyde!" and they always get their way. Here it is, only January, and I'm convinced the Worst Story of the Year contest is already wrapped up. This train wreck smells like a shelved story to me since we haven't seen much of Kanigher nor Sparling in these parts for quite a while and Bonnie and Clyde are strictly Faye and Warren. I'm at a loss as to how anyone in the DC mystery offices, let alone legendary editor Joe Orlando, would okay cutting a check for this disaster.

Bottom of the barrel

Jack: A bad story with ugly Sparling art, this looks like one pulled from the files. Why would Thorne need to summon Bonnnie and Clyde to test whether his coffin is bulletproof, and why would he lie in it while they riddle it with bullets in case it was NOT bulletproof?

Peter: Timothy has come up with an amazing formula for designer fireworks that can splash any image across the sky. Partner Carl sees dollar signs and doesn't want to share the wealth with Timothy so he scotches the brakes on the company bus, killing Timothy and several employees. The ghosts of the dead rise and take their revenge on Carl when they strap him to one of the rockets and decorate the sky with the murderer. I love how, after the crash, the ghosts have a discussion about what went wrong with the bus and one of the spirits pipes up, "someone drilled holes in the brake cylinders..." Here I thought that, once you died and became a ghost, you knew everything. "The Fireworks Man" is a decent distraction (with nice Talaoc art) but it plays fast and loose with the ghost mythology. These specters can drive cars and strap folks to rockets!

When ghosts gab

Jack: Fleisher and Carley were churning them out at this point, and this is not one of their best. I found the ending predictable which, in a good Fleisher story, is not the case.

"Dragon"

Peter: Another dry month for reprints. "Stamps of Doom" is a real hoot, an inane quasi-supernatural tale where the menace is explained away with a very natural (but highly unlikely) explanation. Ditto "The Wizard's Revenge," wherein a writer who specializes in uncovering hoaxes travels to a town named after a wizard to get to the bottom of a living statue. The scribe gets a  shock or two he can't explain until the obligatory climax where we discover the whole town participated in the hoax in order to revive their dwindling tourism trade. But, for me, the winner is clearly the charming "Dragon of Times Square," Bob Brown's tale of a knight and a dragon who become the victim of some time travel shenanigans and wind up in present-day New York. Brown, whose sharp work on the mid-1970s Daredevil is being discussed over at Marvel University, pulls you into the story with his wonderful use of inks (a la Alex Toth) and dynamic action sequences.

Nick Cardy

DC Limited Collectors Edition C-32
GHOSTS

A treasury-sized collection of stories reprinted from the first six issues of Ghosts. Three groups of stories are original to this volume.

"A Specter Poured the Potion"
(from #6)

"Death's Bridegroom!"
(from #1)

New group one:

Stories by Leo Dorfman
Art by Gerry Talaoc

"The Horrors of Witchcraft"
Jack: When the residents of Scrapfaggot Green in England topple the tombstone of Morla the Witch to make room for tanks to get through for the D-Day invasion of France, a whirlwind and fire sweep through the town until they replace the tombstone and all is well.

"The Horrors of Witchcraft"

"The Child-Witch of Skibeen"

Jack: A sweet-faced little girl uses her magic doll to see to it that anyone in her Irish village who denies her meets a speedy demise. Finally, the villagers use her doll to end her reign of terror.

"The Witch Who Would Not Die"

Jack: A witch protects African natives against government soldiers until the soldiers grab her, toss her in a sack, throw her in the water and riddle her with bullets. Yet her spirit appears to live on.

These three stories take up a total of four pages and all deal with witches who ravage villages. The tales are brief but Talaoc's art is rather splendid.

Peter: Yep, the art is great but why bother? These are mostly just random stream of consciousness-type contributions rather than stories. Why not run these as they were meant to be "enjoyed": as one-page fillers?

"The Dark Goddess of Doom"

"The Witch Who Would Not Die"

(from #3)

"Death, the Pale Horseman!"
(from #5)

"The Spectral Coachman!"
(from #1)

"The Crimson Claw!"
(from #4)

New group two:

Stories by Leo Dorfman
Art by E.R. Cruz

"Famous and Infamous Ghosts"
Jack: The ghost of General Dalziel, a cavalier in the English Civil War, still haunts his old home of Binns Manor.

"Screams of the Ghost Queen"

Jack: The ghost of Henry VIII's fifth wife, Katherine Howard, still haunts Hampton Court Palace, running from the guards who drag her to her beheading.

"The Bloody Boots of Houndswood"

Jack: A man tries to spend the night in a haunted bedroom but runs in terror when ghostly boots appear from nowhere and leave bloody footprints.

"Screams of the Ghost Queen"

"The White Ghost of the Hohenzollerns"

Jack: Whenever the White Lady makes a ghostly appearance, a member of the Hohenzollern family is sure to die in a short time. She also pops up in advance of WWI and Hitler's rise to power.

These four stories occupy a total of five pages and each sketches the comings and goings of a ghost tied to historical events. Like the short pieces with art by Talaoc earlier in this volume, the stories are not much to read but Cruz turns in pretty pictures.

Peter: (Comments continued from Group One) The best thing about these disposable wastes of space is the titles. I get the feeling Murray Boltinoff came up with some lurid title ("The Horrid Haunted Underpants of Wisdom Gulch") by throwing together random adjectives and nouns and then assigned poor Leo to write "stories" around the titles. Murray Boltiinoff: The Roger Corman of Funny Books (now in paperback from Random House).

"The Fanged Spectres of Kinshoro"
(from #4)

"Death Awaits Me"
(from #6)

New group three:

Stories by Leo Dorfman
Art by Frank Redondo

"The Diabolic Cult of Voodoo"

"The Diabolic Cult of Voodoo"
Jack: In 19th century New Orleans, voodoo master Dr. John is able to summon the evil Baron Samedi to do his bidding.

"The Priestess of the Damned!"

Jack: Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau has the ability to preserve or take life in 19th century New Orleans.

"To Raise the Dead"

"To Raise the Dead"

Jack: Mexican soldiers in 1968 discover a boatful of Haitian zombies and think they'll make great soldiers.

Three one-pagers with slick art by Nestor Redondo's brother Frank.

Peter: Jack, would you say the victims of Dr. John were in the right place but it must have been the wrong time?


"Ghost Cargo From the Sky"
(from #6)

"Death is My Mother"
(from #3)

What a dog!

Make sure to keep June 29th in your sights! That's when the 56th issue of Star Spangled goes on sale!

by Jack Seabrook

"Post-Mortem" first appeared here

"Post Mortem" is an example of a mediocre Cornell Woolrich story that was vastly improved when adapted for television. The story, titled "Post-Mortem," was first published in the April 1940 issue of Black Mask. The TV adaptation on Alfred Hitchcock Presents aired on CBS on Sunday, May 18, 1958, with a teleplay by Robert C. Dennis. It starred Joanna Moore, Steve Forrest and James Gregory and it was directed by Arthur Hiller.

Woolrich's original story begins as the former Mrs. Josie Mead receives a visit from three reporters who tell her that she is one of three Americans to win the Irish Sweepstakes, to the tune of $150,000. She tells them that she is now Mrs. Archer, having remarried after the death of her first husband, Harry Mead. Knowing nothing about a sweepstakes ticket and unable to collect the winnings without it, she and her new husband Stephen search their house without success. Once Mrs. Archer is alone, she receives a return visit from Westcott, one of the reporters, whose probing questions lead to the conclusion that the winning ticket must have been in the pocket of the suit in which Harry Mead was buried.

Although Westcott and Mrs. Archer discuss exhuming the body, when she proposes the idea to Stephen he has a negative reaction, saying that "It gives me the creeps!" Without Stephen's knowledge, his wife and Westcott go to the cemetery, where workmen dig up the grave of Harry Mead.  Westcott and Mrs. Archer open the coffin and Westcott locates the winning ticket in the corpse's suit pocket. He also notices something else and asks that the body be removed and sent for an autopsy.

Joanna Moore as Mrs. Archer

Mrs. Archer figures out that Westcott is a detective, not a reporter, and explains that her first husband died suddenly after her second husband had sold him a life insurance policy. Westcott admits having noticed that the corpse had a fractured skull and thinking that Archer murdered Mead. Though Mrs. Archer confesses to the murder, he tells her that she has the details all wrong and that he knows she is trying to protect her new husband.

Mrs. Archer explains to Westcott that her second husband bought a new sun lamp for her to use while in the bathtub but that he keeps accidentally knocking it over. She also mentions that Archer brought Mead a bottle of whisky right before he died, but Westcott's suspicion that the bottle was poisoned does not make sense because the bottle dropped and smashed on the floor. The delivery man who brought a replacement bottle helped her pick up the pieces and said that there was enough for a stiff drink in some of the larger fragments.

Westcott leaves Mrs. Archer home alone and Stephen returns. When she is in the bathtub, her new husband knocks the sun lamp over and it falls in the water, but she is not killed because the power goes out right before the accident. Westcott sneaked into the basement and turned off the power just in time! He accuses Archer of the inadvertent murder of the delivery man, who died of poisonous liquor that he drank from a broken fragment of the bottle with which Archer had planned to murder Mead.

Steve Forrest as Archer

It turns out that Harry Mead had died a natural death after all, but his sister suspected foul play and got the police involved. The fractured skull that Westcott saw on Mead's corpse was due to an accident that occurred when the undertaker's assistant dropped the coffin while loading it into the hearse! Westcott remarks wryly that he happened upon one murder unexpectedly while investigating what turned out to be a case of death from natural causes.

It's clear from the convoluted plot of "Post-Mortem" that Woolrich got tied up in knots while writing this story and had to come up with some wild coincidences to wrap up all of its dangling threads. Robert C. Dennis had a challenge ahead of him when he was given the task of adapting the story for the small screen, a challenge that he solved quite neatly by streamlining the plot and utilizing a comic tone.

The TV show begins with a scene where Judy (Josie in the story) relaxes in a bubble bath. Steve brings in an electric heater and places it on the side of the tub before plugging it in. They argue about money; she has savings from her first husband's life insurance policy and he thinks they should invest the money in something risky but potentially rewarding. He accidentally knocks into the heater and burns his hand. This scene sets up the attempted murder at the end of the episode nicely and provides a welcome opportunity to see the lovely Joanna Moore in a bubble bath!

It's not in the attic!

The second scene corresponds with the beginning of Woolrich's story, as the reporters arrive at Mrs. Archer's home. Unlike the source, Westcott is not among them, and it becomes apparent that the story will be told with a light touch, taking full advantage of Moore's excellent comic timing. She banters with the reporters who keep pressing her to pose on the sofa for flattering photographs as she tells them about her life "on the stage" before she met her first husband. Moore plays the role with a delicate southern accent and her performance is perfect.

In the next scene, Steve and Judy search the attic for the ticket and realize where it must be. Steve turns down Judy's suggestion of digging up the body, so we get another scene of her in the bubble bath, this time telephoning the cemetery to arrange the exhumation all on her own. The scene then shifts to the Shady Rest Cemetery, where Judy, all in black, arranges the grisly task. Finally, Westcott makes his appearance, entering the cemetery office and volunteering to search the body, claiming to be a reporter doing a human interest story on the sweepstakes winner.

James Gregory as Westcott

James Gregory, as Westcott, adds an amusing touch when he comes back into the office after going over the corpse--he has to ask the cemetery clerk for a bottle and glass so he can down a quick drink before he is able to answer any questions. Back at the Archer homestead, Judy tells Stephen about finding the ticket and he resents her plan to manage the money wisely. Westcott then visits Judy and admits to her that he is an insurance investigator, not a detective as in the story. He suspected Steve of murdering Harry and now has an autopsy report to prove that Judy's second husband poisoned her first. With this simple change, script writer Dennis cleans up much of the muddle that occurs at the end of Woolrich's story. Gone is the skull fracture, gone is the delivery man, gone is the broken bottle fragment with enough poisoned liquor in it for a deadly drink.

Phoning the cemetery

Westcott suggests to Judy that her new found wealth puts her in danger from a husband who has already murdered for a much smaller sum and, though she argues that Steve loves her, the seed of doubt has been planted in her mind. The episode's climax finds her back in the bathtub, as Steve first gives a fake apology and then throws the electric heater into the tub! She screams, the doorbell rings, and Steve races downstairs, where Westcott and some policemen rush in and arrest him. Steve tells them that there was an accident and that Judy may be dead, but she marches down the stairs in a robe and sadly tells them that he tried to kill her. Fortunately, Westcott pulled the fuse before leaving the house, so even though the heater was plugged in it had no electric power and was thus harmless.

Best of all is the conclusion to the episode, completely new in Dennis's script. The cops take Steve out of the house and Westcott tells Judy that he will be electrocuted, the very fate she avoided. Suddenly, she runs outside and approaches Steve before he is put into the police car. She hugs him and observers think this strange, but we see that she has removed the winning ticket from his pocket. "Thank goodness I remembered!" she says. "I don't want to go through that again!"

Caught!

Robert C. Dennis should get much of the credit for cleaning up Woolrich's somewhat tortuous story and turning it into a straightforward half hour of television. The rest of the credit goes to the three lead actors. Joanna Moore is especially good and carries the show. Steve Forrest is competent as Archer, and James Gregory is his usual, gravelly-voiced self as Westcott. The program is quite enjoyable and a real improvement over the source.

"Post Mortem" was directed by Arthur Hiller (1923- ), who directed 17 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in all. Among them were two comic tales that were less successful than "Post Mortem": "The Right Price" and "Not the Running Type." Robert C. Dennis (1915-1983), who wrote the teleplay for "Post Mortem," wrote thirty episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "The Right Kind of House" and "Dip in the Pool."

Starring as Judy Archer is Joanna Moore (1934-1997), who was in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and another two of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Her outstanding comic timing and beauty add immeasurably to the success of "Post Mortem," as they do to "Most Likely to Succeed" and "Who Needs an Enemy?"

Archer tosses the heater into the tub

Steve Forrest (1925-2013) plays Steve Archer with a quiet strength; his chiseled features make him perfect for the role of a husband who turns out to be a murderer. Forrest was in the U.S. Army in WWII and fought at the Battle of the Bulge; after the war he embarked on a sixty-year career on stage, in movies, and on TV. He was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents twice, along with episodes of The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery. The twelfth of thirteen children, he was sixteen years younger than his brother, Dana Andrews, who starred in many classic films noir.

James Gregory (1911-2002) plays Westcott; his career stretched from the forties to the eighties and he played numerous cops on countless TV shows. He was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents three times, including Fredric Brown's "The Cream of the Jest" with Claude Rains, he turned up in a single episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and he appeared on episodes of Thriller, The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Night Gallery, and Kolchak: The Night Stalker. One of his most memorable roles was a recurring part as Deputy Inspector Lugar on the series Barney Miller from 1975 to 1982.

Roscoe Ates with Joanna Moore

Familiar faces in smaller roles include Roscoe Ates (1895-1962) as the cemetery clerk, who was in six episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. His long career began in vaudeville and included a role in Freaks (1932) and small parts in King Kong (1933), Gone With the Wind (1939), Sullivan's Travels (1941), and The Palm Beach Story (1942). Playing one of the reporters was David Fresco (1909-1997), who appeared in twelve episodes of the Hitchcock series, including "The Gloating Place,""Water's Edge," and "The Second Wife."

David Fresco is behind Joanna Moore

Woolrich's story had been adapted twice before, once on radio and once on TV, both times for Suspense. The radio version aired on April 4, 1946, and starred Agnes Moorehead; the script was by Robert Tallman. Like the Hitchcock version, this version begins with a scene involving the bathtub and the sun lamp, but then follows the story more closely, leaving out the business with the delivery man and the broken bottle. This time, Josie confesses to murder but it turns out to be a ploy to trap Stephen. Listen to this version online here.

The Suspense TV version is a primitive half hour of live television that aired on May 10, 1949, and stared Sidney Blackmer and Peggy Conklin. A tedious show to sit through, it makes significant changes to the story. This time, Archer is the doctor who signed Mead's death certificate, and he is suspicious from the start. The winning sweepstakes ticket isn't even mentioned until halfway through the show, and it turns out to be a fake story planted by the insurance investigator. The only plus to this show is that it is the only version in which we get to see Archer visit the grave, although when he inspects the body he finds no ticket! Frank Gabrielson wrote the script and Robert Stevens directed; this version may be viewed for free online here.

The Alfred Hitchcock Presents version of "Post Mortem" is available on DVD here; it is not currently available for online viewing.

Sources:
Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville,

Russ Heath & Jack Adler

G.I. Combat 103

"Rabbit Punch for a Tiger!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"TNT Duds!"
Story by France Herron
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: The boys of the Jeb Stuart get a little well-deserved R 'n' R when a female magician appears for an exclusive appearance. During the show, the magician pulls a rabbit from her hat and the ghostly Jeb Stuart warns the G.I. Jeb Stuart that the rabbit is sending a warning. Very soon, Jeb and his men will be hung up like a rabbit. Because the warning is (as usual) very vague, Jeb sees a rabbit analogy in every obstacle they face that day. The real deal happens when the Jeb rolls into a burned-out village and faces a mammoth Tiger. When Jeb is blown off his own tank and must take shelter in a demolished jeep, the Tiger lifts the vehicle in the air and attempts to blow our hero to kingdom come. With the help of an abandoned bazooka, Jeb is able to deliver a "Rabbit Punch for a Tiger." As with previous installments of The Haunted Tank, I'm beginning to wonder what the use is of involving a supernatural force that does nothing but speak in riddles and disappear. There's no addition or expanding of the mythos at all; General Stuart shows up, delivers a few lines, and then returns to the void. I wonder what he does in his spare time when he's not warning our heroes of impending doom (but not telling them enough to fully prepare for that doom). Kanigher could have excised all references to the specter and this story would not have suffered one bit. The driving force behind this strip is still the gangbusters art delivered by Joe Kubert, who makes even the most tedious proceedings exciting.

Peter and Jack size up this week's stories.

Peter: The lieutenant and his men have been labelled "TNT Duds" by their superiors. Time to prove the army wrong. I've been trying to remember when I was so bored by a DC war story and can't come up with an answer so this is it: "TNT Duds" is the most boring, insufferable, and repetitious junk I've had to wade through since signing on to this tour. There are 54 panels and the word "dud" is used 48 times (nope, not an exaggeration and, yep, I counted so you wouldn't have to) but, beyond the usual tedium of the "catch phrase run into the dirt" there's the overwhelming vibe of defeatism. It's absolutely unrealistic that these "duds," G.I.s who do nothing but complain and blather on about what losers they are, could take out the entire Nazi militia without really trying. At least Jack Abel steps up to the plate and delivers a double; it's not great but it gets the job done. If there was a job to get done, that is. This is only the sixth story we've encountered written by France (Ed) Herron while on our journey but, pre-1959, the writer contributed 164 scripts to the "Big Five," making him the fourth most prolific wordsmith for the DC war titles. Herron died in 1966.


Jack: It's a good thing I read the stories before I read your comments, because I jotted down "fairly exciting" in my notes! I thought Herron was playing off the DC war comics writers' penchant for repeating a phrase over and over and making fun of the tendency. He uses "Dud" so often that it has to be a joke. The Dud platoon actually does some good fighting and captures two hills for the price of one.

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 138

"Easy's Lost Sparrow!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"The Iron Sniper!"
Story by France Herron
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: Just as Easy Co. is about to spring into action to prevent A Nazi advance, along comes a new recruit so slightly built that one of the men calls him a sparrow. Rock doesn't have time to learn anything about him, including his name, and tells the young man to follow along and do everything he does. The recruit quickly becomes "Easy's Lost Sparrow!" when he disappears during a Nazi bombing attack. Though Rock and his men halt the advance, the sergeant is mortified that he lost the recruit before even learning his name.

After defeating an enemy sniper, Easy Co. has to clear a small town. Rock inspects a cellar and find the lost sparrow being held captive at gunpoint by a Nazi, Rock tackles the Nazi and kills him, but the loud gunfire echoing in the cellar temporarily deafens him, so he is unable to hear the recruit when he finally shares his name. In Luke 12:6, Jesus says: "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God." Bob Kanigher quietly gives us a Biblical parable in this tale, where Sgt. Rock is the Godlike figure who refuses to forget about the sparrow put in his care.



Peter: Beautiful art and a quick twist help elevate this above the standard "new recruit" fare. For once, I would have appreciated a quick finale expository, explaining how the sparrow got to be a prisoner in the basement and what plans that dirty stinkin' Nazi had for him.

Jack: "The Iron Sniper!" has a keen eye and a steady hand as he picks off men in and around a U.S. Tank. He begins to doubt himself when a soldier at whom he aims seems to have the same face as one he recently killed. Soldiers close in on the sniper's perch in a building in town until they succeed in blasting him to bits. What he did not know before he died was that he had been shooting at identical twins! Jack Abel turns it up a notch in this story, using closeups of the sniper's eyes and panels built around his gun's sights to ratchet up the tension. It doesn't make complete sense that there are only two twins, since the sniper seems to kill (by my count) five men, but the story is entertaining nonetheless.

Peter: Most Sgt. Rock stories tend to be a little more on the sophisticated and "adult" side than any of the other stories or series in the DC titles but, aside from that really dopey finale, "The Iron Sniper" reaches new heights of sophistication for a kids' funny book. The comparison of the sniper to a "cold, methodical, and calculating thing" (all the while, ignoring the fact that the Allies had their "killing machines" as well) is pretty heady stuff as is the brutal picking off of the tank engineers. France Herron is an enigma, responsible this month for one of the best of the year and, surely, one of the worst ("TNT Duds" in G.I. Combat). This would have been a lock for Best Story of the Year had Herron not thrown in that silly reveal (and how could the G.I.s have known this trick would have thrown the sniper off his game?) but it's still going to land near the top regardless.

Jerry Grandenetti

Our Fighting Forces 81

"Battle of the Mud Marines!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"Sunk Alive!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: Pooch picks two names out of a helmet full of slips of paper to see which two Gyrenes will get a 48-hour pass to leave the island for some rest and relaxation. Gunner thinks back to many of the close scrapes the trio have had and recalls that they often ended up covered in mud, fighting the "Battle of the Mud Marines!" No sooner do the threesome head off on a PT boat for their time off than they engage in battle with a Japanese destroyer. A bomb from an enemy seaplane knocks them into the water, where they find themselves standing atop a Japanese sub. They blow up the sub and are captured by the seaplane, hanging onto one of its pontoons as it takes to the air. They manage to drop grenades into a smokestack and blow up the enemy destroyer before dropping back into the water. Back home on their island, Pooch picks their names out of the helmet again, but this time they decline the two-day pass, having had enough excitement.

What a dog!!

Peter: Why is it that, with each new installment, I get the funny feeling I've read the story before? WWII's dopiest and luckiest G.I.s (think Martin and Lewis) continue the yucks they've become famous for. At least there's no Col. Hakawa to contend with this time. I like when the C.O. tells Pooch to pick two names out of a hat and he does it. Arff!

Jack: Pete always looked up to Jack Bill as a civilian and it's no different when they join the Armed Services--Pete as a frogman and Bill as a torpedoman. When Bill is "Sunk Alive!" in a submarine, it's up to frogman Pete to come to the rescue. He does so swimmingly, even to the point of sharing his oxygen with Bill as they surface. Now that the DC war comics seem to have settled into a new format of one ten-page backup story, I hope the backup stories are more interesting than this one, which seems padded to fill out the allotted space.

Swapping breath or swapping spit?

Peter: How did the more-than-a-whiff of homoeroticism present in "Sunk Alive" ever make it past the censors? There's not much suspense in this one as we know exactly what's going to happen at least two frames prior. By-the-numbers script but nice Heath-ian art by Jack Abel.

Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

Star Spangled War Stories 112

"Dinosaur Sub-Catcher!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

"No Escape From Stalag 7!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: The submarine UDT-7 is sent on a recon mission from their Pacific base; they must travel to the North Pole to unravel the mystery of Polar Ice Cap X-3, a weather station, vital to the Allies, that's gone dark. It seems as though the sub can't get more than three or four nautical miles without bumping into some prehistoric horror from the extinct dinosaur age. Three frogmen from the submarine are constantly dispatched to uncover what's troubling the tin fish. Each time the men must battle more fearsome and deadly creatures from a nightmare and, each time, their story is met with disbelief and derision. Finally, the UDT-7 reaches its destination and the threesome goes above the ice cap to investigate the source of the station blackout. As they rise from the freezing water, their senses cannot be ready for the sight that disturbs their eyeballs: a giant Duckasaurus is munching on the station's communications tower ("That's why the weather station hasn't reported in!!" screams the brightest of the explorers)! Something catches the monster's attention and, up through the ice, is hauled the UDT-7. Luckily, the boys have come armed with explosives and, after a harrowing battle, the Duckasaurus is blown to bits and the men are reunited with their fellow sub-men.

Helluva throw, boys!

Believe it or not, I really liked this installment. Maybe it's the change of scenery or the (at least, initial) intrigue of the journey, but there's a real sense of danger and a tad bit of suspense as well. Sure, there are enough holes here to accommodate a Russian Typhoon and some of the dialogue is a bit... rushed ("It's sealed up the hole under which the sub is!") but "Dinosaur Sub-Catcher" is, easily, the most enjoyable chapter of The War That Forgot since the opener. About those plot holes though (yes, you knew I'd have questions!): The journey to the North Pole must have taken weeks for the sub and yet, when they get to the station, here's the dino chowing down on the com tower. Has he been working on that tower for weeks? And what happened to the observers who manned the station? If they escaped, where to? Did they freeze to death? Eaten by dinosaurs? Wouldn't the submarine have picked up any giant monsters swimming towards them? Why are the same three guys sent on every mission while the rest of the men on the sub play cards or write letters to mom? These are all minor questions, of course, when compared to the most important: now that we know there are monsters at the North Pole and on every island in the Pacific, does this mean that the entire planet has been overrun by giants from the stone age?

Jack: I think you are suffering from the same sort of nitrogen narcosis hallucinations that the frogmen in this story are accused of having. This is the same old story we've read umpteen times! And I believe that "duckasaurus" is intended to be a hadrosaur. You're welcome!

Abel turns in some nice work

Peter: The tank crew of Sgt. Wilson have always depended on their chief to get them out of dangerous scrapes but when the crew find themselves behind the fences of a Nazi POW camp, even the sarge must throw up his hands in defeat. Well, for a few minutes at least. Even though Commandant informs the men that there is "No Escape From Stalag 7," Wilson begins hatching plan after plan. Only problem is that each escape attempt ends in failure; there seems to be a mole in the outfit leaking details to the Nazi chief. Finally, Wilson takes command of an enemy tank and blasts his way through the fences, taking the head honcho prisoner. When the Nazi asks how the Sarge could have escaped without being given up by the mole on the inside, Wilson allows how he was the mole, setting his captor up for the big charade. Not too bad, but our uncredited writer (probably Hank Chapman) relies on way too much hip dialogue for my tastes ("Our Sherman sneezed a 105mm sneeze at the middle tiger and when the pig-iron beast caught the TNT germ..." and "Tiger fangs clomped on the double-double..." jump out at me as two wretched examples). Thankfully, the dopey lingo is front-loaded and, by the halfway point, we're more involved with the (admittedly, Hollywood-style) great escape attempts. It is funny that, after busting the fences down, the sarge remarks to the Nazi that since he's been such a great host, maybe it's time the tables were turned. This, while the pair are inside a slow-moving tank, ostensibly surrounded by a zillion more Nazis. The prolific Jack Abel (four stories in one month!) turns in some nice work here.

"Head" to Cyberspace next Monday for the 56th Chilling issue of Do You Dare Enter?!

Nick Cardy

Unexpected 161

"Has Anyone Seen My Killer?"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Lee Elias

"The Haunted Dollhouse"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Face in the Ball!"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"The Supernatural Swindler"
Story Uncredited
Art by George Roussos
(reprinted from House of Secrets #11, August 1958)

"Ball of String!"
(reprinted from Unexpected #116)

"Roehmer's Revenge!"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by George Roussos
(reprinted from Unexpected #106, May 1968)

"The Queen Who Lived Again!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Ruben Moreira
(reprinted from My Greatest Adventure #8, April 1956)
(original title: "The Queen and I")

"The House That Hate Built!"
"Death of the Man Who Never Lived"
(reprinted from Unexpected #117)

"Wake Me Before I Die!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"The Menace of the Wrecker's Reef!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Howard Sherman
(reprinted from My Greatest Adventure #72, October 1962)
(original title: "We Mastered the Menace of the Wrecker's Reef")

"The Day Nobody Died!"
(reprinted from Unexpected #115)

"Mis-Judgment Day"
Story Uncredited
Art by Gerry Talaoc

Jack: Professor Hugh Tinsley has revived the Boynton Beast, which escapes his mansion and sets off on a reign of violence and destruction. The villagers try to track the Beast to kill it, but when everyone realizes that the real Beast lies decaying in its coffin, there is only one conclusion: Prof. Tinsley himself has become a replica of the Beast! Feeling kind of bad about the whole mess, the Prof. unplugs the generator that was supplying his life energy and keels over dead. My favorite moment in this Kashdan travesty is when the villagers are informed that the murderous, rampaging Beast has been revived and has escaped. "We understand, Professor Tinsley, but don't you worry about us!" says a kindly old villager. If only readers of "Has Anyone Seen My Killer?" could be as forgiving.

Peter revives Jack after another issue of Unexpected

Peter: I'm coming to the conclusion that these 100-page Super-Spectacular DC mystery titles are like a three-CD set of The Bay City Rollers Greatest Hits: sure, if you dig deep enough, you're gonna find something good... maybe. It ain't the first story, let me tell you. George Kashdan's story just sits there, doesn't really do anything and has one of those wrap-ups that makes you seriously wonder if you got the copy without page nine. Jose Cruz and I have been raving about Lee Elias' 1950s work in our Pre-Code study but here it's just sketchy and lifeless.

Jack: Randall buys a dollhouse for his little girl but it turns out to be haunted by homely little folks who stay alive by kidnapping humans and draining their brain-wave energy. They try to zap Randall out in the woods but he kicks a hornet's nest and the bugs do away with the little creeps. Randall makes sure there won't be any more problems with "The Haunted Dollhouse" by setting fire to it. Once again, Kashdan has a few ideas but can't seem to stitch them together into anything resembling a good story.

Classic!

Peter: This one's got a creepy set-up (and some really nice visuals from Yandoc) but the payoff is really weak. The panel of the little people under attack by wasps is a classic.

One of the panels where it's not very clear what's going on

Jack: John Benson buys a crystal ball once owned by a warlock. Soon, he sees a horrible face in the ball and after that he sees visions of his business partner and his wife cooking the company's books. He attacks his partner but only manages to injure himself. After he recovers, he destroys the ball but the glass explodes in his face. When the bandages come off, he learns to his horror that "The Face in the Ball" was his own. Jerry's art is so wretched that, in one panel, a character cries: "You don't know what you're doing!" I agreed, because I couldn't figure out what the drawing was supposed to represent.

Peter: Oleck's been much better than this drivel and Grandenetti's at the peak of his awfulness.

Jack: Arthur Kinnison is terrified of falling asleep due to a series of terrible dreams. If only he had asked someone to "Wake Me Before I Die!" He falls asleep and thinks he's having a bad dream, but in the real world his doctor finds him dead in his bed. Three pages and a waste of space at that. The setup is as old as the hills and there's no point to the payoff.

More Grandenetti badness

Peter: Another weak Grandenetti art job illustrating yet another vignette that goes nowhere. I get a dusty whiff of "file stories" from "Wake Me Before I Die!" and "The Face in the Ball!"

Jack: A cult of people wearing robes and hoods rejoices when their savior arrives, not knowing that he's really a phony spiritualist named Simon. He begins to think he really has supernatural powers when he mumbles some magic words and a Satanic beast disappears, but when Doomsday comes the cultists fulfill their prophecy by tossing him off a cliff and saving themselves. "Mis-Judgment Day" is the best story in this terrible issue, but that's not saying much.

Prophecy fulfilled!

Peter: I doubt Michael Fleisher would go uncredited but "Mis-Judgement Day" sure reads like a Fleisher. It's easily the best story this issue, flipping the con-man evangelist cliché on its head and perfectly showcasing Gerry Talaoc's creepy art.

Berni Wrightson!

Jack: My favorite reprint this time is "The Queen Who Lived Again!" in which an actress hired to play several historical queens in a movie turns out to know more about them than she possibly could. For once, there is no rational explanation at the end, and Ruben Moreira's art is fine as always.

Peter: Three of the seven reprints are stories we've covered before. For us, that's a double-edged sword: it cuts down the sheer volume of reading and writing we're responsible for but then it narrows an already-emaciated field of material (emaciated quality-wise, that is). "The Supernatural Swindler" is cut from the same cloth (and, believe you me, the DC mystery writers of the 1950s had bolts and bolts of this cloth) as most of the other reprints we've been saddled with lately: some crazy event happens that nothing in science can explain so it must be supernatural only by the end of the story we find out it was actually the police trying to run down that mob of check kiters over in Mopeadope Bay but then... the office typist runs up and explains he had to wait an extra ten minutes for his cheeseburger so he wasn't able to make it in time to project the giant mushroom monster on the mountain so golly gee maybe there really was a giant mushroom monster! "The S. Swindler" is a con artist who sells supposedly magical-powered artifacts to eccentric millionaires and happens upon an alchemist's cauldron that may turn straw to gold. In the climax, the pot really pumps out the gold stuff but the scammer's arrested while trying to explain to the cops that he really didn't smuggle forty pounds of gold over the border. "Wrecker's Reef" is mindless fun as well but don't read too many of these in rapid succession as the repetitious nature of their plot lines and reveals may provoke a yawn or two.

"The Menace of the Wrecker's Reef!"

Jack: Wait, there wasn't really a giant mushroom monster?

Luis Dominguez

The House of Secrets 128

"No Way to Run a Railroad!"
Story by Michael Fleisher and Russell Carley
Art by Leopoldo Duranona

"Freak-Out!"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Alex Nino

"Somebody's Listening"
Story by John Albano
Art by Joe Orlando and Bill Draut

Peter: Obadiah Haskin has got a major jones for railroads. Having retired after years of service on the Simsonhaven-to-Centerville line, Obadiah finds it a bit hard to let go of the life and has built a scale model version of the line in his home. One day, a hobo named Frank knocks on the door looking for food and, when the man turns out to be learned in the ways of railroading (having freight hopped for years), a quick friendship is struck and Frank is invited to live with Obadiah and keep the railroad running clean. A local toy shop owner gets wind of the paradise in Haskin's house and offers to buy the set up for a cool hundred thousand but Obadiah rebuffs him. Frank smells instant fortune and bashes Obadiah over the head but before he can claim his prize, the little men of the Simonshaven-to-Centerville railroad use all the small equipment available to them and avenge their maker. The revenge act of "No Way to Run a Railroad!" is a bit rushed but this is still an entertaining story and that final panel is vintage Fleisher via Leopoldo Duranona. There are a couple chuckles here, though: what train-hopping hobo is going to get to know the mechanical workings of the engine ("Have you checked your drive-shaft azimuth adjustment?" Frank says to an astonished Obadiah) and what toy shop owner is going to have 100K lying around to spend on a model train setup?

"No Way to Run a Railroad!"

Jack: I loved it! What a relief after that awful issue of Unexpected. Only in a Fleisher story would someone's first thought be to kill someone else rather than try and talk them into something. Fleisher has used little toys/dolls/creatures before, hasn't he? There's something extra creepy about miniatures fighting back. Duranona's art isn't that great, so I can't put this in my top ten of 1975 just yet, but it's a possible dark horse. The artist is from Argentina, so he's not one of the Filipino group, and his website shows some beautiful paintings.

Peter: Ronken has invited Carter to view his private museum of freaks and then offers Carter a one-million dollar contract if the man will bequeath Ronken his corpse upon death. Carter is puzzled until Ronken reminds him that he was in a deadly land-mine explosion in Viet Nam and that his face has melted away. Yep, that's it. On the surface, just a silly fragment, but when you step back you realize just how offensive "Freak-Out" is. Carter has become disfigured by war and that, according to writer extraordinaire George Kashdan, makes him a freak. Pity poor Alex Nino who, regardless of the rotten script, came to work prepared.

"Freak-Out"

Jack: I was loving the Nino art but you're right, the conclusion is offensive. Mentions of the Vietnam War in DC horror comics are few and far between, but I can't recall another one that felt this wrong.

Peter: Jerry Johnson's son lies dying of a rare blood disease and if he doesn't get a transfusion of his equally rare blood type in the next few hours, it's curtains for the kid. Just as the doctor is about to leave, a hobo (not the same one who rode the railroads, mind you, this one's named Sketchman) wanders onto the Johnson estate and overhears the need for Type AB blood. Coincidentally, that's just what the derelict has flowing through his veins. The doctor informs Jerry that the boy will be all right and that prayer will help the family in this time of need. Being an atheist, Johnson scoffs at the idea of praying to a God he doesn't believe in, even if it means saving the life of his son. The next day, Jerry's wife begs him to accompany her to church but the man is having none of that and stays outside the building. The local newspaperman approaches and informs Jerry that he'd been doing some checking on Sketchman and discovered that the man had died a century before. Jerry laughs until the reporter shows him a picture he took of Sketchman, the doctor, and Jerry's wife the day before. The picture shows only Sketchman's clothing. That's enough to send Jerry into church and onto his knees. "Somebody's Listening!" is a bit of ridiculous preaching that, again, plays games with the rules of ghostliness. How does a specter give blood? Why are Sketchman's clothes photogenic? I believe this is the first we've seen of Joe Orlando's art in quite a while and Bill Draut is doing Joe no favors. Only in a couple of panels do we get flashes of the Orlando we once knew.

"Somebody's Listening"

Jack: A story that deals with some serious issues for a change is welcome, as is any new art by the great Joe Orlando. I liked this quite a bit.

Peter: Well, then let me be the first to say "You're just wrong, Jack!"

Nick Cardy

The Witching Hour 51

"The Phantom Theater"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Devil's Lottery"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Rico Rival

"Have a Good Die"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Fred Carrillo

Peter: Two killers duck into a movie theater and find themselves on trial for their crimes. Is it all in their imagination or are the vile creatures who sit on the jury for real? When they are rescued by a group of firemen, the only evidence that they'd been in a nightmarish predicament is their new snow-white manes. Oh my, Carl Wessler strikes again! How many times have we seen a variant of this idea in these titles (and how many more times will we see it again?). What's amazing to me is that the two dolts look fine when they exit "The Phantom Theater" but a page later, after they've been interrogated by police, they turn to face us and they've gone old. Was the twist not properly noted in the script or is this just something we don't need to ponder?

"The Phantom Theater"

Jack: You're right--although Yandoc tries to draw the men in shadows in order to set up the final panel, the colorist may have blown it by coloring their hair red and black in every panel but the last. Still, I enjoyed this story, perhaps because it actually has a plot. I was also intrigued by the theater, since I love old movie theaters.

Our sentiments exactly!

Peter: In an effort to drum up business, Satan decides to run a lottery, offering the proceeds to the last surviving child. Several people sign up and the obligatory bad apples turn up in the bunch (of course, entering "The Devil's Lottery" isn't exactly for church-goers, is it?). Racketeer Duke Slattery informs his son that he intends for the boy to be sole survivor and that he should carry on his old man's nasty ways. Slattery Jr. begins bumping off all the other sons and daughters until only two stand: Wallace Medgar and Madge Carter, who have married and lead a clean life, helping their fellow man and running a medical mission in Africa. Slattery travels all the way to Africa to kill the couple but gets a nasty surprise, via a poison dart, when he gets there. The couple smile and agree that the money will come in handy for the new hospital they hope to build. So, since Satan claims that the money will only go to the last surviving heir, why does Medgar receive Satan's dough while his wife remains alive? I'm a tad confused. I love Rico Rival's work but here it looks rushed and sloppy.

Jack: This story led me to do a little quick online research and discover that a Tontine is not only a real thing, but it has been used repeatedly in fiction, even turning up in an episode of The Wild Wild West! The comic story is a tad more graphically violent than we're used to and I thought it really worked well until the end, which has the major flaw you identified.

Peter: Jim Chalmers is attempting to murder his wife, Mamie, but every plan seems doomed to failure. All the while, without his knowledge, Jim is being tailed by a dark, mysterious man in a trench coat. Finally, thinking he's concocted the foolproof plan, Jim heads home, only to be met by his wife at the door. She shoots him, explaining she's met another man and that Jim would never let her go (irony, oh thy sting is so sweet!). Just then, the dark, mysterious man in the trench coat walks up and introduces himself: he's a detective who's been following Jim, suspecting the man was up to foul play. He arrests Mamie and books her for Murder One! The more you think about "Have a Good Die," the more stupid it becomes. The opening panel shows Jim throwing himself out of the driver's seat, hoping the car carrying Mamie will crash. When she simply tuns off the ignition before it crashes and exits the car, she shows no sign of suspicion! Say what? This tall, dark, and handsome detective that's sure Jim is up to no good; how did he come to this conclusion when we have no proof that Mamie has ever gone to the cops for help? He tells Mamie that he suspected her husband was trying to off her but what he neglects to tell the woman is that he was present at every attempt (and we've got the panels to prove it!) but, inexplicably, didn't haul Jim's ass down to the precinct. Not a good month for The Witching Hour.

Subtlety does not come easily to Jim

Jack: I was impressed with Mamie's speed in the car scene. In the panel reproduced here, she is in the passenger seat with the car speeding toward a tree only a few feet away. In the next panel, she's behind the wheel. In the third panel, she walks away from the car calmly, having turned off the ignition. The car stopped on a dime, never hitting the tree, and she was fine. Now that's a woman who can handle adversity! As is often the case with a Wessler script, the ending makes little sense, but I liked this issue better than you did and thought it was leagues beyond this month's Unexpected.

Nick Cardy

Ghosts 35

"Feud with a Phantom"
Story Uncredited
Art by Alex Nino

"The Ghost Who Possessed Lisa!"
Story Uncredited
Art by John Calnan

"The Demon's Inn"
Story Uncredited
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Spite of the Specter"
Story Uncredited
Art by Frank Redondo

Jack: In 1891, Captain Dolan pilots a schooner toward America with a large number of illegal Chinese immigrants, each of whom paid $500 for passage to the U.S. He keeps them shackled together with leg irons and treats them cruelly, but when his first mate, Gantry, begs him to show mercy on the passengers, Dolan shoots Gantry and has his body thrown overboard. Soon enough, Dolan has a "Feud With a Phantom" when Gantry's ghost vows revenge. He pilots the ship into U.S. waters, where Dolan's crimes will come to light. Dolan orders the Chinese thrown overboard but is himself pulled down to a watery grave by a chain wrapped round his legs. Well done from start to finish but Nino's art isn't as stunning as we often see.

"Feud With a Phantom"

Peter: Here's one with a nasty streak, a grit we don't usually find  in a title like Ghosts. Nino's exquisitely delineated art has loads to do with the darkness of "Feud with a Phantom" (which will surely land on my Top Ten list this year) but I'll bet you five mint copies of Doorway to Nightmare #1 that Oleck or Fleisher wrote this one. It's way too grim for the likes of Dorfman or Boltinoff.

Jack: Italy, 1939, and pretty peasant girl Lisa Marico suddenly transforms into Cesare Viraldi, an old man who was murdered two years before. He heads to the nearby village of Siano, where he identifies his killers and points out the location of his corpse. "The Ghost Who Possessed Lisa!" then disappears and Lisa has no memory of what happened to her. Lucky Lisa. I wish I had no memory of this one. And Peter, you who doubted that the first story was penned by Dorfman, I'll bet you have no doubts about this one.

Be afraid--be very afraid.

Peter: Oh, no doubt at all on this one, Jack. I think poor Lisa Marico said it best, "You mean, I turned into an old man? But that's ridiculous! It's some kind of joke!" Unfortunately, the maestro, John Calnan, never heard the old saying "In for a penny, in for a pound." Oh, Lisa/Cesare has a dress on and his legs are obviously still Lisa's but there are no headlights. That would have bumped my score up a half-star. Anyone have an idea why Cesare would opt for a female host in the first place?

Jack: If you had booked a room at ""The Demon's Inn" in early 1963, you might have encountered a ghost who tried to smother you with a pillow. When one guest fought back, it started a fire that burned the haunted place to the ground. Even Ruben Yandoc can't save this three-pager.

How to defeat a ghost!

Peter: A haunted pillow? I don't believe in ghosts but I do believe Ghosts was running out of ideas somewhere around the beginning of 1975.

Jack: It's 1945, and at the end of WWII there are just one American soldier and one Japanese soldier left on a Pacific island. The American proposes a truce, but the Japanese knifes him in the chest. realizing that the death of his enemy will leave him lonely, the Japanese tries to save him, but infection claims the American's life. The Japanese must then face "The Spite of the Specter," which eventually drives him to his death in quicksand. Above-average art by Frank Redondo lifts this slightly dull tale above the level of the two before it but, for the most part, this is a run of the mill issue of Ghosts.

"The Spite of the Specter"

Peter: With all the peacenik talk that came out of Norman's mouth before his Japanese counterpart buried a dagger in his chest, you'd think he might have been a forgiving ghost. Nah, but that makes for a better story than "Peace From Beyond the Grave." With the exception of John Calnan, this issue was stocked full of fine art. And about that cover; nice babe but who brings a cat (especially one with such long legs) on board a boat?

Jack: I love how Nick Cardy took the first story and replaced the captain and his first mate with a redhead in a bikini. The guy knew how to sell comics.

We've got a heck of a TNT line-up for you in the 57th issue of Star Spangled DC War Stories On Sale July 13th!

by Jack Seabrook

First edition

Cornell Woolrich's 1941 novel, The Black Curtain, is two-thirds of a great thriller. The version aired in 1962 on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour is half of a good television show. Surprisingly, each starts out in an intriguing fashion before failing in different ways.

The Black Curtain was Woolrich's second thriller to be published after he had spent the better part of the 1930s writing short fiction for pulp magazines. The story begins as Frank Townsend wakes up on Tillary Street (the city is never identified, but we assume it is New York, though the Tillary Street of Woolrich's imagination bears little resemblance to the real Tillary Street in Brooklyn) after having been knocked unconscious by a piece of molding that fell from a building. He identifies himself as Frank Townsend but notices that the initials in his hat are D.N. Finding his way home, he learns that his wife Virginia has moved. When he locates her, she tells him that he left for work on January 30, 1938, and never came home until today, May 10, 1941!

Assuming that amnesia was caused by one blow to the head and cured by another, Frank wonders where he has been for more than three years. He gets his old job back but is soon pursued by an ominous man with a gun, barely escaping him by dashing through the closing doors of a subway car. He is forced to give up his job to avoid his pursuer and, when the man locates his residence, Frank and Virginia make a daring escape. Sending Virginia away for her own safety, Frank returns to Tillary Street, hoping it will hold clues to his recent past and help him understand why he is being pursued.

Richard Basehart as Townsend

After more than a week of fruitless searching up and down Tillary Street and the surrounding area, he meets a young woman named Ruth Dillon, who was in love with him during his lost years. She tells him that his name is Daniel Nearing and he learns that on August 15, 1940, he supposedly murdered a man for whom he worked as a groundskeeper in New Jericho. Frank is sure he is not guilty and decides to return to the scene of the crime to prove his innocence. He takes a train to the Diedrich estate and hides out in an unused caretaker's lodge. Frank reconnects with Emil Diedrich, an old invalid who communicates by blinking his eyes in Morse Code. Frank learns the truth, that the murdered man's wife and brother killed him and framed Frank.

The killers catch Frank and tie up him and Ruth, intending to kill them both, but Emil sets fire to his mattress and the house goes up in flames. Frank is saved but Ruth is killed, the man who had been pursuing him turns out to be a policeman, and Frank is able to explain everything that happened and clear his name. As the novel ends, he rides the train back home to his wife, finally able to resume the life that had been interrupted.

Lola Albright as Ruth

My summary of the novel leaves out a great deal but conveys the gist of the plot. The book is divided into three sections. In the first, Frank discovers that he has lost a period of his life and that something must have happened that put him in danger. In the second, he uncovers the details of who he was, where he lived, and why he is being pursued. In the third, he goes back to the scene of the crime and, through a series of extraordinary events, is able to prove his innocence. Woolrich's touch for setting up a suspenseful situation and taking it to extremes serves him well in the first two sections, but the third is too dependent on pulp magazine conventions and rapid fire events to fulfill the promise of the novel's beginning.

The adaptation on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour that aired on November 15, 1962, was not the first time that The Black Curtain had been produced, but it is the only time it has been adapted for television. The novel was first made into a movie and released in in 1942 with the title Street of Chance. The film stars Burgess Meredith and Claire Trevor and is not available on DVD or online, though there is tantalizing clip here. The radio series Suspense then aired the story three times: on December 2, 1943, November 30, 1944, and January 3, 1948.

Joel Murcott adapted The Black Curtain for television in 1962 and made enormous changes to the story in order to fit it into a running time of about 50 minutes. Unfortunately, most of the changes are not for the better. The show begins with Phil (not Frank) Townsend being hit over the head by a blackjack wielded by a young tough who robs him on a dark city street one night. A taxi happens on the scene and scares the young man and his friend away; the cab driver then helps Townsend to an all-night drugstore, where Phil recalls that he had just been discharged from the Army that morning and was on his way to City Hall to get married when he got out of a taxi and felt dizzy.

The cab driver takes Phil to see his girl, but she has married and had a baby since Phil disappeared. It is September 23, 1962, and he has been gone for three years. She went to the police and even hired a private detective but never found Phil; instead, she married the private eye. The cabbie and Phil visit an all-night diner and Phil sees an inscription on his watch that tells him that his other name was David and that a girl named Ruth loved him. The cabbie advises him not to go to the police and suggests he spend the night in a cheap hotel.

The coach tackles Carlin

The next morning, Phil wanders into a park, where boys are playing football. He meets Ruth by chance and suddenly a man takes a shot at him. He runs, avoiding more gunfire, and escapes when the shooter is tackled by the football coach. Going to the address Ruth gave him, Phil finds the apartment where he had been hiding out as David and meets the young man who mugged him but Phil does not make the connection because he never saw the boy's face. The young man infers that he will blackmail Phil and Phil finds a newspaper clipping that says he is wanted for the murder of the wife of a famous lawyer.

Meanwhile, the man who shot at him turns out to be a private investigator who is tracking him down. Hiding in the apartment, Phil and Ruth talk (and talk and talk) and he learns that he worked for her uncle. The private eye is a man named Frank Carlin, who was hired by Ruth's uncle to look into the murder of the uncle's wife, whose body was found in Phil's apartment above his employer's garage. Phil had chronic migraines and would either pass out, grow violent, or go blank; after one of these events, he confessed to murder.

Ruth lures Carlin

Eventually, Phil convinces Ruth to go outside and act as bait to lure Carlin to the apartment. When the private eye arrives, Phil overpowers him and demands the truth. Carlin admits that Ruth's uncle murdered his own wife and then asked Carlin to frame Phil and kill him; Carlin agreed because he had fallen in love with Phil's wife. The show ends as Phil tells Ruth that he plans to go to the veterans' hospital for treatment and they express a desire to see each other again.

The TV version of "The Black Curtain" is so different from the novel that it is necessary to relate the plot of each one in order to make sense of the changes. One of the aspects of the novel that I find most disturbing is the way that Townsend forgets about his wife, who has already had to fend for herself for over three years during the Great Depression, and takes up with a young woman/lover. The TV show solves this, surely pleasing the censors, by making Virginia not his wife but his former fiance. She is now married and has a baby, so there is no concern about adultery with Ruth or abandonment of Virginia.

Harold J. Stone as the cabbie

The minor characters in the TV show are good additions. The cabbie helps Townsend find his way in the first half, and the druggist provides a bit of useful information as well as being an entertaining character. Starting out on a dark, wet city street in the middle of the night is a promising way to begin the episode and the early scenes have a noir feeling to them that is first supported then sabotaged by the awkward musical score by Lyn Murray. Initially, the jazzy score seems to work with the events onscreen, but as the show goes on it seems more and more like someone pulled music cues and slapped them onto the show without paying attention to what was going on; it's hard to believe that this score was written specifically for this episode.

Townsend is hit on the head

The show goes badly awry starting with the scene in the park, when Carlin appears out of nowhere and begins shooting at Phil. Intended to be a surprise, it instead seems ridiculous, especially when Carlin runs onto the field in the midst of a group of teenage boys and takes more shots at Phil. Worst of all is when the football coach tackles the gun-toting private eye! The show grinds to a halt not long after that as Phil takes up residence in the apartment where he lived as Dave. In fact, he never leaves it for the remainder of the show, and much of the second half is taken up by Ruth talking endlessly, explaining what happened with the murder. It is difficult to condense a novel into an hour of television, but other episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour do a much better job than this!

Having the private eye take on such a key role in the story does not work at all. In the end, he turns out to be Virginia's husband and Phil's pursuer, having covered up for the real killer after he was hired by Virginia to find Phil. It's too much to put on a single character, especially one who gets little screen time or dialogue until the end. In adapting Woolrich's novel for TV, Murcott made the mistake of trying to simplify some things while making others overly complex. The result is a boring mess, something Woolrich's stories rarely are. They may depend on wild coincidences, but they are entertaining, something "The Black Curtain" on TV is not.

Lee Philips as Carlin, the private eye

The prior adaptations of The Black Angel are different from the TV version. The first radio adaptation aired on Suspense on December 2, 1943, and Francis M. Nevins Jr. calls this the best radio adaptation ever broadcast of a Woolrich tale. I have not heard many others, but I can attest to the quality of this show. It stars Cary Grant as Townsend and it was adapted by George Corey. In this version, the character of Virginia is wholly omitted, as is much of the book's first section. Townsend finds Ruth quickly, so much of the search in the book's second section is omitted as well.

The thrilling escape made by Frank and Virginia in the novel is made by Frank and Ruth in this version, which compresses events but follows the novel's general plot. The old man's Morse Code eye blinks are simplified to "blink twice for yes and once for no," which works better, but the biggest shock of all comes at the end, when the old man identifies Ruth as the killer! She murdered a man who would not leave her alone and kills herself at the end when the truth comes out. Having the hero's love interest turn out to be the killer is a wonderful way to wrap up the story and it packs a hardboiled punch that the novel and TV show lack. (Although I have not seen the movie Street of Chance, online reviews state that it was the first to change the identity of the murderer to Ruth.) Listen to this great half-hour of old time radio here.

George Mitchell as the druggist

The Suspense version of The Black Curtain must have been popular, and deservedly so. It marked the first episode of the series to be sponsored by Roma Wines ("made in California for enjoyment around the world") and almost exactly a year later it was produced live for a second time, again with Cary Grant, for the show's first anniversary on November 30, 1944. The second live production uses the same script by George Corey but moves the date ahead a year from 1943 to 1944. Listen to it here.

A third radio production of The Black Curtain marked the first episode of the expanded, hour-long Suspense series on January 3, 1948. George Corey again wrote the script; this time, Robert Montgomery stars. The story takes place in 1944 and is padded, making it less exciting than the half-hour versions that preceded it. There is a clever bit of business early on when Townsend learns that he missed the start of World War II, much like Rip Van Winkle sleeping through the American Revolution, but the additions made to stretch the broadcast to an hour do not improve it. Listen and decide for yourself here.

Noir lighting

Joel Murcott (1915-1978), who adapted The Black Curtain for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, wrote for radio and then for television from 1955 to 1975, including nine episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and three of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. With Henry Slesar, he co-wrote the excellent hour-long episode, "Behind the Locked Door."

"The Black Curtain" was directed by Sydney Pollack (1934-2008), who had a long and successful career as a director and sometimes an actor. He began as a TV director from 1961 to 1965, then switched to movies from 1965 to 2005, winning an Oscar for Out of Africa (1985). He directed two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

The unfortunate score by Lyn Murray (1909-1989) was one of 35 he wrote for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; among his many credits were Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief (1955).

Gail Kobe as Virginia

Starring as Phil Townsend is Richard Basehart (1914-1984), whose career was discussed in the article on Henry Slesar's "Starring the Defense." Basehart's website here has plenty of information about the actor.

Lola Albright (1924- ) co-stars as Ruth; her career began in movies in 1947 and added TV in 1951. She was a regular on Peter Gunn from 1958 to 1961 and was in three episodes of the Hitchcock series.

The helpful cabbie is played by Harold J. Stone (1913-2005), a wonderful and prolific actor who was on TV and in movies from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s. His career has been discussed in connection with "The Night the World Ended,""Lamb to the Slaughter," and "The Second Verdict," which represent three of the five times he appeared on the Hitchcock show.

James Farentino

Gail Kobe (1931-2013) appears as Virginia in one of her two roles on the Hitchcock series. She was a TV actress from 1956 to 1975 and then had a career change and produced soap operas in the '70s and '80s. She was also on The Twilight Zone three times and The Outer Limits twice.

In only his second acting credit, James Farentino (1938-2012) portrays the young tough who mugs Townsend and hits him over the head, setting the story in motion. This was the first of Farentino's two appearances on the Hitchcock series, and he frequently was seen on TV and in the movies from 1962 to 2006, including twice on Night Gallery.

Celia Lovsky

Celia Lovsky (1897-1979) is seen briefly as Townsend's landlady; she was on three episodes of the Hitchcock series, including "The Kind Waitress."

The druggist at the all-night pharmacy is played by George Mitchell (1905-1972), who also appeared in Henry Slesar's "Forty Detectives Later," as well as two other hour-long episodes. He was in movies from the mid-'30s to the early '70s and on TV from 1949 to 1973. He was on Thriller twice and The Twilight Zone four times.

Finally, the private detective, Carlin, is played by Lee Philips (1927-1999). He acted in TV roles from 1953 to 1975 and in movie roles from 1957 to 1965; he continued to work in the industry as a TV director from 1965 to 1995. He was on the Hitchcock show four times, The Twilight Zone twice, and The Outer Limits  once.

Watch "The Black Curtain" for free online here. It is not yet available on DVD.

Overview: Woolrich on Hitchcock on TV

Cornell Woolrich was not well served by the Hitchcock TV show. Of the four episodes that adapted his stories and a novel, only one is memorable, and none capture the suspense for which he was famous.

"The Big Switch" is an average episode from the first season with good performances, but it fails to live up to "Change of Murder," the story from which it is taken.

"Momentum" is a weak episode that strips the original story of the title attribute.

"Post Mortem" is the most successful of the lot, due to a strong script by Robert C. Dennis and a terrific comedic performance by Joanna Moore.

"The Black Curtain" is a failure that turns an entertaining novel into a boring hour.

The best adaptation of Woolrich's work connected with Hitchcock is, of course, the masterful 1954 film Rear Window. The TV shows don't even come close to its brilliance.

CORNELL WOOLRICH ON ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS/THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR EPISODE GUIDE

by Jack Seabrook

"Guilty Witness" was first published here as "Innocent Bystander"

Alfred Hitchcock Presents was known for its twist endings, and it follows that the stories its episodes were based on would tend to feature twist endings as well. "Guilty Witness," by Morris Hershman, is an example of a story whose ending is its strongest feature. First published as "Innocent Bystander" in the spring 1949 issue of Shadow Mystery Magazine (the next to last issue of a pulp that had run for 18 years), the story was later anthologized in Butcher, Baker, Murder-Maker, a 1954 collection sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America and edited by George Harmon Coxe. It was in this collection that the producers of the Hitchcock TV show spotted the story, recalled Hershman, and they contacted the MWA for his address in order to buy the rights.

Hershman's introduction to the story states that his father had been a pharmacist and so he decided to write a story involving a pharmacy. In the tale, Stanley Krane is a married man who runs the Express Pharmacy and whose customers include Mrs. Amelia Verber, who lives in apartment 3A of the building where Krane and his wife live on the ground floor. Mrs. Verber is described as "a sickly-looking woman with tea-colored hair" and she is married to a man who beats her and leaves visible bruises. "Her shrieks had caused my wife and me dozens of sleepless nights," says Krane, the narrator. Mrs. Verber asks him for a large carton to store some books.

Krane's wife "can't stand" Mrs. Verber and remarks that "If I were married to [her] I'd beat her up day and night." Mrs. Krane's attitude strikes me as strange and it is not until the end of the story that it makes sense. One night, the Kranes hear screaming from the Verber apartment, screaming that is suddenly cut short. The next day, Mrs. Verber comes into the drugstore and drops her money when Krane asks her how her husband is. No one sees Mr. Verber for the next couple of weeks. Mrs. Krane makes a series of observations about Mrs. Verber's behavior that lead her to suspect that she may have murdered her husband.

Joe Mantell as Stanley

The Kranes receive a visit from a police detective named Harrison, who pretended to be from the Board of Health in order to search the Verber apartment. He received a tip about Mr. Verber's disappearance but cannot explain where the dead body has been hidden: it was not in the apartment and the neighbors would have seen Mrs. Verber removing it. When Krane delivers medicine to Mrs. Verber and notices a large pile of books, he recalls the carton he gave her and thinks that the body must be hidden inside it. He and his wife accompany Harrison to the basement, where they find the carton containing the dead man's body.

Mrs. Verber joins the trio in the basement and confesses to murder in a monologue that ends with her attacking Krane's wife, with whom Verber had been having an affair. Author Hershman sets up the twist ending by withholding Mrs. Krane's first name throughout the story. When Mrs. Verber states that her husband was going to leave her for a woman named Dorothy, we do not know that she means the wife of the narrator until the final paragraph:

Judith Evelyn as Mrs. Verber

"She stiffened and shrieked, her eyes glinting, her teeth bared as she jerked away from Harrison, long fingernails outstretched, and before any of us could make a move she was scratching, screaming, kicking, clawing at my wife!"

It's a rare story that can succeed in postponing a twist ending until the final words, but "Guilty Witness" accomplishes this feat. The ending is such a surprise that the reader is forced to go back over the story to see if Dorothy's name was ever mentioned before (it wasn't) and if there were any other clues to her true role as a not so "Innocent Bystander" (the story's original title) or a "Guilty Witness." Her strange defense of Verber the wife beater and her dislike of his pathetic wife make more sense when one realizes that she was the man's lover and the woman's rival.

"Guilty Witness" is a fairly good story with a great twist ending. It was one of the first stories written by Morris Hershman (1926- ) to be published. Hershman is a very prolific author who is not well known. In a career that spans over 60 years, he has written over 100 published short stories and over 70 novels, using a slew of pen names such as Sam Victor, Jess Wilcox, Evelyn Bond, Arnold English, Norman Hunt, Lionel Webb and Janet Templeton. He has written books in many genres of fiction, but his very first novel, published as a paperback original in 1964, was none other than Guilty Witness which, from descriptions found online, appears likely to be a reworking and expansion of the same story that served as the basis for the first-season Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode of the same title. This would be the only episode of the Hitchcock series to be based on a story by Hershman; his only other credit on IMDb is for a 1960 Canadian TV series called The Unforeseen.

Robert C. Dennis adapted "Guilty Witness" for television and it was broadcast three weeks after Dennis's "Our Cook's a Treasure" on CBS on Sunday, December 11, 1955. Both episodes were directed by Robert Stevens. In adapting the story, Dennis faced a challenge: how to hide the identity of the main character's wife as the motivating force for murder while telling the story in pictures rather than in words. I think that the episode fails to pack the same punch that the short story does for a variety of reasons, though Dennis's teleplay does correct one glaring error.

The baby carriage in the foreground

In the TV show, Krane runs a grocery store rather than a pharmacy; the change is unimportant and one wonders if the producers had a grocery store set handy at the time of filming. Early in the episode, Stanley walks into a baby carriage that is parked in front of the hall telephone. Director Stevens positions his camera low and in front of the carriage, putting it in the foreground and drawing the viewer's attention to it. Krane complains about the carriage to Mrs. Verber and suggests that she hang a red lantern on it. The carriage will be of central importance later in the show and Dennis and Stevens make a point of it early.

Mrs. Verber pulls the carton inside

A subtle moment occurs in a scene where Mrs. Verber visits the store after the big fight with her husband. Stanley suggests that she buy some of the candy that her husband always buys for her and her brief hesitation before agreeing tells the viewer that she never received any of the candy from her husband. Back at home, Krane delivers the empty carton to Mrs. Verber's apartment. Once again, Stevens uses a low angle shot to focus attention on an object. This is followed by another shot of the carton as Mrs. Verber's hand reaches out and pulls it inside the apartment. We have now been asked to focus on two items: the baby carriage and the carton.

A quiet evening at home in 1955

Harrison is not known to Kramer as he was in the story, though Kramer quickly figures out that the man is no Board of Health inspector. As in "Our Cook's a Treasure," we witness a married couple sitting in their living room and watching TV; by 1955, this was becoming a common activity and one that could be depicted in fictional programs as something everyone was doing. "Guilty Witness" provides a good evocation of its characters' urban environment, a place of poverty and despair where people live on top of each other and a look out the window yields a view of garbage in an alley.

The error in Hershman's story that is corrected in Dennis's script is one of odor: in the story, the body has been missing for more than two weeks before it is found, while in the TV show it's only a matter of days. The characters in the TV show sweat and fan themselves, making it clear that the story takes place in the summer in New York City, and if Verber had really been murdered and his body stored in the basement it would not have taken long for the smell of decay and decomposition to make the location of the corpse obvious. Hershman allows the body to be missing for too long and does not account for the stench; Dennis does not make this mistake.

No body, just toys

For anyone familiar with the story, the TV show takes an unexpected turn: Krane and Harrison go into Mrs. Verber's apartment, find the carton and cut it open--and all that they find inside are toys! Stevens again forces the viewer to pay attention in a scene between the Kranes when Stanley tells his wife that he thinks Verber is not dead; the camera focuses in on her hands as she hesitates while pouring from a pitcher to a glass. There have now been shots pointing to three clues: the carton (a red herring, as it turns out), the baby carriage and Mrs. Krane.

Legs descending a staircase

The show's final scene occurs in the basement but, unlike what happens in the story, Harrison and Krane find the dead body in the baby carriage, which has been moved from its position in the hallway to a spot in storage. Mrs. Verber comes down the stairs and Stevens places his camera behind the stairs so we focus on her legs as she descends. Instead of the use of the unfamiliar name "Dorothy" and the final attack on Mrs. Krane, the revelation that she was the dead man's lover is accomplished by Mrs. Verber suddenly remarking, "It wasn't his fault. It was yours!" and the camera cutting to the face of Mrs. Krane. The surprise is not as effective as it is in Hershman's story, but I'm not sure there was a way that Dennis and Stevens could have accomplished the same effect visually.

"Guilty Witness" is an unremarkable episode with some directorial flourishes by Robert Stevens; the cast is comprised of four main characters whose performances verge on bland. Judith Evelyn (1913-1967) receives top billing and plays Mrs. Verber as a tired and beaten woman whose murder of her husband and hiding of his body are not consistent with her defeated personality. Born Evelyn Morris, the actress was in movies and on TV from 1946 to 1962, appearing twice on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and once on Thriller. Her film roles included William Castle's The Tingler (1959) and a memorable performance as Miss Lonelyhearts in Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954).

Kathleen Maguire as Mrs. Krane

Kathleen Maguire (1925-1989) receives second billing; she plays Mrs. Krane and had a long but unremarkable career on screen from 1949 to 1986, appearing three times on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Playing Stanley is Joe Mantell (1915-2010), in one of his two appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He was on screen from 1947 to 1990, appeared twice on The Twilight Zone and had a role in Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). Film fans will best remember him for delivering the final line in Chinatown (1974): "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."

Robert Simon as Det. Harrison

Finally, Robert Simon (1908-1992) plays Harrison, the police detective. Simon was on screen from 1950 to 1985 and made numerous TV appearances, including one each on the Hitchcock show, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. Comic book fans may remember him as J. Jonah Jameson on The Amazing Spider-Man TV series in 1978-79.

"Guilty Witness" was anthologized a second time in Kill or Cure: Suspense Stories About the World of Medicine, edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini and published in 1985. The TV version is available on DVD here or may be viewed online for free here.

Sources:
In two weeks: "The Older Sister," with Joan Lorring and Carmen Mathews!

Joe Kubert

GI Combat 105

"Time-Bomb Tank!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"The Plane That Wouldn't Die!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: Still bathing in the glow of his recent DC War Hero Team-Up, Jeb Stuart has his day ruined by yet another cryptic message from his ghostly ancestor, Colonel Jeb Stuart: "Beware of history repeating itself!" Before he can get the spirit to elaborate, Jeb receives orders to head out to where Easy Company is receiving heavy fire. Along the way, the Jeb is caught on a bridge between two Tigers but manages to blast its way free. Jeb is convinced that the ghost must have been referring to Horatio making his last stand but the spook stays mum. Farther on, the men come across an abandoned tank, the Marie Celeste; no men aboard or anywhere around. Jeb's orders are to haul the tank back to HQ. Again, Jeb asks the Colonel if this was the incident he was warning of, echoing the disappearance of the crew of the ship, the Marie Celeste. No answer is forthcoming, so the tow-tank begins its trip back. Some very strange occurrences raise goosebumps on Jeb: enemy tanks and planes approach but then retreat without engaging. Finally, Jeb does some snooping and discovers an explosive device in the derelict tank--the Marie Celeste is a "Time-Bomb Tank!" A little razzle-dazzle on the crew's part leaves the enemy about ten tanks shy and the men of the Marie Celeste freed. At last, Jeb Stuart (the G..I.) gets a response from Jeb Stuart (the haunt) when our hero connects the dots and realizes the history that almost repeated was the Trojan Horse.

"Time-Bomb Tank"

The art is top-notch, the story's not bad, but the hook is dying of old age. The format now seems to be: 1/ Colonel warns of danger in uncertain terms; 2/ The Haunted Tank travels through danger, each peril more closely resembling the nature of the warning; 3/ Ghost won't talk; 4/ Young Jeb realizes what the dead guy was talking about. Obviously, since this series lasted nearly thirty years, Bob must have found another hook at some point. Let's hope it was sometime in 1964.

Jack: Now who would be dumb enough to christen a tank the Marie Celeste, even if one guy's girlfriend was named Marie and the other's was named Celeste? Isn't that just asking for trouble? Kubert has a nice half-page where he uses three wide panels to show the Haunted Tank approaching the other, silent tank. Too bad the title of the story gave away the surprise.

Peter: Lt. James is assigned to "The Plane That Wouldn't Die!", a Mustang 777 that has a reputation for getting the job done and coming back no mater what. James comes to resent the attention the Mustang receives, feeling that he should get the credit for all the successful missions flown. But James is convinced when he's thrown from the cockpit in the midst of battle and the 777 continues to fly, leading to a kamikaze on a Nazi battleship. A decent story with good Jack Abel battle action art, "The Plane" flies very near supernatural territory. Satisfying climax with (now Captain) James keeping the legend of 777 alive by relating the story to a "sparrow" (a newbie).

"The Plane That Wouldn't Die"

Jack: Zzzzz. A pilot jealous of a plane that gets all the credit? Ridiculous. More of the usual Hank Chapman prose: "The big boom is making tiger hash out of the tanks!" Give me two shorter stories rather than a padded ten-pager like this any day.

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 142

"Easy's New Topkick!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Nose-Dive Champ!"
Story by Kin Platt
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: After Sgt. Rock tells the rest of Easy Co. that his helmet is his good luck charm, they come upon a farmhouse being attacked by a Nazi tank. The only defense is a small rifle firing from one of the farmhouse windows. Easy Co. destroys the tank and finds a French boy defending the farmhouse alone, his father and other resistance fighters having been killed beside him. He joins Easy Co. and refuses to tell Rock his mission, causing the men to christen him "Easy's New Topkick!" The mission is to blow up a bridge and the boy dies making sure it is destroyed. Rock leaves his own helmet atop a rifle stuck in the ground to mark the spot of the boy's burial.

A rare miss for the Sgt. Rock series, this story is padded with more than one flash forward and flashback to the same scene. Even Kubert's cover is shaky--I wondered if the French kid was supposed to be Mlle. Marie!

This comic's original owner added some flourishes in blue ink.

Peter: "Scratch, dirt chickens!"? Oh my, did Hank Chapman have a hand in the dialogue for this story? Thees ees a so-so Rock installment with a poignant climax but then the Jr. Rock gimmick is not to my liking. At least the little guy stayed dead at the end and didn't emerge from a cloud of smoke with a few scratches. That's something.

"Your mother wears Army boots!"

Jack: King thought he was hot stuff back home because he won three big boxing matches, but he learns he's nothing but a "Nose-Dive Champ!" when he reports for duty and finds out his opponents all took dives. Beaten by his last opponent in a rematch, King sinks to the depths of despair as he watches his rival fight heroically in battle after battle. Only when the tables are turned and King has to rescue his rival does he shed the indignity of his nickname. I had never heard of Kin Platt before seeing his name on the GCD credit for this story. Apparently, he was an accomplished writer who had a long career in and out of comics. This was not one of his better moments.

Peter: If this is a boxing story masquerading as a war story then it's more Rocky V than Raging Bull with its sledgehammer catch phrase and totally predictable final panel. When a guy's derided and hated as much as this poor schmuck he has to take heart that he's in a DC war story and by the climax his comrades will be hoisting him on their shoulders. King Champ, indeed.

Joe Kubert

Our Fighting Forces 84

"The Gun of Shame!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"Score or Scram!"
Story by Hank Chapman
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: While out on patrol, Gunner, Sarge and Pooch see that Col. Hakawa is displaying for his men a U.S. tank that was captured without ever firing a shot. The trio evades capture and heads back to base to report on "The Gun of Shame!" Returning to find Col. Hakawa's men using the tank, the trio succeed in blowing it up and taking an ammo supply dump with it, ensuring that the tank will never be used in an attack by the enemy. A better than average story for Gunner and Sarge, this makes me wonder if these stories have been set on Wake Island all along. That's where the tank was captured, so either the Japanese shipped it to another island or we know the location of the beach where our favorite mud marines fight valiantly every month.

Grandenetti makes the tank appear huge to show the effect it has on the minds of the marines

Peter: The sequence on page eight--where Gunner, Sarge, and Pooch are facing down a Zero whose machine guns are rat-tat-tat-ing away but not hitting a single target--is laugh out loud ludicrous but then we are talking Gunner, Sarge, and Pooch here. Jerry Grandenetti's racist caricatures at least give us a few clues as to why the Japanese were such bad shots. One bright spot is when the C.O. acknowledges the existence of Col. Hakawa. I thought for sure that by the end of this series, we'd discover that this all-out war on two G.I.s and their (admittedly intelligent) canine by the Japanese army was all in the mind of our "heroes." Jack and I were relieved to discover this would be the final "Gunner and Sarge" drawn by Jerry Grandenetti (if it was only the final entry in the series, as well!). In fact, aside from a couple of stray appearances in the next couple months, Jerry will go AWOL in the DC War titles until the late 1970s. That's so far in the future of our journey that you'll forgive Jack and I if we have something of a minor celebration.

Jack: Connor is an American fighting for the RAF in WWI before the U.S. entered the war. He's frustrated by his inability to score a kill in aerial combat and thinks that, pretty soon, he has to "Score or Scram!" Connor joins a mission and is shot down in battle over a town held by Germans. His plane balanced on top of a house, he manages to shoot enemy planes out of the sky and save the day. Hank Chapman's terrible writing fights with Jack Abel's beautiful art to make this story a draw. Abel must have used some great models of WWI planes to draw this one, because the air action is outstanding, but his work is dragged down to earth by such turns of phrase as "Then I'm jolly as jam they're not in the war, Leslie!"


Peter: Hank Chapman must have thought he'd write a glorious tribute to the Americans who flew in World War I and, instead, only made us look like bitchy, selfish children. But all's well since by the end of the story we all know that whiny crybaby Connor will prove himself of worth and the Brits will slobber all over him. I was just guessing. Now, excuse me as I have to slice up some Boche Baloney.

Ross Andru & Mike Esposito

Star Spangled War Stories 114

"Doom Came at Noon!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

"Crash Boat Skipper!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: A three-brother celebrity ski team takes their act into the War That Time Forgot when the frozen tundra they're exploring (for enemy subs below) erupts and spits out giant monster horror dinosaurs from the stone primeval age. With the moves that put them on the map, the brothers manage to evade most of the gargantuan terrors and blast the Nazi subs back into the ice age. I have no idea if "Doom Came at Noon" is supposed to take place in the Alps (witness the lush ski slopes) or the Arctic (hence the undersea enemy subs) or some wild combo of both. I'm also not sure why dinosaurs would suddenly thaw out when they're surrounded by freezing conditions. Obviously, Bob didn't bother checking out Dinosaurs: the Cold, Hard Facts by Professor Ima Digger (Icthyopaleontology Press, 1963) like I did when I was in third grade. Since we're far from our usual Pacific clime, it's a safe bet that dinosaurs ruled the world circa WWII.

"Doom Came at Noon"

Jack: I searched and searched for that book but came up empty! Must be a rare one. What isn't rare is the sight of dinosaurs in WWII! I spent the first half of this story wondering what the heck was going on, since it didn't seem to have anything to do with war. Finally, on page seven, we get a flashback that mentions an "Arctic drop" and we learn that the trio of trick skiers were supposed to look for a hidden pen of Nazi subs. Then it's back to fun with dinos in the snow until page 14, when Danny happens to notice the Nazi sub pen while he is being carried through the air by a pterodactyl! He drops a bomb and all is well. For some reason, I really like comic book stories set in the snow, and that cover is great!

Peter: Three college chums enlist, hoping they can keep their team together, but the trio is split up and sent into different branches of the military. The war is a funny animal though, my friends, and the triple threat is reunited aboard a PT boat amidst the "greatest armada the world has ever seen!" The boys are a team once again as they send those stinkin' Nazis straight to hell. "Crash Boat Skipper" is formula from start to finish, all the cliches are present, and yet there's no denying its entertainment value. This was a good month for "Able" Jack Abel with four well-done jobs handed in. His sea battle in "Crash Boat" is very nicely choreographed.

"Crash Boat Skipper"

Jack: I completely agree, Peter. This is about as good as it gets with Jack Abel. I suppose this story must depict D-Day, and Bob Haney comes through as usual and makes a formulaic setup more interesting than it should be.

Peter: Dr. Fisher is awakened from a sound sleep by Tabu, the servant of one of his wealthiest patients, Maxmilian, and ordered to travel to the old man's estate. There he finds the elderly eccentric on his deathbed,  asking an odd request of his doctor: upon his death, the doctor is to remove Maxmilian's brain! The grey matter in his head doesn't really belong to him; it's on loan from ancient high priest Vishnu and must be returned to the temple from which it was borrowed immediately. Vishnu had ben nice enough to lend it to Max but only with the proviso that it be used for the good of mankind. Fisher agrees to return the gift (in a handy casket prepared by Tabu) but his medical curiosity gets the better of him and he examines the brain, conclusively finding that the old man was telling the truth ("... the brain is extremely old... and the degree of convolution shows that it is highly developed and complicated!"). Thinking it would be ludicrous to return the curio to its rightful owner, Fisher swaps Vishnu's brain out for one taken from a random cadaver ("Abby Normal!") and explains to Tabu he's too busy to make the journey to Egypt. While Tabu makes "the long journey to Egypt," Fisher contacts Torks, the down-on-his-luck former brain surgeon turned skid row bum, and arranges a quick surgery. Soon the brain of Vishnu lies in the skull of Dr. Fisher! Meanwhile, halfway across the world, the doctor's switcheroo doesn't sit well with Vishnu and the half-skulled, bandaged ghoul rises from his tomb to throttle Tabu. The monster then makes that aforementioned long journey back to America, where he finds Dr. Fisher raking in dough from his new-found intelligence. Whipping a blade from under his bandages, Vishnu repossesses that which is rightfully his, leaving Dr. Fisher in a sad state.

Submitted for your approval: the original splash

The first reprinting, with only minor additions...

And the reworking and retitled version drawn by Nestor Olivera

"Skulls of Doom" (from #12) is so jolly in its mayhem, it's hard not to smile throughout its eight-page running time. From Max's whacky admission ("My brain is not really mine at all!") to Fisher's quick acceptance of the events ("Hmmm... it's an old brain, that's for sure, so Max can't be pulling my leg!") to the employment of an alcoholic for impromptu brain surgery in his own basement ("Hic... knit one, pearl two... hic!") to the murder of the unwitting pawn Tabu to the finale, where Vishnu explains to Fisher just why he's come all this way ("And now, please, I want my brain!"). The screams of the lecherous doctor, as Vishnu lops off the top of his skull ("Agghhhhh-- You're slicing my skull open!") are at once chilling and hilarious. The final panel, of the "topless" Fisher, is extremely unnerving despite the absence of gore.

The original finale

Olivera's re-imagining

An interesting side-note: As with most of the Ajax-Farrell horror stories, "Skulls of Doom" was reprinted several times in the Eerie Publications titles and provides a fascinating example of the workings of the Myron Fass crew. Eerie presented a very faithful reprinting (the only noteworthy additions are a bit of gore on the splash page and some drool on the lips of the dying Maxmilian) in Terror Tales Vol. 1 No. 7 (March 1969), but then had Nestor Olivera completely redraw "Skulls" for TT Vol. 6 No. 4 (August 1974) with gobs of gore strewn about the panels (credit courtesy of the indispensable The Weird Indexes of Eerie Publications by Mike Howlett). The contrast is, to say the least, startling and the effect will vary depending on the reader's taste.

Jose: Driven to the breaking point from regarding her own hideous features and watching beautiful sister Joy carousing around with her handsome dates, Agatha disguises herself and throws a pitcher of acid into her sibling’s face in a fit of jealous rage. Alive but horribly scarred, Joy occupies her days only with thoughts of avenging her disfigurement. Joy’s increasing obsession and hermetic lifestyle begins to shake cold-hearted Agatha who fears that her sis may eventually suss her out as the attacker from that fateful night. Joy even resorts to calling on Satan and the forces of darkness to aid her in her pursuit, finally revealing that she knows Agatha was the acid-tosser and promising to place “the curse of beauty” on her sister for her filial crimes. Agatha scoffs but then rejoices when the prophecy comes true and she is transformed into a dark, sexy vixen. Her victory is short-lived, however, when her gorgeous head grows to blue ribbon-pumpkin size and both her and Joy are consigned to lonely lives of hideousness once again.

"And now I'm full of candy, too!"

“Horribly Beautiful” (from #11) is a riotous eight pages of that particular comic book magic that marries delirium and absurdity in unholy wedlock. Whether from an author punching above his weight or from a scribbler savvy to the inherent silliness of the piece, “Horribly Beautiful” is a veritable howler that actually left me howling on at least one notable occasion. (For those interested, it was the “Satan” line quoted below.) Outside of the story’s ticklish delivery, the author actually manages to maintain a modest air of mystery as to just how the eventual confrontation between the sisters will pan out. We have the same derisive attitude as Agatha: just exactly how can beauty be a curse? We look on with growing interest, challenging the author to deliver on this intriguing bit of foreshadowing. The form Joy’s vengeance actually takes might strike some as utterly lame, but to my jaundiced eyes it reads perfectly of a piece with the looniness that has already been established. But then I guess beauty’s in the eye of the beholder.

Peter: Pearl dealers Larry Angus McCabe and Mike Dolan run into trouble when their small plane ditches on an uncharted island in the South Pacific. The men are rescued by natives and brought to the island estate of legendary soldier of fortune, Anthony Poindexter, a man who disappeared a decade ago and was presumed dead. Weary of big game sport, Poindexter has now taken to hunting the biggest game of them all... man. Larry and Mike are given knives and told if they can stay alive on the island for twenty-four hours, each will receive a boat ride back to civilization and fifty grand. Poindexter gives the men an hour head start but Mike only survives half that when he falls victim to a hidden bear trap and bleeds to death. Angus proves a bit harder to kill as he evades capture, killing one of Poindexter's henchmen in the process, and lays a bear trap of his own for his hunter. Poindexter walks right into the deadly jaws and pleads with Angus to get him to a nearby hospital. Sucker that he is, McCabe agrees and walks the man to a waiting boat. Once the men are boarded, Angus starts up the engine and the boat explodes.


You gotta love these heartless writers, dumping innocent characters into horrible situations, lulling the reader into a false sense of security once the menace seems to have passed, and then WHAM-O, lowering the boom on said character. Larry and Mike, the co-stars of "Torture Garden" (from #13) are complicit in no crime other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The whole affair is obviously lifted from Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" but then this wasn't the first time that plot had been "borrowed" nor was it the last. Mike's death is gruesome ("... my --- legs, broken! I -- crushed!") as is Larry's gutting of native nasty Mocambo ("Part payment for Mike, you heathen!"), but the biggest gasp for the reader is reserved for the final panel, where we learn that Poindexter had planned for any outcome, smiling just before Larry turns the key and sends the boat straight to hell! Sometimes a memorable climax or a particularly wrenching scene can make all the difference, transforming a variation on a theme into something quite a bit more.

Here's as good a place as any to bring up the splash pages. Perhaps I'm on the wrong track with my guess but I believe that possibly the writer would come up with a title for his story and an editor would replace the proposed title with something perhaps a bit snappier or hyperbolic. My theory rides on the intro to each and every story published in Voodoo, verbose (sometimes over a hundred words) and sometimes spoilerish run-ons that ended with bold-faced words like the one introducing "Torture Garden" which finishes with the sentence: It was indeedThe Isle of Lost Men... Either title would fit this story, of course, but other tales in Voodoo cry out for their original titling. The best example being the mundane (in every sense of the word) "Assignment: Danger", a snoozer about a female reporter covering a fashion show who stumbles onto the murder of a runway model. Its complete intro reads: The ultra-exclusive fashion show was only a routine assignment to Margie, but she soon made the shocking discovery that there is nothing routine about "Murder in Style..." Those last three words are indeed enclosed within quotes, suggesting it might be used in a real big font as the title.  Of course, then there are the others that merely repeat themselves:


The rantings of a man who's been reading too many horror comics? Perhaps, but while I'm on a rant: why did Ajax decide to follow up the above splash with the following issue's cover
(seen at left)? Did the artist miss his deadline?

And why are there so many doggone typos? A character in "Let Me Die Today" (#18) visits the lovely coastal town of Malibou; Issue #16 features a tale entitled "Horror Unlimeted"; and the whopper of them all is the cover of #16 which promises a thriller with the enticing title of "Death Was Her Shrowd!" And why did the Ajax scribes find inanimate objects like (Screaming) Shoes and (Dead Man's) Pajamas so frightening? Why was Voodoo's mascot, "The Old Hag" used so sparingly rather than as a frontispiece to each tale? I'll stop this journey down the rabbit hole before I get to the twenty reasons why you should avoid DC's Ghosts.

Jose: Low-time gangster Johnnie Grotz is just treating his gal Kiki to another shiny trinket when he gets word that long-time rival Tony Cardozo is back in town. Dumping Kiki for a tommy gun, Johnnie beats a quick path to Tony’s old digs and pumps the goons at the card table full of lead. Too bad Tony foresaw Johnnie’s pitiful attempt to rub him out and had the place filled with wax dummies ahead of time! Johnnie’s quickly put of commission and upon awaking finds himself in the fiery pits of Hell with Satan and his eager demons capering about him. Ol’ Scratch shows Johnnie that he was sold out by his “faithful” gal Kiki who is now busy mooching off Cardozo back on Earth. Enraged by the betrayal, Johnnie snatches Satan’s scepter before the imps can lay their claws on him, quickly finding out that he who holds the mighty pitchfork rules over the whole expanse of Hell. Johnnie makes his first order of business a return trip to topside where he sics his demonic hordes on Tony and Kiki and use his infernal powers to hypnotize the assistant D. A. into picking the pocket of his boss! Travelling back to Hell, Johnnie basks in his luxuries--like the installed AC unit and Satan shining his shoes—as the king of a different kind of underworld. But when Johnnie’s gloating leads him to let the scepter slip from his grasp, Satan reclaims his rightful throne and sentences Johnnie to a particularly grueling dip in the sulfur pits.


“The King of Hades” (from #11) reads like a genre parody one would expect to find in the pages of MAD or its various imitators. It just skirts the line of acceptable taste with its thinly-veiled innuendos and never for one second takes itself too seriously. The uncredited artist stuffs little details into the panels without compromising the story’s visual readability and instills his characters with frenetic life, accomplishing a commendable balance between cartoonish craziness and diabolical seriousness. With a logline worthy of The Twilight Zone and a sleazy, late-night bender mentality, “The King of Hades” is just what the diabolist ordered. Now give us a Kiki white kiss!
Peter: Eccentric millionaire Philip Wuxton builds a house in the shape of a shoe for his new wife, Jessie. While the townsfolk laugh with derision, Jessie keeps her thoughts to herself, agreeing with her husband that the new abode holds a certain charm. Not long after, Wuxton dies mysteriously and Jessie shuts herself into the shoe for years until one day... The local papers scream "Jessie Wuxton Weds Local Undertaker!", taking the entire town by surprise. The happiness is not long-lived though and neither is the groom. Another funeral leaves the local tongues wagging and when, less than a year later, Jessie weds yet again, a groundswell of rumors begin making the rounds. Could Jessie be a murderess? The years pass... and so do the husbands. After her seventh mate is buried, the ever-newlywed swears off the game for good and becomes a spinster, hiding away in her house for decades. One night, Jessie calls her lawyer and insists she has something he must see immediately. The young man races over to the big shoe and is ushered into the basement by the old crone. She bids him to open a door and when he does, his eyes behold an eerie sight: all seven of the woman's husbands, still alive and now nuttier than fruitcake, chained to a wall. Jessie offers up no explanation for her erratic behavior before she tumbles down the stairs, accidentally locking the basement door. Her lantern sets off a fire and the lawyer is burned to death. And so ends, our host informs us, "the true story of the old lady who lived in a shoe, and had so many husbands she didn't know what to do!"

If you were to ask me why I liked "Witch or Widow" (from #14), I'd throw up my hands and admit, "Beats me!" Could it be, much like "Torture Garden", it comes down to an admiration for writers who jettison the idea of a happy ending and introduce random innocents (in this case, the young lawyer), only to dispatch them with sadistic glee (burning alive is a really nasty way to go, even for a lawyer)? Or could it be the other attribute these writers have, the knack for throwing disparate elements at a wall and making things stick? What possible reason could Jessie Wuxton have for marrying and then chaining her husbands up in the basement? Perhaps I'm grasping for straws but I think it's an early attempt to demonstrate that lunacy comes in all kinds of packages, an idea that hadn't been run into the ground yet by 1954. I'm glad our unnamed scribe chose to keep the old woman's motives a mystery. Nothing like a pat ending (she was abused as a child - she was after their money - she was a werewolf) to ruin a good terror tale.

Riverdance has really changed since my last show.

Jose: “Over two hundred years ago” in old Bohemia, a gypsy named Canio is hung on the gallows in the town square of Munster, his final words a sworn curse that he will return from the grave to perform further mischief. The gallows are soon chopped into firewood by the burgher's men and another gypsy, Antonio, snatches two billets and makes off with them to make some puppets. Antonio is astounded when he sees his latest creation looks just like Canio, and the marionette shows it’s got a mind of its own when it stirs to life and dances on Antonio’s wife’s face before running off . Antonio follows the puppet to the house of the magistrate that passed the death sentence onto Canio. Looking for backup, Antonio explains his plight to the police but is instead thrown into the hoosegow for being a wood thief. Meanwhile, the Canio puppet is busy leering at the magistrate’s shapely daughter. After tying the lass up with thread (!), the puppet attacks the magistrate when he comes running after his daughter’s cries. The puppet blinds the magistrate with a sharp needle and prepares to work on the daughter next. The sightless magistrate knocks over a lamp and all three face a fiery death in the inferno that ensues. Antonio, for his part, is sent to the hangman’s noose, but after the execution no attempt is made to repurpose the gallows. Just in case.

Graphic literature at its finest.

“Gallows’ Curse” (from #13) seems representative of the prototypical pre-code horror story: savage, demented, and with a blackly comic streak a mile wide. You know you’re in pretty safe territory when animated puppets are on hand, and “Gallows” surely doesn’t disappoint in that regard. From the second he winks into existence by spreading a woman’s fingers in a manner that can’t help but appear suggestive to modern eyes, Canio the puppet proceeds to dance his way into our twisted hearts through the virtue of his remorseless sadism. The sequence of him terrorizing the magistrate and his daughter is especially boundary-teasing; focus is given to Canio poring over the daughter’s bound bosom and his imminent stabbing-out of her father’s eyes. There’s no doubt that if we were boys living in 1950s America our mothers would surely have whipped our hides something fierce for being caught reading this garbage. We wouldn’t have it any other way!

Sleaze factor at ten!

Peter: Late one night, crooked businessman Mike McCoy is visiting his office when he notices a light on. Fearing it's his partner going over the cooked books, McCoy heads up the stairs with murder on his mind. Before he can get there, however, a shot rings out and, upon entering the room, Mike finds his partner, Sol Cather, dead on the floor. Discovering an open window, Mike unwittingly picks up the murder weapon and heads out onto the fire escape, finding nothing out of the ordinary. When the cops get there, Mike becomes their primary suspect and he knows as soon as they find out he's been embezzling, his goose is cooked. Meanwhile, back at the McCoy residence, Mike's wife Eva is cozying up to the family lawyer, Bill Poindexter (obviously the brother of the big game hunter, Anthony Poindexter, from "Torture Garden") when she gets the call from the precinct that Mike has been arrested for murder. Seeing this as his way of clearing the deadwood, Poindexter agrees to defend Mike in court but does a less-than-exemplary job when the time comes (the shyster even leaks the embezzling angle to the prosecution) and McCoy is sentenced to die by the electric chair. Months later, as McCoy fries, the devious couple canoodle but the thrill may have already gone out of the romance thanks to the Mike McCoy affair. Back at the prison morgue, a whacky doctor, dabbling in things men were not supposed to know, injects Mike McCoy's body with a syringe of regenerating fluid. Mike's corpse reanimates, none too happy, and heads off to his old home, where he witnesses the aforementioned canoodling. He quickly rigs up heavy duty voltage to the chairs at the kitchen table and when the adulterers return, they get the shock of their lives!

A lot of interesting elements to this simple but powerful morality play. The three protagonists of "Sound of Mourning" (from #18) are introduced to us under one of the most outlandish splashes ever (see far above), a scene that only has a vague connection (pun intended) with the story we're about to read. The irony, of course, is that Mike fries for the one crime he didn't commit and we never do find out who murdered Sol Cather (the killing, in fact, is almost forgotten immediately except when it's mentioned at Mike's trial). I assumed we'd get a lame expository from Poindexter, confessing he set Mike up in the first place to get to Eva but (thankfully) we're spared one of those giant captions at the finale. Poindexter deliberately torpedoes Mike's chances for exoneration and then (again, ironically) once the trial is over, "both plotters realize that the thing between them has spoiled..." Guilt or a loss of excitement? A very adult moment for a kid's funny book. I love how Mike takes the time while the couple are, ostensibly, going at it in the bedroom (we see them emerge with their robes on) to hook a wire into the basement transformer and then hide the line under the carpet! Obviously a tidy home owner, even as a reanimated corpse.

Morbid beauty par excellence.

Jose: Maintenance man Bruce is working late one night on the city’s underground water supply system when he finally emerges after hours of thankless toil only to be met by a rather thankless sight: the entire city obliterated, grey mist swirling all around, and not a living soul to be found. His immediate worry is to find his wife Becky, but the piles of bodies in the streets put a damper on his hopes. He goes searching through the foggy wasteland regardless, only to come upon a group of cadaverous mutants who are out hunting for any human stragglers. They spot Bruce but he manages to give them a slip, resolving that he must set up an observation point fitted with provisions to make it as long as he can in this new, mad world. From his hovel Bruce witnesses a violent battle between two warring factions of mutants, but what really catches his attention is the bedraggled form of a woman: Becky. Mindless of his safety, Bruce attempts to remind Becky of their relationship but the scarred wraith doesn’t appear to understand. The other mutants see Bruce and quickly bind him to a stake for later immolation. Becky returns and frees Bruce, unaware of what compels her to help him. Bruce grabs the necklace Becky has discarded as a token of their former love just as the sky rains down hellish fire and burns him alive. Bruce then awakens from his terrible dream and finds himself back in the sewers. Though relieved, he can’t seem to explain how he has Becky’s necklace in his hand.

Webb at work.

Though it might cop-out at the last second, “Fog Was My Shroud” (from #16) remains an incredibly gloomy entry from the pre-code horror books. This batch of stories from Voodoo featured some particularly nihilistic tales, “Fog Was My Shroud” and “Corpses… Coast to Coast” (see below) especially damning for not only their depiction of the death of innocents but of the entire world as we know it. Those convinced that our fascination with the apocalypse in popular culture is only a recent phenomenon should take a look at these two stories from sixty years ago to realize that the prospect of Armageddon has been a grim burden we’ve carried on our shoulders for generations (and will for generations to come). The art by Robert Webb is rough-around-the-edges, tattered, even a little primitive, but it’s a perfect fit for the story; his splash page is a thing of chilling magnificence. It’s too bad the story didn’t end with Bruce’s apocalyptic auto-de-fe. That way both the world and the reader’s heart could’ve been left in cinders.

Peter: Lost in Germany, newlyweds Joyce and Mark happen upon a spooky structure high in the mountains and Mark thinks it would be a kick to stay in the quaintly titled "Werewolf Castle" (from #18). Against her better judgement, Joyce goes along with the plan and soon Mark finds himself banging some big knockers and coming face to face with the castle's servant, a misshapen hunchback who tells them his employers, the Baron and Baroness, will be happy to see them. Introductions are made and the two couples seem to get on winningly. Joyce excuses herself and heads to her room while Mark listens in wonder as Baron Gotha explains the history of Werewolf Castle. Though she's feeling a bit spooked in the eerie guest room, Joyce turns in for the evening but no sooner does she lay her lovely nightgown-encased body down than the bed swings up into the wall and deposits her in another room, a "place of horror!" Meanwhile, Baroness Gotha spreads her vampire's winds and takes to the air, observing her husband and Mark downstairs. The Baroness is a bit perturbed at the Baron as he'd promised to surrender the visitor to her early. Finally, the Baron makes excuses to leave the room and the Baroness swoops in, draining Mark's blood and transforming him into a werewolf. Upstairs, the Baron reveals himself to Joyce... well, he lets her know that, in actuality, he's a wolf and she's on the menu. Once he's dined, Joyce is a vampire. The dazed and bruised couple meet up in the study just as the hunchback comes down to announce that they are the new owners of Werewolf Castle and will remain so until they can transfer their curses to another couple.

A deliriously fun ride, alaAbbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein at times, with its subtle humor (rather than the shredded clothes of yore, the Baron retains his nicely pressed suit after transforming into a werewolf) and playful art. "Werewolf Castle" jettisons all the werewolf and vampire lore we've learned over the centuries -- the species seem to cross-pollinate and co-exist. The expository suggests that these two creatures do not venture out and terrorize the countryside but, rather, lie in wait for the day that two wayward travelers may come knocking on the door. The panel of Joyce lounging in bed ("Afraid I'm not going to be able to stay awake until Mark comes upstairs!") made me think about all those silly out-of-context panels Wertham used in his attack on funny books and points out that Fred needn't have printed Batman's cowl upside down (signifying two vaginas, no doubt) to hammer his theory home.  The Old Hag lets her presence known in a witty bumper, designing a shroud for some unlucky soul. Though still an obvious rip-off of the EC hosts, The Hag has a bit more character than in the previous, throwaway intros she appeared in.


Jose: Newlyweds Richard and Sylvia are just starting their “long awaited” honeymoon along a stretch of lonely Malibu beach, the sweethearts the very picture of early marital bliss. While out walking along the shoreline, the couple comes across a crone-like woman writing a message in the sand with a stick. They introduce themselves but the crone responds only in cryptic tones, warning them not to look at her message as she flees from their sight. Richard’s perturbed but Sylvia finds it all amusing, even ignoring her husband’s fear of reading the script in the sand. What they see unsettles them even further: the crone has written Sylvia’s name along with her birthday and tomorrow’s date like the inscription on a tombstone. Shaking the episode from their minds, the couple heads out in their car for a picnic. As they wrestle through heavy traffic, a tanker truck swipes their car, triggering an explosion. Both the truck driver and Sylvia are killed instantly while Richard miraculously survives. The death of his wife heavy on his mind, Richard returns to the beach only to see the hag scrawling another message. Richard tries to speak to her but once again she eludes his calls. Looking at the message, his morbid hopes are dashed: the inscription informs Richard that he still has forty years to go before he passes away in 1994. Maddened with grief, Richard trudges into the sea to drown himself. As luck would have it though, a passing fishing smack nets Richard and hauls him out of the water. Once hospitalized, Richard is told by the befuddled doctor that no one could’ve lived through his episode, but Richard knows for certain now that the prophecy written in the sand has been set in stone.

This run of stories should come with a prescription for Prozac.

As Peter noted above, the probably-editorial decision to rename the stories in Voodoo were usually unnecessary and even wrong-headed, but whoever thought that the generic “Warning in the Sand” should be refitted to “Let Me Die Today” (from #18) was clearly more in tune with the writer’s work than the actual author was. The new title communicates the tragic arc of the tale much more effectively while also being an emotional grabber in its own right. It shifts the focus from the weird hag and her portents of the future to the real nub of horror at the heart of the story: the futility of life in the wake of a loved one’s death. The grand doomsday terror of “Fog Was My Shroud” is winnowed down to a more intimate level, but the soul-crushing atmosphere remains the same. Because I’m apparently an emotional masochist, I actually thought that the latter half of the story could've been longer. What would it have been like to live with Richard for those forty years? Would he find another love? Try to kill himself again? Spend his old age warning away other happy young couples from the crone on the beach, all the while wondering why God had done this to him? My cold, dark mind can’t help but wonder.

Yer a what????

Peter: Dr. Lynn Willis and his nurse/lover Mary Hitchcock are out driving one night when their eyes behold an eerie sight: a gorgeous woman, lying in the middle of the road. The couple load the unconscious girl in their car and head off to Lynn's place, where he, luckily, has a fully functioning operating room in his basement. While Lynn goes off to search for his blasted rubber gloves, Mary prepares an IV of whole blood. Just then, two female claws reach out for the bottle. Dr. Willis returns only to find he needs to advertise for a new nurse. Believing it to be the work of a lunatic who's been prowling the area, Dr. Willis phones the police to report the death of his squeeze. The cops cart the body away ("Sorry about your little nurse!") and Willis turns his attention back to the babe on the operating table, who finally rouses. She relates a story of a man, a lunatic, who took her to a backwoods road and tried to kill her. When pressed, she reveals the man was her husband and he tried to drive a stake into her heart because... (spoiler alert) SHE'S A VAMPIRE!!!

I realize that the splashes published in Voodoo were not exactly surprise-friendly but they did tend to skirt around the issue most of the time. How can you have an entire story hinge upon the last-panel reveal that the stranger is a vampire when she's pictured on the splash, fangs a-blazin'? And who were we supposed to assume those lovely long-nailed hands (reaching for the bottle labeled "whole blood"!) belonged to way back on page three? And how did the vampire go from being half-covered with a sheet in one panel to comfortably snug in a stylish robe in the next? Never mind.

Jose: Mr. Scientist is too busy sciencing in his laboratory all day to pay any attention to his wife, Mrs. Wife, so naturally she strays from her marital vows and engages in an affair with Mr. Handsome Face, much to the hypocritical consternation of Mr. Scientist. Being a scientist—and an angry one!—Mr. Scientist naturally decides to exact Terrible Vengeance™ on them. How fortuitous that his colleague should send him news that very day that he’s perfected an Easy Bake-quick means of shrinking human heads, along with the formula to do so! Handsome Face and Mrs. Wife are duly injected with the formula, shrinking their noggins down to the size of my interest in the story at this point. Filled with the desire to exact their own brand of Terrible Vengeance™, the couple hog-ties Mr. Scientist and gives him a taste of his own medicine. The couple then kills themselves and leaves the gibbering, mutated Mr. Scientist to the police.

“Heads of Horror” (from #14), like other Stinkers we’ve seen in the past, commits the cardinal sin of being a thundering bore, falling into the grooves worn deep by the caravans of far better stories that came before it. The anonymous writer’s utter indifference (and probable contempt) for the assignment is not only palpable but contagious; if he didn’t give a damn, then why the hell should we? Not only is “Heads of Horror” a dully rote affair full of dialogue laughable on any level (see Quotables below), but the writer throws in a final panel showing a freak show pinhead being exploited to a gawking audience headed by the caption “So who, [sic] in the end was the freak?..” It's as if he were tying together a meaningful message about superficial virtue and inner hideousness; trouble is, that message doesn't comes up at any point in the preceding narrative. It’s a last-ditch effort to instill the story with a sense of literary resonance that feels more like a spoonful of bitter medicine flung right into the reader’s eye.

Your bullshit moral made-to-order!

NOTABLE QUOTABLES

Who would just leave a hit-and-run driver out in the road like that?

Joy: Stop it, George! I can hardly breathe! Don't you ever tire of kissing?
George: Not you, Joy! Gosh, you're beautiful! You were born to love!
- "Horribly Beautiful"

“If I’m ugly, Joy should be ugly too! I’ll throw acid into her insipid little baby-face!”
- “Horribly Beautiful”

“Hussy! I’m sick of your face!”
 -“Horribly Beautiful”

Joy: Revenge! I must have revenge! I live only for revenge!
Agatha: Please stop aggravating yourself, dear! You've got to resign yourself to your... your ugliness!
- "Horribly Beautiful

“Send him away, Agatha! I don’t want to see him… I don’t want to see anybody…except Satan!”
- “Horribly Beautiful”

"Lying snake! I know the truth now, you scum wench! It was you who threw the acid in my face!"
- "Horribly Beautiful"

Johnnie blinked his eyes open. There was a strange humming in his ears, like the sighing of a million broken hearts.
- "The King of Hades"

"We're alone, Kiki! How about provin' ya love me, huh? Give me a Kiki white kiss!"
- "The King of Hades"

“Don’t move! Don’t nobody move! Everybody die!!”
- “The King of Hades”

“Th’ first bogeyman wot lays a hand on me gits this pitchfork rammed into him where it’ll do th’ most good!”
- “The King of Hades”

“There was hell to pay when Johnnie got back to Hades.”
- “The King of Hades”

"Air conditioning in hell! It's madness! W-we're freezing!
- "The King of Hades"

"My little what?"

"Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ho-Ho--Hee-Heeeee!"
- "Horror Comes to Room 1313"

“I’ve got an idea that if we follow the bloody trail, we might find something interesting!”
- “Castle of Fright”

“Like the demon he is, the puppet tugs at the door…”
- “Gallows’ Curse”
"MFF-GAAAFFF-SPUTTER-UHHHGGG-FFMMMMM-
GGGAAAA-GUFFFFFFNNN-YOWNNNNNAA"
- "The Heads of Horror"

“Goodbye! We’re going to kill ourselves!”
- “Heads of Horror”

"Yowwwww- They did it! They killed themselves! Help Help! My head feels so funny-"
- "The Heads of Horror"

"Hee-Hee-Ugglll-Duggggg-Hah-Hah-Hah-Ho-Ho-Droll-Gurgle-Ho-Ho-Hee-Hee-Hee-"
- "The Heads of Horor"

At last after 900 miles of trekking, Stanley's party reached the little town of Tabora... at last!
Stanley: It's Tabora at last!
- "Assignment Terror!"

"Those who attacked us have been attacked in turn by another party! Perhaps those they mistook us for!
- "Assignment Terror!"

"Awful! The b-bodies are piling up like cordwood! All funerals are cancelled! Cemeteries are sending all bodies back to us! What shall we do?"
"Hmmm- don't do anything, fathead!"
- "Corpses - Coast to Coast"

"Here's to tomorrow! Our tomorrow-- the tomorrow of the U.W.Z.!"
"Hail! The United World Zombies!"
- "Corpses - Coast to Coast"

"Vive le zombie!"
- "Corpses - Coast to Coast

Case of the Missing Midriff

"There is only one party - the zombie party! But it wasn't all peaches and cream!"
- "Corpses - Coast to Coast"

Suddenly from the doghouse there rushes a slavering, raving horror with long, needle-sharp teeth and jaws flecked with foam! The chain strains to the breaking point as it tries to get at Lucy...
Lucy: "A big rat!"
- "Nightmare Island"

"I'm an atomic expert! You can check on that easily enough! Recently I was in Alaska, working on an experiment - you can check that, too, but it's top secret stuff, so keep it in this room-"
- "Hammer of Evil"

"Fantastic! Utterly and absolutely fantastic! A prehistoric woman! I wonder who she was, what they called her? If only she could speak and tell us!"
"Well, she can't! She's been dead a long time - and even a woman can't talk when she's dead!"
- "Hammer of Evil"

"She's eating the dog! Raw, uncooked! But she doesn't know better, of course!"
- "Hammer of Evil"

"I do remember one thing! Those pajamas! I didn't want to wear them but Stella insisted. I had a funny feeling when I put them on... but I must be insane! A pair of pajamas didn't kill my wife... I did!"
- "Dead Man's Pajamas"

"This may sound strange, but I've decided to spend the night in this apartment, in that bed, wearing those pajamas!"
"What about our theatre date?"
- "Dead Man's Pajamas"

Thankfully Prince was one of those rare, six-legged dogs.

“Gray tatters of fog and mist, atomic mist, hang like funeral drapes over the desolate landscape!”
- “Fog Was My Shroud”

Mary: If she lives, she’ll be lucky! Lucky that you found her, darling, and that you live so close!
Willis: And lucky that I date my nurse after office hours, too!
- “Deadly Pickup”

"She murdered her husband there years ago, then went insane! Now she thinks her husband is still alive and living in that house! She always goes back to kill him! If other people get in the way -- well, you know!"
- "Night of Terror"

“The old castle hovered over the ageless Rhine like some great evil bat waiting to pounce on its prey!”
                                                                             - “Werewolf Castle”

"The moment you people took the wrong road tonight - and it was the wrong road, as you'll admit now - you were both doomed!"
- "Werewolf Castle"

Baroness: Aha—my teeth sink easily into your throat, my friend! Arrrrrrrgggg—
Mark: Owwww—owwww—
- “Werewolf Castle”

STORY OF THE MONTH

Peter: Logging in at a lean five pages, "Hammer of Evil" (from #15) is a whacky mixture of "Who Goes There?" and the age-old fantasy of the perfect woman/servant. Well, this perfect woman, the Amazonian Kulla, the Atavar, is a little more trouble than her man could hope for in the end. "Hammer" begins as a simple fairy tale but then quickly crosses the line of misogyny when Kulla attaches herself to Talcott Powers' leg and he drags her around the room by her hair ala his caveman ancestors. Yep, a guilty pleasure, indeed, and also a fascinating example of just how much our standards have changed in sixty years. That's sarcasm, by the way.







Jose: For sheer audacity and bleakness of vision, nothing thus far in our pre-code series has quite matched the unfettered intensity of “Corpses… Coast to Coast” (from #14). Though our undertaker narrator informs us from the start that his tale is nothing but a strange dream of his, this does very little to mollify the diabolical scope and imagination that ensues for the next six pages. “Corpses…” is as subversive as they come, depicting an alternate universe where the world’s living denizens are taken over and subsumed into the ranks of the walking dead in a grimdark New World Order that can’t help but echo with the recent and still-palpable horrors of Hitler’s fascistic regime and the concentration camps of the Second World War. Though the history of pre-code comics is so entrenched in the debate they stirred due to their graphic violence, it seems incomprehensible that a story so nightmarish in its depiction of a society turned upside down and literally ruled by Death incarnate could even be seen fit for print. Or, if viewed another way, it makes perfect sense: with the public so upset by the superficial grue of the comics, they were left completely blind to the truly unsettling material. “Corpses…” originally made my Top Five, but its power and madness is too great for a synopsis to do it any kind of justice. The most dangerous pre-code horror story ever produced? That’s up to you. But for my part, consider me “rehabilitated.”








The Comics
Voodoo #11-18

#11 (September 1953)
Cover Uncredited

“Horribly Beautiful”
Art Uncredited

“Ohhhh, Brother!”
Art Uncredited

“The King of Hades”
Art Uncredited

“Horror Comes to Room 1313”
Art Uncredited







#12 (November 1953)
Cover Uncredited

“Skulls of Doom”
Art Uncredited

“Fear Has a Name”
Art Uncredited

“Blood and Barbed Wire”
Art Uncredited

“Castle of Fright”
Art Uncredited







#13 (January 1954)
Cover Uncredited

“Torture Garden”
Art Uncredited

“Screaming Shoes”
Art Uncredited

“They Couldn’t Die!” (Reprint of "There's Peril in Perfection" from Voodoo #3)
Art Uncredited

“Gallows’ Curse”
Art Uncredited







#14 (March/April 1954)
Cover Uncredited

“Witch or Widow”
Art Uncredited

“Heads of Horror”
Art Uncredited

“Assignment Terror”
Art Uncredited

“Corpses… Coast to Coast!”
Art Uncredited







#15 (May/June 1954)
Cover Uncredited

“Doomed”
Art Uncredited

“Dead Man’s Pajamas”
Art Uncredited

“Nightmare Island”
Art Uncredited

“Hammer of Evil”
Art Uncredited







#16 (July/August 1954)
Cover Uncredited

“Horror Unlimeted” (sic)
Art Uncredited

“Fog Was My Shroud”
Art by Robert Webb

“Deadly Pickup”
Art Uncredited

“Night of Terror”
Art Uncredited







#17 (September/October 1954) **MISSING**
Cover Uncredited

“Forever Dead”
Art Uncredited

“Creatures from the Deep”
Art Uncredited

“Ape’s Laughter”
Art Uncredited

“Cult of the Cruel”
Art Uncredited







#18 (November/December 1954)
Cover Uncredited

“Sound of Mourning”
Art by Ken Battefield

“Assignment: Danger”
Art by Robert Webb

“Let Me Die Today”
Art Uncredited

“Werewolf Castle”
Art Uncredited





There was, by the way, a nineteenth issue of Voodoo but since it featured adventure stories it falls out of our purview. An argument could be made, we know, that several adventure stories littered the pages of the first 18 issues of Voodoo but at least the predominance of material was horror-oriented.

Voodoo #19

Voodoo Annual #1

This over-priced ($2300 and up) reprint one-shot, published near the end of 1952, is simply three unsold issues bound under a new cover. Some sources claim that the three issues are also random so there are several different iterations of Voodoo Annual out there!



PRE-CODE HORROR NEWS

Coincidentally to our coverage of Ajax-Farrell, IDW, publisher of several top-notch pre-code horror reprints, has announced they will be reprinting the entirety of the Voodoo run, withThe Complete Voodoo Volume 1on sale in November. This is a boon to those of us who'd love to have physical copies of the pre-coders but don't wish to fork over a mortgage payment for the privilege (to be exact, a complete run of Voodoo, including Annual, will set you back $4525 according to the CBM Standard Catalog 4th Edition) . The volume will have an introduction by Mike Howlett, author of the indispensableThe Weird World of Eerie Publications and collects the first six issues of Voodoo.

The 18th issue of IDW's  Haunted Horror hit shelves yesterday. HH typically reprints seven or eight pre-code stories from publishers such as Ajax-Farrell, Harvey, Superior, and Quality. Among the reprints this issue: "The Moon Was Red,""The Tattooed Heart," and "Murder Mansion"

Speaking of Haunted Horror, IDW continues its reprinting (a reprint of a reprint -- the mind boggles!) of HH in hardcover with Volume 3, Pre-Code Comics So Good They're Scary, out October 15th. The first volume sold out quickly and is now commanding $$ on eBay.

Way across the pond in Australia today (tomorrow? yesterday? well, August 29th, anyway), the kangaroos are jumping with excitement at the release of a new graphic novel by Andrez Bergen called Trista & Holt, volume one.

Very loosely based on the legend of Tristan & Isolde, this is a follow-up of sorts to Bergen's Bullet Gal in that the author again uses a collage of found art to tell a story of murder and mayhem in a noir-soaked, sleazy, neon-lit city of the 1970s.

When a man is blown to bits, Trista visits crime boss Queenie and suspicion falls on Holt. Did Holt's father orchestrate the hit? Murders pile up and a gang war may be in the offing between the Holt family and the Cornwall family. When Trista & Holt meet at a funeral, will sparks fly between the representatives of warring clans?

Trista & Holt has been appearing as a monthly comic book and this paperback collects the first five issues. The saga is planned to span 15 issues in all and is published by IF? Commix.

If you enjoyed Bullet Gal or any of Bergen's previous books, give Trista & Holt a try. Follow this link to order a paper copy for $10 or a digital copy for only $2!

--Jack Seabrook


According to the press release:

Here's a cool sample page!

Luis Dominguez

Unexpected 165

"Slayride in July"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Gerry Talaoc

"Death Rides the Raging Wind"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Dick Dillin and Nick Cardy

Jack: Forty-four years old, out of work, and with a wife and daughter to support, Bruno Walton spends his days looking for work without success. One evening as he walks home from work to save bus fare, he happens upon Ivor Henry, a rich jewelry salesman, who is trying to change a flat tire. Bruno changes the tire for him, then murders Ivor with the tire iron and cleans out his wallet and jewelry case. Burying Ivor in the road bed where it looks like men are about to repave seems like a fine idea, and when Bruno gets home he hides the jewelry case.

Next morning, his wife and daughter have gone shopping and he can't find his wallet. As soon as his family returns, he jumps in the car and drives to the burial site, but it turns into a "Slayride in July" when he is frightened by a dancing silhouette he takes to be Ivor's ghost and his car crashes into a police car, killing him. Little did he know that the cops had already found the poorly buried body and the dancing ghost was really a new toy his wife had just bought for his daughter. Bruno must be part dog, because he manages to dig a grave for a full-grown man using nothing but a tire iron. And how foggy must it have been on that road for him to mistake a dancing doll inside his own car for a ghost outside the car?

Peter: Well, it's not all that good but it's not horrible. About as competent a story as you can get from Carl Wessler.

Jack: As a hurricane bears down on the Florida Keys, Ilene Evans and her young son Hank prepare for the worst, little knowing that "Death Rides the Raging Wind." Hank's father, Buck, disappeared after flying his plane toward Jamaica two weeks before, but when a couple of killers take refuge in the Evans house during the storm, Buck's ghost returns to drive them off and seal their doom in a car accident. This story has a retro feel to it but that may just be a function of Dillin's pencils. Cardy's inks smooth out some of the rough spots but this is still weak fare.

Peter: That second panel is kinda creepy with its (unintentional?) hints of incest. I thought the panel of the menacing tree was pretty cool but, otherwise, "Death Rides..." is lukewarm pablum.  I'm convinced that if you scramble Dick Dillin's name, you'll get "mediocrity."

Luis Dominguez

The House of Mystery 232

"The Last Tango in Hell"
Story by David Michelinie and Russell Carley
Art by Ramona Fradon

"Demon Hound"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Peter: In depression-era New York, Orville Branch, a particularly nasty piece of work, owns a dance hall where he stages dance marathons for days on end. The couples believe they're vying for high cash prizes but Orville has no intention of paying one dime to the gullible contestants. After an accident leaves one couple dead, Orville's clean-up man threatens to sing to the coppers about the hazardous conditions in the ballroom until Orville whacks the man across the skull and kills him. The next night, as he's contemplating his next scheme, the ghosts of his victims come calling and Orville Branch learns to dance.

Michelinie (or Joe Orlando) missed a chance here, titling this one "Last Tango in Hell" (an obvious nod to the X-Rated Marlon Brando flick that was all the rage at about this time) instead of the obvious "They Shoot Corpses... Don't They?" There's nothing new to report about this one, sorry to say, as it's just a recycling of the tired "heartless SOB who gets his comeuppance in the end" plot that's been used in these pages dozens of times. The only difference between this and, say, "Night Stalker in Slim City," is the dance hall setting and They Shoot Horses... Don't They said just about everything there was to be said about that nasty era, didn't it? Except to tell us about the ghost dancers, of course.

Jack: This story could've been written by Michael Fleisher. It's interesting that Russell Carley, who worked with Fleisher so often, works here with David Michelinie, a relatively new kid on the block at DC. Reading the DC horror line for this blog has made me a fan of Ramona Fradon's art and she doesn't disappoint; one particularly nice page features multiple images of Branch spinning around the dance floor with his ghostly partner. This tale is in the running for my top ten of 1975.

Peter: Harry and Rose will never be voted best foster parents of the year but, if social services did their job, poor little Billy would be with a family that appreciates him. To drive away his loneliness, Billy conjures up a dog named Duke, an animal who protects the boy and frightens his foster parents. Harry puts an axe in the skull of the "Demon Hound" and he and his wife bury the dog before Billy can get wise to their devious act. But the next night, Rose spies the hound running in the backyard and begins to believe the boy's claim that he wished for the dog... and he appeared. Finding the perfect vehicle to dispatch her abusive husband, Rose gets Billy out of the house and then has the boy wish the dog back into the house while Harry's home. The next day, the police find Harry all over the porch and Rose is a happy woman. She tells Billy he can never wish Duke back again but, too late, the boy assumed his foster mother loved his pet and the "Demon Hound" waits for her in the next room.

It's been a long time since we got a really good horror story around here. This isn't really good but maybe absence makes my heart grow fonder because this one will do for now. Yep, it's built on yet another plot device that we see way too much of (the put-upon orphan who must turn to supernatural forces to protect himself) but "Demon Hound" has a nice, nasty climax and Yandoc's usual top-notch art (in particular, the panel showing Harry's murder is particularly graphic without spilling the guts and, oh, that splash!) to elevate it to the B-level.

Jack: The story gets a C but the art gets a B+. I'm not as enamored of Yandoc as you are and Jack Oleck hasn't written a really good story in quite a while, or so it seems to me. I was surprised when Harry took an axe to the dog, but fortunately it was not shown. Harry didn't put up much of a fight when the dog slaughtered him, though. This story didn't really work for me.

Ernie Chan

The House of Secrets 132

"The Contortionist!"
Story by Michael Fleisher and Russell Carley
Art by Leopoldo Duranona

"Killer Instinct"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Peter: Percival Pope is "The Contortionist", but he's finding that today's audience wants something new, something more exciting than a guy who can bend his leg back behind his head. While strolling the street in thought, Percival is almost brained by a medallion dropped from a tall building. The owner apologizes and then stretches down to the street to pick up his bauble. Amazed, Pope visits the strange man and discovers the secret is a juice extracted from a rare berry that grows in India. When the old man won't sell, Percy tries to steal the flask of juice and accidentally kills him. The juice makes Percy a star but drinking the potion for an extended time has side effects; Percy finds it takes longer and longer for his muscles to return to their normal shape. Deciding he's milked the act for all it's worth, Percy announces his retirement but after his great last gig, his adoring fans literally stretch his patience to the breaking point.


Though, again, there's nothing but a load of cliched plot devices piled atop themselves, at least we've got the fabulously sick sense of humor that Michael Fleisher became famous for. That final panel, of the stretched out Percival Pope, must have been the nightmare that kept Reed Richards and Plastic Man up 'til all hours of the morning. Duranona's art is at times really creepy and at other times, really ugly and scratchy. I've seen great art by Leopoldo published in the Warren magazines so maybe black and white brings out the best in his work.


Peter: Steve Burns has everything a prize fighter needs except for the "Killer Instinct." Steve will have a man against the ropes and walk away. Not much life for a boxer with that sort of shortcoming, is there? One night, after another hard fought surrender, Steve meets the devil, who tells the chump he can deliver him the "Killer Instinct" he needs to become Heavyweight Champion of the World. Steve won't offer up his soul but Satan offers him a freebie so a deal is struck. Steve quickly becomes the Champion but only after killing his opponent in the ring and that doesn't sit well with Mrs. Burns, who tells her husband she's leaving. Steve throttles his wife and, as the cops are on the way, accepts Satan's new bargain: he'll transport Steve to a place the cops can't find him in exchange for his soul. Turns out that place is the arena in ancient Rome, where Steve Burns is now a gladiator. His "Killer Instinct" didn't make the journey, though, and Steve refuses to kill his opponent this time. Magically, he's transported back before he was granted his first bargain and decides to quit boxing, accepting his "second chance."


Very imaginative fantasy tale with the rare hook of a sympathetic, kindly Satan, "Killer Instinct" has the feel of a good Twilight Zone episode. It's hard to imagine, though, a boxer getting very far if he refuses to put the other guy on the canvas. How did Steve (who tells his wife, when she begs him to quit, that "fighting is my trade!") entice a manager to waste time on him and how many surrenders in the ring before the fight commission would ban him from "his trade?" An exemplary issue of Secrets!

Jack: Give Jack Oleck credit, he wrote a great story here! I'm not as fond of Yandoc as you are, Peter, or I'd give this one an A+ across the board. The twist ending was a pleasant surprise, and you're right that it has a Twilight Zone feel; it's also reminiscent of Jack Finney's story, "Second Chance," minus the devil, of course. I wonder if the shadowy figure wasn't really the devil. He allows Burns to call him that but he never calls himself that, and giving people second chances isn't the devil's stock in trade. Maybe he was a good angel who knew that Burns would have to think he was making a deal with the devil in order to fall far enough to earn his redemption?

Luis Dominguez

The Witching Hour 55

"Kiss the Boys--And Make Them Die"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Ernesto Patricio

"One Good Shock Deserves Another!"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Rudy Nebres

"Stand-In for a Corpse"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Jack: Sylvia is the prettiest gal in the office, but she refuses to date anyone because she must care for her elderly parents. The cops wonder if two of her office mates disappeared after she decided to "Kiss the Boys--And Make Them Die," but they find no evidence of wrongdoing. When office gigolo James Arlen visits Sylvia's house, he discovers that her parents are rotting corpses. Wessler's story might not be half-bad if he tried to use a plot, and Patricio's is passable at best.

Surprise! Her parents are dead.

Peter: You gotta wonder whose bright idea it was to put the "shocking twist ending" in bright Luis Dominguez color right on the cover! Not to worry though--you'll see the climax coming half way through this mess. Patricio's art is very hard on the eyes.

Jack: Badly injured in a plane crash, Robert Burton suddenly has a miraculous recovery and returns home with an ugly hag of a wife. She treats the servants so badly that the butler murders her, only to learn that her powers of witchcraft were the only thing keeping Robert looking normal. At three pages, "One Good Shock Deserves Another!" does not wear out its welcome, and Rudy Nebres does a nice job with the art. Didn't we read a very similar story not long ago??

Surprise! His wife was a witch.

Peter: I can't believe I'm going to say this but Kashdan's script could have stood a couple more pages length. It's not that bad and is helped by Nebres's lovely art, especially in the reveal panel. Ironically, I've been raking Rudy Nebres and his bleeding, incomprehensible art for Deadly Hands of Kung Fu over at our sister blog, Marvel University. Obviously, editor Murray Boltinoff had more restrictive rules for the art submitted for The Witching Hour and, for once, those restrictions paid off for the artist.

Jack: Morgue attendant Tom Riker thinks that it's his lucky day when he examines a newly arrived corpse and finds a photo of a gorgeous gal and a letter saying that she can't wait to meet her beau to get married! It seems the dead man courted Alidda by mail and her parents have promised a dowry of $100K. Riker decides to impersonate the dead man, traveling to Alidda's home and going through with an immediate marriage ceremony, only to discover that his bride died that morning of food poisoning. He grabs the check and avoids her parents, who tell him that their Satanic sect has a rule that a spouse is fated to die in the same manner as his bride. Riker runs into the woods and is bitten by a snake. He cuts his arm and sucks out the poison but dies anyway. It seems the poison didn't kill him but rather he died due to an infection from a dirty razor blade.

Who hasn't had this experience?

"Stand-In for a Corpse" gets off to a great start and holds reader interest right up till a disappointing end, when the twist with the razor blade causes the story to fizzle out. Still, this is well above average for what we've been seeing in most of the DC horror books lately.

Peter: This one's a bit wild and all over the place but it's the best Witching Hour tale we've had come across our desk in many a month. Rubeny's art is all over the map as well, from the highs of the church scene to the sloppiness of Tom's death scene.

Luis Dominguez

Weird Mystery Tales 19

"Fire Dance"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Abe Ocampo

"Fight"
Story and Art by Lee Marrs

"Death-Calling"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ruben Yandoc

Peter: Jon Anderson is obsessed with killing moths; the guy can't get enough of it. He's also a sleaze who has multiple pin-ups on his living room wall and can't figure why the girls won't give him the time of day. Enter a very large moth who happens to be a shape-shifter, her other "self" being a scantily clad beauty (what a coincidence!). When Jon decides he just has to have the creature, he hunts her through the forest but she proves to be too smart for the brute. After lightning strikes, she scoops him up in her claws and takes him into the resulting fire. The End. Here's comes B.K. with yet another convoluted mess. There may indeed be people out there in the world who get their jollies by mass-destroying moths but that doesn't mean I want my DC horror stories to be populated by them. It's a tough sell, no? Yes, I know it's a CCA-approved book but do all shape-shifting moths sprout string bikinis when they transform? Abe Ocampo's art for "Fire Dance" is fantastic and deserving of a better script.

DC hands over the crayons to the elementary school down the street

Peter: A woman kills her boss then flees on a jet airliner. After noticing that everyone on board is ugly or malformed, she demands to see the pilot. It's only then that she discovers that she's on a "Flight" bound for... (GASP!) Hell and Satan's flying the plane!!! Oh, right, that's why there are circus freaks and misbehaving children on this flight. It's going to Hell. What a fabulously unique idea. We've had trains and elevators that go to Hades but not planes. Let's thank Lee Marrs for this delightfully novel concept. One question though: is the woman dead already or do they take the living down there now? If nothing else, Marrs is the one to beat for Worst Art of the Year.

Jack: I have to part company with you on this one! The story is predictable, sure, but the art is fabulous! This is not the first time we've seen Lee Marrs, and I love the underground comix look of her work, like a DC Robert Crumb. It's so different and expressive that I get a real kick out of it. She's one of the few women artists we've encountered on our journey and one of the very few artists to work in underground comix and mainstream comics in the 1970s.

Peter: Lighthouse keeper Will Addams spots a strange, 18th-Century ship called the Lorelei approaching the rocks one night and watches as it seems to disappear in thin air. That night, he hears musical voices calling out to him. When Will's relief comes the next month, he quizzes the old man about the ship and he tells him the history of the Lorelei, which was carrying a bevy of beautiful women bound for America. The Lorelei crashed against the rocks near the lighthouse and all crew and passengers were lost at sea. When Will returns the next month for his shift, the voices call out to him and he takes a dive near the rocks. Ghostly hands reach out and drag him down to become another passenger of the Lorelei. Though "Death-Calling" isn't as bad as "Fire Dance," it suffers from the same malady that ails most of Robert Kanigher's horror fiction: a lack of anything resembling pace, order, and reason. We know these sirens are at the bottom of the sea but why do they want Will? Why don't they call out to the other lighthouse keepers? For that matter, why was the Lorelei stacked (please pardon the pun) with bodacious women from England?

Luis Dominguez

Ghosts 39

"The Most Hated Ghost in England"
Story Uncredited
Art by E.R. Cruz

"The Blossoms in Blood"
Story Uncredited
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Haunting Hitchhiker"
Story Uncredited
Art by John Calnan

"The Phantom Hangman"
Story Uncredited
Art by Rico Rival

Jack: Why is William Darrell "The Most Hated Ghost in England?" He married for money and then turned out his wife and baby, that's why. They died on the moors and their specters haunted him till he died in a fall from a horse. Now their ghosts torment his ghost. I don't really see him as "The Most Hated Ghost in England" based on this story, but his wife's ghost doesn't think very highly of him.


Peter: Absolutely fabulous art by E.R. Cruz highlights one of the better stories of the month (and to think it appears in Ghosts!).

Jack: It's 1971 in Bangladesh and Col. Hassan has killed a Bengali loyalist and commandeered his home as the new headquarters. The only servant left is Lal, the old gardener, who tells Hassan that plants have feelings. After Hassan accidentally kills Lal and is shot by a sniper, he recovers in a hospital bed. A nurse places a plant in his room and soon he is found dead, having been strangled by "The Blossoms in Blood," since the plant's flower bore the image of the dead Lal. A neat little story with strong art by Yandoc, the climax of this one owes a bit to Roger Corman.

Peter: Two good stories in the same issue of Ghosts? Enjoy it while you can. Yandoc's art? "Blossoms" further solidifies my assertion that Ruben is the best DC horror artist now that Alfredo Alcala has left for greener pastures.

Jack: Motorists in the U.S.A. in 1974 share a similar and strange experience: they pick up a hitchhiker who looks a lot like Jesus and then he disappears from the back seat. Not exactly "The Haunting Hitchhiker," more like the disappearing hitchhiker. This seems to be a version of the urban legend about the Vanishing Hitchhiker.

Peter: There is no point to "The Haunting Hitchhiker." Is the specter supposed to be Christ? Perhaps Uncredited was trying to get that across but worried the CCA would shut the story down.

Jack: When Billy Heath was hanged in 1758, he put a curse on the spot. In 1969, two young American women on a cycling tour ignore a local bobby's warning and choose to spend the night in the barn on the spot of the hanging centuries before. They are menaced by an escaped convict who is very much alive until he is hanged by "The Phantom Hangman." Another story about young girls on a cycling trip is crossed with another story about an escaped convict. If only we could've worked a hitchhiker into the mix!

Peter: "Uncredited" has certainly got the English accent down pat ("'arf an hour.") but that's about all that's memorable about this crap. Sheesh. Are these the same two American girls who have wandered into  Ghosts stories before or do these teenage characters always look the same?

Ernie Chua

Tales of Ghost Castle 1

"A Child's Garden of Graves"
Story by Paul Levitz
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"A Soul A Day Keeps the Devil Away"
Story by Paul Levitz
Art by Quico Redondo

"The Mushroom Man"
Story by David Michelinie and Martin Pasko
Art by Buddy Gernale

Jack: Mr. and Mrs. Williams adopt little Holly Harkins, not aware that her digging in the orphanage grounds was really to make "A Child's Garden of Graves." At home with the Williams family, Holly is sad to see that she has competition: a brother and sister who are none too happy to welcome her into their household. No matter, as soon as she gets gardening tools, Holly murders her new siblings and buries them in the yard, something her new parents are less than happy to discover.

Wow! Paul Levitz sure can tell a depressing story. Ruben Yandoc's drawing board must have been burning up this month--this is his sixth contribution!

Peter: Orphaned children must have been right up there with vampires, ghouls, and werewolves on the DC Mystery "go-to" list. Child murder was (and still is) very cutting edge for a funny book so some credit must be given to writer Levitz for having the stones to tackle the subject but I wouldn't exactly say the climax was a shock ending since we all knew where this was going. No doubting the power of that panel depicting the unchiseled gravestones.

Glasses, earrings, watch . . .

Jack: Gak the demon enjoys his work in Hell, since "A Soul a Day Keeps the Devil Away." He finds his next target in a dentist named Farber but Gak receives an unpleasant surprise when the doctor turns down his offer, preferring the experience of inflicting pain on his patients to the promise of a life of leisure. The most amusing thing about this four-pager is how Redondo finds ways to cover up the demons' naughty bits in each panel!

Peter: This one seemed to be gaining a healthy, humorous head of steam before puttering out halfway through the story. And, I hesitate to ask, why would sleeping gas affect a demon?

Jack: Brian Jannis owes money to some bad dudes from Vegas, so when his uncle, "The Mushroom Man," tells him about a new discovery that will make a him a fortune, he kills the old man and cashes in. Brian plans to get rid of the strange mushrooms growing in the old man's basement and fires the cook after she feeds some of them to him for dinner. It's too late for Brian, though, since a tummy ache that night leads to death the next morning, brought on by angry mushrooms sprouting from his body. Some of these stories seem like the writer came up with an idea for a final panel and then wrote backwards from there. Didn't we vote another story by Buddy Gernale as worst of the year awhile back?


Peter: Uncle Sebastian's body must have been "stinkin' to high heaven" (to borrow a famous line from Loudon Wainwright) and no one noticed, not even the maid who was digging around in the mushroom beds? A highly unimaginative story thanks to lazy writing. The old guy was a mushroom nut so for the big shock panel, his killer will sprout mushrooms! What's so hard about writing by-the-number scripts?

Jack: Tales of Ghost Castle is not off to a great start. Our host is Lucien, the librarian of the castle, who tells us that he has been there since "the castle was abandoned by both sides in World War Two," which sounds like a more interesting story than any of the three he tells! He also has a pet werewolf named Rover. The series will last just three issues.

In the 61st Issue of Star Spangled... You'll get sentimental and all that icky grown-up stuff. On Sale September 7th!

by Jack Seabrook

When Lizzie Borden's parents were brutally murdered in their home at Fall River, Massachusetts, on August 4, 1892, the case became one of the most celebrated in American history. Borden was tried and acquitted but her name is still associated with violence. She died in 1927 and many books have been written that studied the murders and proposed solutions to the crime.

One of those to tackle this subject was American mystery writer Lillian de la Torre (1902-1993). Born in Manhattan as Lillian McCue, de la Torre wrote many historical mystery stories, some featuring Dr. Sam Johnson, as well as a four-play series of crime thrillers with the omnibus title, Women Don't Hang. One of those four plays was Good-Bye, Miss Lizzie Borden, written in 1947 and performed onstage in 1948 in de la Torre's hometown of Colorado Springs, CO. The one-act play was published that year in the Baker's Plays series and it is similar to Marie Belloc Lowndes's What Really Happened, which was adapted for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and broadcast in 1963, in that both take true crimes and posit solutions in the guise of fiction. Ms. de la Torre's play takes place one year after the murders, on August 4, 1893, at the Borden home as Emma Borden, Lizzie's older sister, readies herself to leave home and encounters Maggie, an Irish maid, who is also taking her leave. They both want to escape Lizzie.

Joan Lorring as Emma Borden

Nellie Cutts arrives, a reporter hoping to write a newspaper story on the murders. Emma resists discussing the crime but Nellie pushes for details, eagerly copying down the famous rhyme when she hears it chanted by a child outside. Emma explains that Lizzie was acquitted because of the lack of blood on her clothes and Nellie questions why the fireplace flue was never searched for the murder weapon. Nellie begins to reenact the murder with a fireplace poker when Lizzie appears from upstairs and sharply dismisses the reporter. Emma has missed her train and Lizzie removes an axe wrapped in a bloody apron from a secret compartment in the fireplace. Emma realizes that her sister knew she was the killer and protected her.

Carmen Mathews as Lizzie Borden

Emma discusses the murders and fears that Lizzie will have her committed. She advances on Lizzie with the axe when Nellie returns and resumes her questioning. Emma leaves to catch her train, not realizing that it has already left. Nellie finds the murder weapon and suspects that Emma was the killer, so Lizzie confesses to the murder to protect her sister, threatening Nellie with a lawsuit if she publishes the story. Lizzie holds the axe menacingly and Nellie flees in fear. Lizzie hears the child chanting the rhyme about her outside the house and angrily buries the axe in a table.

Good-Bye, Miss Lizzie Borden was first adapted for television as part of the Actors Studio series. It was broadcast live on Sunday November 21, 1948, on ABC. This version featured Mary Wickes and, if it survives, I have not found it online.

Polly Rowles as Nell

The second adaptation was for radio, airing on Suspense on October 4, 1955. Like the prior TV version, it used the same title as the play. The radio script was written by Lillian de la Torre and does not follow the play word for word. The cast this time included Irene Tedrow, Paula Winslowe and Virginia Gregg; this episode may be listened to for free online here.

The final adaptation to date of de la Torre's play was written by Robert C. Dennis and was broadcast during the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents under the title, "The Older Sister." Broadcast on January 22, 1956, less than four months after the radio version, it was directed by Robert Stevens and starred Joan Lorring as Emma, Carmen Mathews as Lizzie and Polly Rowles as Nell.

Dennis's script follows the outline of the play closely, but he has rewritten the dialogue and moved events around within the scenes. The show opens with a little girl walking down the sidewalk chanting the famous rhyme; her clothes tell us that we're back in the nineteenth century and Stevens uses a smooth tracking shot to follow her progress. A woman chides her and tells her to "stop annoying Miss Lizzie," at which point the scene shifts to the inside of the Borden house, where virtually the entire show takes place, betraying its origin as a stage play.

A low angle shot of Lizzie

Hitchcock's daughter Pat sports an Irish accent as the maid and the story follows the play faithfully, with revised dialogue. Nell enters, dressed like a man in straw hat, suit and necktie, and her personality is brassy and bold. Lizzie appears on the stairs, strong and stern, and Stevens uses low angle shots on more than one occasion to make her appear powerful. In a slight change from the story, she removes only the axe from the hidden compartment, later admitting that she burned the apron in the fireplace.

The final shot shows Lizzie's isolation

Throughout the show, Emma walks a fine line between flighty and crazy, seeming fragile except for the moments when she threatens her sister with the axe. Near the end of the show, the camera travels briefly outside the stifling confines of the house into the street outside as Emma tells a passing woman goodbye. The wooden sidewalks and dirt street remind us of the Gay Nineties setting, yet the viewer realizes that Emma is insane and that her train has already left.

A rare moment outside

The show's final scene differs from that of the play. In the play, Lizzie angrily swings the axe down and buries it in a table; one can imagine the lights going out in the theater. In the TV show, she drops the ax on the table in a gesture of resignation and walks into the parlor, another low angle shot making her appear dominant, but then the camera slowly pulls back as she sits on the sofa and the screen fades to black. This ending emphasizes her loneliness and is not terribly effective, but Dennis presumably thought that the sudden ending of the play would not work on TV.

Emma menaces Lizzie

Robert Stevens's direction is rather straightforward in this episode, with none of the trick shots we have seen in some of his other episodes. In addition to the shots already mentioned, he does a nice job of staging the scenes between Emma and Lizzie, positioning the two women in different ways relative to each other onscreen to demonstrate the shifting balance of power.

Stevens (1920-1989) directed 49 episodes of the Hitchcock series; the last examined here was "Guilty Witness," with a teleplay by Robert C. Dennis.

Pat Hitchcock

Joan Lorring (1926-2014), who plays Emma and receives top billing, was born Mary Magdalene Ellis in Hong Kong and came to the U.S. with her family in the late 1930s as the war in the Far East began. She began as a child actress on radio and in film; her stage career began in 1950 and she started on TV in 1952. This was her only appearance on the Hitchcock show.

Playing Lizzie is Carmen Mathews (1911-1995), who was born in Philadelphia and appeared on TV from 1950 to 1992. She also made films, starting in 1960, appeared once on The Twilight Zone and was seen six times on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including Henry Slesar's "The Kerry Blue."

The brassy reporter is played by Polly Rowles (1914-2001), who was in movies from 1936 to 1982 and on TV from 1951 to 1982. She was also in many Broadway shows from 1937 to 1983. This was her only appearance on the Hitchcock series; her most famous role came in the 1980s, when she played Inspector 12 on a series of TV commercials for Hanes underwear.

Finally, Patricia Hitchcock (1928- ) plays Margaret, the Irish maid. She appeared in three of her father's films and ten episodes of his TV series, including "The Glass Eye" and "The Cuckoo Clock."

"The Older Sister" is available on DVD here or may be watched for free online here.

Sources:
Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville: MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

Irv Novick

All American Men of War 103

"Battle Ship--Battle Heart!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Dot on the Spot!"
Story by Ed Herron
Art by Irv Novick

Peter: Lt. Johnny Cloud leads an attack against a formation of enemy bombers, wiping out most of them in no time. The final Nazi lowers his wheels, the sign that he's surrendering, and he's escorted to the base to be questioned. The next day, Johnny is teaching a newbie some air tricks when the pair happen upon and are attacked by a squadron of German fighter planes. The rookie is shot down (all the while refusing to surrender) and Johnny's jet is damaged. In the melee, Cloud's wheels lower and the Ratzis lay off. They all land and Cloud explains the misunderstanding. Good Germans that they are, they allow our hero to take to the skies to die a hero. Johnny has a few more tricks up his bomber jacket sleeve and lives to take part in another adventure next issue.

"Battle Ship..."

"Battle Ship--Battle Heart!" is an exciting tale but (like my similar complaint last issue) it always seems as though most of Johnny Cloud's adventures are based on coincidences or well-timed memories. It's not ten minutes after he tells his squadron that they've never had a member drop their wheels that his equipment fails and... what should happen? Kubert's art, as always, is majestic and it's nice to see Joe get off the battle field and choreograph air battles now and then.

Jack: Despite some over the top writing by Kanigher, who describes enemy planes carrying bombs as "iron-crossed buzzards" with "eggs of death," this is a thriller. I'm a sucker for tales where men in battle suddenly decide to become civilized and adhere to unwritten codes of combat. When we saw the flashback to Johnny's youth, I thought he was in for a lesson on the wisdom of surrender, but no--he sticks to his guns, watches his young colleague perish, and barely escapes with his own life. I would have let my wheels down and surrendered. Odd that the big scene on the cover and splash page barely matters by the end of the story.

"... Battle Heart!"

Peter: A former carnival performer gets into trouble when he discovers a Nazi-occupied big top in France. With daredevil stunts and hair-trigger shooting, our hero saves the day. Absolutely bottom of the barrel, "Dot on the Spot" takes two of the most well-worn cliches of the genre (the put-upon athlete who excels when it's needed and the ham-fisted catch phrase) and grinds them right down into our foreheads. At one point, the carny man discovers a tank inside a tiger's cage; no explanation how it got there and why the Nazis would be dumb enough to put a tank in a cage, but then war is crazy.

You'll believe a man can trampoline and machine gun at the same time!

Jack: Sporting some classic Novick art, I didn't think "Dot on the Spot!" was that bad. The circus setting is unusual but you're right about the overused catch phrase.

No, really, there's a good explanation for this!

Joe Kubert

Our Army at War 143

"Easy's T.N.T. Crop!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Sandbox Sub!"
Story by Kin Platt
Art by Jack Abel

Jack: Back when Easy Co. was being shipped out to North Africa, they had a new recruit nicknamed Farmer Boy who was determined to make something grow, even if it was just a little sprout in a pot. Ignoring "Easy's T.N.T. Crop!" that constantly exploded around him, he tended his plant even though it was shot down time and again.

He meets his end fighting a Nazi tank in the desert and Rock and the rest of Easy Co. bury his body in the sand. It seems that his decaying corpse provides the missing fertilizer, for a flower grows on the spot and Easy Co. defends that flower from enemy attack. Kanigher and Kubert reach a bit farther than usual in this classic story, using Farmer Boy and his determination not to let the enemy destroy growing things as a metaphor for the fight to uphold American values. For me, it works, and the art is as good as it gets.


Peter: Though Kubert's art is magnifico and I should find this story inspirational (that is the point, boys and girls), I actually find it rather tedious in its simple message and ho-hum action scenes. I find it unbelievable that the boys would lay their lives down (and risk those of their comrades) for a flower (even one that belonged to a fallen G.I.).

Jack: On the high school football team, Harvey always played second fiddle to Rogers. In wartime, sub commander Harvey again finds himself replaced by Rogers. When a tornado hits off the North African coast, the ship becomes a "Sandbox Sub!" after it is tossed ashore. A Nazi plane attacks and wounds Rogers, so Harvey grabs the gun and shoots it down. A tank attacks, and Harvey fires torpedoes until an underground channel provides a water source and they find their target. Finally, a battleship attacks from the water and Harvey manages to get the sub back into the drink by means of an ancient canal that has reopened in the desert. Harvey blows away the destroyer and finally earns praise from Rogers. Air, land and sea battles and all from a sub! Not a bad little back of the book story.


Peter: Oh no, not the old "disgraced athlete shows 'em who's boss" warhorse again. We just got a variation of that in this month's All American, for Pete's sake! Things may have been more interesting if poor Harvey had pulled his service revolver and put a cap in the forehead of the mocking Rogers. Alas.


Peter: An interesting Letters Page (Sgt. Rock's Combat Corner) this issue. Rather than print the usual letters about the firing pins of a M-16 or the width of the luggage rack on a Panzer VI, editor Kanigher prints only one bit of correspondence. Reader Rick Wood is allowed an entire page to critique Our Army at War issues 125-128. Good stuff, and a direction I hope Combat Corner heads into in the future.

The Long-Awaited Return of Frank Robbins! In the Long-Awaited 61st Issue of Do You Dare Enter? On Sale Sept. 14th!

Luis Dominguez

Unexpected 166

"The Evil Eyes of Night"
Story by Al Case (Murray Boltinoff)
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Point of Death"
Story Uncredited
Art by Frank Redondo

"Spirit, Why Do You Haunt Me?"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Franc Reyes

Jack: Young Chris, the gardener's son, tests out his new sleeping bag in a backyard tent but when "The Evil Eyes of Night" scare him he runs back to the main house, where he witnesses a strange scene. Peter, the ne'er do well son of the late, wealthy man who owned the house, holds a tramp at gunpoint and forces him to open the house safe. Peter's elderly stepmother comes in by wheelchair and Peter threatens to kill both the tramp and young Chris. The tramp tries a gun jump and, in the melee, a suit of armor falls over, revealing the decaying corpse of Peter's stepfather, whom he had killed and stuffed in the suit. The old lady rams Peter with her wheelchair and, when the tramp grabs an axe from the dead knight, Peter runs outside. A gunshot follows, and the trio finds Peter dead, having tripped over Chris's tent rope and accidentally shot himself.

Go, Granny, Go!

For once, that was Unexpected! Why doesn't Chris go to his father in the gardener's cottage when he awakens in the night? Why didn't anyone notice the stench of a decaying corpse in the middle of the room? Does a suit of armor hold in the smell ("how long do you stay fresh in that can?" asked the Cowardly Lion of the Tin Man)? How much momentum can a little old lady get in a wheelchair over the course of a few feet? The revelation of the corpse in the suit of armor surprised me, but the surprises in the rest of this tale were more of the dopey variety.

Peter: This reads like two stories sewn together, with a rare rush job by Yandoc. Boltinoff can't seem to figure out if his Charlie Ames is a scared little kid ("I--I never s-saw a dead man before..") or one speaking way beyond his vocabulary ("...it was my tent... and it seemed to reach out like a vengeful thing..."). That classic cover, by the way, evokes more fear in its one image than "The Evil Eyes..." can muster in its bloated eight pages.

Mother is strangely delighted!

Jack: Cora's mother pays a surprise visit to her daughter but doesn't even try to hide her dislike for her son-in-law, Herbert, mocking his hobby of collecting butterflies. Cora explains that Herbert surprised a thief in his study the night before. The thief stabbed and killed Herbert, so now someone has pinned Herbert to the wall in the midst of his collection of butterflies. "The Point of Death" demonstrates that, at least in this instance, Frank Redondo couldn't hold a candle to his brother Nestor.

Peter: What an idiotic waste of paper. So, was the thief/murderer a butterfly man or simply a burglar who took the time, after killing Herbert, to pin his victim on the wall? Or... are we supposed to believe that his wife, with that last panel smirk as evidence, killed her husband and then had the strength to lift him up onto the wall? We've had more than our fill of obfuscated stories in this journey (deliberate and otherwise) but this must win the First Prize Trophy, no?

Not the best place to build a home.

Jack: Blair blames phony faith-healer Sarki for the death of his wife Wilma and drives through the night to kill the man when the brakes on his car fail and he suffers a fatal crash. An ambulance crew revives him but he discovers that his ghost escaped from his body while he was dead. The ghost saves his life from malpractice in the hospital yet he asks, "Spirit, Why Do You Haunt Me?" and heads to Sarki's house to confess and apologize. Sarki reveals that he was the one who tried to kill Blair by tampering with his brakes and messing with his medication. Suddenly, Blair's ghost appears, grabs Sarki, crashes through a window, and makes him plummet to his death. Excellent art by Franc Reyes highlights this story, which is about as good as it gets in Unexpected.

Peter: Within the muddle of this weird ghost story is a pretty good tale but, as is, it leaves us with too many questions. Who was the ghost with Blair's face? How did Sarki know that Blair was coming to their meeting place to kill him? Franc Reyes is yet another of the talented Filipino artists DC brought over to punch up their titles, with Reyes also contributing mightily to Joe Kubert's Tarzan at about the same time this issue hit the stands. His art for "Spirit, Why Do You Haunt Me?" is the standout of the issue. There's a tidbit on the letters page hyping William Castle's proposed next thriller, Damon, about a kid who can read minds and kill plants with his touch (even though that sounds like an Unexpected tale, it was actually based on the novel by C. Terry Cline, Jr.). That movie never materialized but Castle thrilled us all with Bug! that summer of 1975. Lost in the tidal wave created by Jaws, Bug! was Castle's last film.

Michael W. Kaluta

The House of Mystery 233

"Cake!"
Story by Michael Fleisher and Russell Carley
Art by Frank Robbins

"It's Hell!"
Story by John Albano
Art by Ruben Sosa

Peter: Tired of getting by on a waiter's salary, Frank is ready for a big score. He convinces his girl friend, the luscious stripper Myrna, that she won't ever have to jump out of a "Cake!" for sleazy old men again if she'll just come in on the plan with him. Together they go up to the empty room of the wealthy old socialite Virginia Van Stanton but, while Myrna stands guard, the old biddy comes back for her umbrella and Frank has to silence her. The couple takes the jewelry and then goes back to work as if nothing ever happened. Unfortunately for Frank, Van Stanton managed to rip his employee badge off during their struggle and the cops are on to him. Just as Frank helps Myrna into a cake, the cops arrive and chase him through the halls, shooting him dead. In a colossal case of mistaken identity, poor Myrna is wheeled into a housewares convention and her cake is sliced into thirty pieces.

Bask in Robbins' dessert!

Not one of Mike Fleisher's shining moments. Oh, the customary dismemberment is present but the build-up is nothing more than a weak heist caper. Frank Robbins, though, seems to be at the top of his game. Other than one panel where Frank holds Myrna's chin with his hand in an impossible angle, we're spared the usual rubbery limbs and sweaty foreheads. It's about the most subdued we've ever seen Robbins.

Jack: Too bad Mike Kaluta didn't illustrate this one! His cover is fabulous. I thought the story was outstanding and the art, as you point out, is about as good as it gets from Robbins. The concluding "wham" of the automatic cake cutter is just brutal. If this were a pre-code comic, we might see blood pouring out of the sides of the cake.

Just you try this arm exercise!

Peter: Tired of living with the perfect wife, Jerome Ellison hires a warlock to conjure demons to dispose of his wife, Margaret. When the deed is done, Jerome calls the police and cops to the murder, claiming he only had her killed so that he wouldn't have to spend eternity with her in Heaven. Bad news comes quick for Jerome though when the police find Margaret's diary, wherein she confesses to having killed her first husband. Now Jerome realizes if his wife is going to go anywhere, "It's Hell!" Not a bad story at all, although Jerome's motives are a stretch... or are they? Ruben Sosa's graphics are perfect for the subject matter, nicely stark. Not detailed like Alfredo, but not scratchy like Calnan. Somewhere right down the middle; his work reminds me of that of the Spanish artists who worked for Warren in the 1970s like Jose Bea and Felix Mas. Trivia: The January 1975 issue of The Comic Reader announced that Steve Ditko and Wally Wood had finished stories for The House of Mystery. While Ditko's stories did indeed make it into the House, Wood's story will be shuffled over to Weird Mystery. Here's hoping the masters still had it.

Ernie Chan

The House of Secrets 133

"The Night of the Leopard Goddess"
Story by Michael Fleisher and Russell Carley
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"Portraits of Death"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by Ernie Chan and Bill Draut

Peter: Cold-hearted hunter Sheldon Hartley is out to bag a leopard in India when he stumbles upon the temple of the Leopard Men. Upon the altar is a statue of the leopard goddess complete with embedded  ruby. Hartley goes slightly mad and cuts the gem out of the statue but his escape is blocked by several natives. No problem to a man with a firearm. Back in the States, Hartley has added the ruby to his vast collection of rarities in his huge mansion and his amazing exploits have drawn the attention of Wide World Magazine. A gorgeous reporter by the name of Phyllis Pardus is dispatched to learn everything about Hartley's exploits and collection. Sheldon becomes wary of the girl, though, and phones World Wide and receives confirmation that Phyllis is not on their payroll. The big-game hunter decides to play along and invites Phyllis to stay the night. Later that evening, Hartley catches the girl stealing the ruby but, when she turns to face him, the truth comes out: Phyllis Pardus is the Leopard Goddess! She strikes a bargain with her enemy: she'll take the ruby and he can keep a huge diamond she's brought along. Sheldon happily agrees but then regrets his decision when the Goddess embeds the gem in his forehead.

Even though it's lower-tier Michael Fleisher, it's still better than just about any story this month. Sure, its foundation is built on bits from several stories already published (and the main protagonist is a member of that very exclusive society, the Heartless Hunters) but "The Night of the Leopard Goddess" succeeds because of its sick humor and Ruben Yandoc's artwork. A tad bittersweet for me, though, since this would have undoubtedly been drawn by Alfredo Alcala had he still been in the DC Mystery Bullpen. I love how, even though the Goddess grows a really big leopard head, she retains those incredible breasts.

Jack: And her luxurious auburn hair! Terrible from start to finish, with run of the mill art and p-perhaps the w-worst (heh heh) story we've seen from Fleisher. The hunter's behavior is so over-the-top obnoxious that it almost seems like a spoof. He reminds me of Donald Trump in the way he arrogantly brags about his wealth and success. Fleisher overuses parenthetical remarks (puff puff) and s-s-stuttering characters to the point that they almost sound like our host, Abel! Just awful.

Peter: Painter Andre Varney has only two loves: his work and his model, Marie. Unknown to Andre, Marie's got a little side job going with Andre's agent, Charles Lescaux: the pair are selling Andre's work for exorbitant prices and only paying the artist pennies on the dollar. One day, at the studio, Marie notices a morbid painting depicting a deadly lightning strike, a scene played out over the morning's newspaper. When pressed about the painting, Andre admits he has no idea where the muse came from for the picture he just painted. The creepy coincidences continue and Marie gets cold feet; she wants out. Charles is convinced that Varney is on to them and murders him. When the conniving con artists get back to the art studio, they find newly painted works, including one of Marie with a dagger in her heart. When she tries to destroy the obscenity, she accidentally stabs herself, just as depicted in the painting. The police arrive but they'll have none of Charles's talk of Marie's suicide. The murderer is resigned to the fate depicted in the last painting Andre worked on: Charles being led to the guillotine.


Though it's a bit long and padded, "Portraits of Death" has a clever twist ending, the kind Jack Oleck became known for. The art, however, is pretty awful. We've seen Ernie Chua (Chan) do much better work than this so it might be chalked up to his inker, Bill Draut. Having said that... check out that panel below where either Andre's got a huge head or Charles has come equipped with a garden spade.

Luis Dominguez

The Witching Hour 56

"What Drove Him Bats?"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Fred Carrillo

"Who Rides with Death!"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Death of an Iron Lady"
Story by Carl Wessler
Art Uncredited

Jack: Ignoring the warnings of local villagers, a spelunker heads into a cave and almost immediately happens upon a coffin containing the corpse of Barocka, a vampire who has been killed by a stake through the heart. Above him hangs a prism in the shape of a giant bat, through which rays of light shine across the spectrum. When the spelunker is frightened by a real bat, he walks into the beams of light and awakens later to find himself transformed into a vampire bat. "What Drove Him Bats?" he wonders as he flies off.

Step 1 of turning into a vampire bat

Coming upon some villagers gathered around the body of a man who has been killed by a vampire, he barely escapes their thrown stones and flies off to Barocka's castle, hoping to find some answers. A shadowy figure inside cries for help, the villagers run to his aid, and our hero knocks a villager into the shadowy figure, causing a stake to be driven through his heart. The figure changes into a bat as it does and the spelunker resumes human form. Why? I have absolutely no idea. I read that George Kashdan was a great guy but plotting was not his strong suit.

Yikes!

Peter: The 56th issue of The Witching Hour looks as though it will be just as bad as the previous 55 if the lead-off story is any indication. Our spelunker sure accepts his fate (transforming into a bat) pretty quickly without much of a shock.

Jack: Puny Mort Moore sees red when big Buhl Starke gives sexy waitress Angie Hoyt a ride on his motorbike after her shift at the diner. Mort hops on his scooter and chases Buhl right off a cliff. Angie hops on the back of Mort's scooter and checks Buhl off her list. The next name is Mort's. You see, Angie is DEATH! Surprise! And all that in only four pages of "Who Rides With Death!"

Peter: This could be a front-runner for Worst Script of the Year. It makes no sense whatsoever and the "twist" seems randomly tacked-on. Yandoc's pretty panels are wasted.

Cool kitten, indeed!

Jack: Pablo Diez has created a robot named Linda who can type and find her way anywhere. Russian spy Ivan Rujakov pays $1,000,000 to rent her, but Diez says not to send her out at night or in the cold. So what does Ivan do? He sends her out at night and in the cold to steal defense secrets from the Pentagon. When she gets back, Diez is furious that the cold ruined her circuits and he murders Ivan. Turns out Diez was a robot, too, who built himself a female companion and now has to start from scratch. "The Death of an Iron Lady" concludes an absolutely terrible issue of The Witching Hour. Cynthia is at her grooviest, though, which is either grating or amusing, depending on your feelings for Cynthia.

Peter: This one's so twisted and confusing, Cynthia has to pop up at the climax to give us a not-all-that-sensible expository. I suspected Paul was a robot the whole time but I do have to admit that it's a clever curve ball that he himself was created by another robot. At least, I thought it was clever once I worked it out.

Ernie Chan

Weird Mystery Tales 20

"The Friedman's Monster"
Story by Mal Warwick
Art by Ruben Yandoc

"The Veil of Death"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Teny Henson

"Baker's Dozen!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Fred Carrillo

Peter: While their teenage children grow ever more rebellious and dangerous, the Friedmans must deal with the monster they've kept locked away in their clear for years. "The Friedman's (sic) Monster" (aka Ailaumo, the Enforcer) escapes from his dungeon to remind the couple that they themselves were rebels when they were young and nearly murdered a man but got their lives back on track. Now, the monster tells Lara and Will that he must split himself in half and sit upon their shoulders forever more. Meanwhile, across town, the spoiled rotten Friedman kids are creating havoc when Eomaiku, the Reminders, burst in to let the kids know there are consequences to their actions just as the police enter and take the kids in custody.

Back at home, the officers tell the Friedmans that their children have one more chance and then the book will be thrown at them. The suddenly penitent teenagers tell their parents they've learned their lesson and a happy ending is on the horizon. Newcomer Mal Warwick must have taken home a stack of DC mystery funny books and thought there were way too many vampires and nasty explorers and decided he'd make a statement instead. Mal should have stuck to the beasties instead of serving up this lukewarm platter of Bill Mantlo-esque dysfunction. I challenge you not to roll your eyes and groan at that final panel (below).

Jack: Let's give Mal some credit for trying to do something different! This is more adult in theme than we're used to. I did a bit of online searching and, while Mal Warwick only has a handful of credits in DC horror comics around this time, he seems to have gone on to a successful career as an "author, impact investor and activist" who seems to have written a lot of business books and who has been active in fundraising and social causes. He has not followed the typical path of a funny book writer!

Peter: Doctors remove a membrane covering Baby Janet's eyes and the newborn can see the Grim Reaper just outside the operating room window. When she leaves the hospital with her parents, the baby once again sees Death and the car skids in the snow and explodes. Baby Janet is thrown from the wreckage and later raised by her aunt and uncle. Fifteen years later, the now teenaged Janet sees the Reaper again, this time in one of her uncle's bottled ships. Later that day, out on the sea with her uncle, a tidal wave hits the boat and Janet sinks to the bottom of the sea. We learn that the girl's entire life had been lived in the blink of an eye and she had actually died shortly after the doctor had operated. A rare winner from Mr. Kanigher, "The Veil of Death" succeeds in fooling the reader right up to the twist ending, which I never saw coming. I'm literally floored by how well this story worked considering the usually lazy, cliched fare RK served up in the mystery titles. Also outstanding are the visuals by Filipino artist Tenny Henson, a name we won't see too many times on our journey. His depiction of death catching the sinking Janet in his hands is almost dream-like. This one will come in high on the Year-End Report.

It's a bomb, baby!

Peter: Felix Tarte, baker, whips up a special order each week for two very special customers. Dressed as hippies, the pair always buy a "Baker's Dozen" of Felix's rye bread and pay five thousand cash. On this occasion, Felix raises the possibility that they may not be paying enough for his baked goods and the two threaten the baker with bodily harm. Once they've driven away and parked, we see that the rolls are filled with counterfeit bills. Something's rotten in the Felix Tarte Bakery! Tarte buys a gun and, the next time the flower children show up, draws a line in the flour. No more freebies! Unfortunately for Felix (and half the town, as it turns out), the hippies are armed as well and they blast the baker, his daughter, and anyone who gets in their way. Outside of town, the dastardly duo stop the car for a look-see at the rolls and discover that Felix had planned ahead: the rolls are filled with explosives.

And... just like that, Bob Kanigher reminds us that he's completely out of touch with not only the mystery genre but maybe the whole world outside his DC office window as well. By 1975, it was tough to see hippies with flower power slogans on their vests anywhere on the street (outside of the Haight, of course). If Felix the Baker was going to go to the trouble of printing off counterfeit bills in his shop, wouldn't he aim a little higher than two stoners in a VW bug? I love how Bob, in his infinite hipness, punctuates everything the couple says with the word, "Baby."

Jack: Is this the same Fred Carrillo who drew the terrible "What Drove Him Bats?" in this month's Witching Hour? The story is nothing special, I grant you, but Carrillo's art looks almost like the work of Adams/Giordano in spots. Perhaps Mr. Giordano inked it?

Luis Domiguez

Ghosts 40

"The Nightmare That Haunted the World"
Story Uncredited
Art by John Calnan

"No Grave Can Hold Me!"
"Galleon of Death"
"Mission Supernatural!"
(reprinted from Ghosts #2, December 1971)

"The Ghost Who Died Twice"
Story Uncredited
Art by Buddy Gernale

"The Roaring Coffin"
Story Uncredited
Art by Rudy Florese

"Eyes From Another World"
Story Uncredited
Art by John Calnan

"The Screaming Skulls"
(reprinted from Ghosts #3, February 1972)

"The Hands From the Grave!"
(reprinted from Ghosts #5, June 1972)

"Nightmare"

Jack: Since childhood, Mary Godwin has been haunted by terrible dreams. She grows up, marries Percy Shelley, and writes Frankenstein, "The Nightmare That Haunted the World." The act of writing the novel allows her to take control of her inner demons, but this predictable story does nothing to scare or entertain readers of Ghosts!

Peter: Not bad for this sort of thing. I'd not heard this version of events before (that's a bit of sarcasm). I'm going to assume that, even though it's listed as "Uncredited," this is the work of old Ghosts standby scribe, Leo Dorfman. It's got that "semi-true story" vibe to it. The John Calnan art is customarily dreadful no matter what Jack may tell you.

Jack: Moving to Kansas seemed like such a good idea for the Polansky family until an old hag appeared at the door of their new home to warn them that death will come for them if they don't get out now. The troubles begin to mount when Dad is killed in a car crash on his way to work. Mom soldiers on, determined to stay in the (rented) house, despite a series of terrors such as her son nearly drowning, a ghost opening the bedroom door, and so on. Mom seeks out the old hag but finds her dead, so helpful Dr. Brodie explains that her house is haunted by an insane young man who hanged himself.

Not a good day!

But does she take her kids and leave? No way! That night, when smoke fills the house, she and the kids witness a strange sight: Dad's ghost fighting and driving away the ghost of the hanged man. From then on, all is well, and Junior comments that it's like Dad was "The Ghost Who Died Twice." I'm not sure it makes much sense that Dad's ghost was the one terrorizing them all along in order to scare them away from the place, but that's the conclusion reached by Mom.

Peter: Pulp writing at its worst. Most captions are punctuated with "then there was a premonition of evil" or "...only the crone could foresee the dread future..." (my favorite, though, is the superfluous "... if the Polansky family could've foreseen the dread portent"). I have no idea what's happening at the climax but, please, don't take the time to explain it to me, Jack... oh, too late.

Atmospheric!

Jack: John Luther Jones is riding along comfortably on a train when he is joined by Lucius Tod, coffin salesman. Jones tells Tod he's not interested and the train speeds on through the stormy night. As it makes its way toward a rickety old bridge over a swollen stream, a ghostly train starts up from the other direction. "The Roaring Coffin" is an old iron horse that speeds toward the bridge as well, guided by the ghost of John Luther Jones and reaching the switch just in time to prevent the real train from crossing the bridge as it collapses. Jones reveals that he's really the ghost of Casey Jones and Tod reveals that he is Death. Jones made sure that another train accident did not occur on the 50th anniversary of his death. I had to go to Wikipedia to solve this one. I thought Casey Jones was a Grateful Dead song. It seems he was a real person with a lot of interesting exploits who died in a train crash. My history classes left him out!

Trust Sammy!

Peter: These dopey Ghosts stories used to be so easy to decipher. Now we get "Uncredited" writers who try to make more out of what isn't there, leaving us poor readers to scratch our heads and curse.

Jack: Are flying saucers piloted by beings who watch us with "Eyes From Another World"? According to such celebrities as Sammy Davis, Jr., Muhammad Ali and Arthur Godfrey they are!

Peter: More interesting, to me at least, is the fact that Ghosts #40 suddenly switched from a regular quarter book to the double-sized fifty cent format for one issue only in July 1975. Only four DC titles made this switch (the other three being Action, Brave and the Bold, and The Superman Family) that month but DC tinkered with their experiment for several months afterward with titles such as The Batman Family, Kamandi, and Tarzan before settling into their 80-page dollar comic format in 1977.

Jack: A quick review of DC covers from January 1975 through July 1975 shows that a lot was changing with cover prices and page counts. In January, some DC comics were still 20 cents while others were 25 cents, and the 100-pagers still came in at 60 cents. By February, 20 cent comics were a thing of the past and March saw the first of the 68-page, 50 cent giant comics, while the 100-pagers hung on through April. In May, June and July, DC issued 10 68-page giants, though the only one with more than one issue at this size in this time frame was Superman Family, which was also the only title to move from 100-pagers straight to 68-pagers and stay that way.

Ernie Chan

Secrets of Haunted House 2

"A Dead Man"
Story by Jack Oleck
Art by E.R. Cruz

"Two Can Play at Treachery"
Story by George Kashdan
Art by Bill Draut

"Burn Witch, Burn!"
Story by Michael Pellowski and Robert Kanigher
Art by Tony DeZuniga

Peter: Hardened convict Kehoe has sworn to his warden that no prison walls will hold him, so the law might just as well strike him down now. The warden tells Kehoe he abhors violence and, if he can help it, Kehoe will live a long, if not fruitful, life behind prison bars. Kehoe does indeed escape but when he gets to a nearby town, he senses something's up. No one in the town will acknowledge him. Slowly, but surely, the man convinces himself that the guards didn't miss when he went over the wall and, in actuality, he's "A Dead Man." For proof, he heads back to the prison and bangs on the door. The warden and his men cheerfully open up and take the convict back into custody. Relief turns to bewilderment for the distraught Kehoe when the warden explains that he told the residents of the neighboring town to ignore the escapee should he show up, knowing the man's imagination would get the better of him and send him back from whence he came. I've read some pretty far-fetched tales in these pages... oh, I've used that one before. By page two, you'll know exactly... whoops, that one too! Let's just say that Jack Oleck was on cruise control that day (yes, I know, another of my favorites) and remember all the classics he did give us. Next!

Well, that really wouldn't be all that hard, would it?

Jack: I was struck by the prison uniforms with horizontal stripes and had to consult Wikipedia again. It seems black and white uniforms with horizontal stripes were exactly what an inmate would've work in in this period in the Old West. Nice work by E.R. Cruz in this story; too bad the writing is so lame and derivative.