JOE BESSER SCIENCE FICTION DOUBLE FEATURE by Dave Goode

If you were to take a poll of 3 Stooges fans on who their least favorite member of the comedy team was odds were most would name Joe Besser. In my case it would be Joe DeRita. Though I wasn't a big fan of Besser as a "Stooge" I did like him as Stinky on the Abbott & Costello television show. And there were two Three Stooges' shorts that Besser appeared in that I did like. SPACE SHIP SAPPY and OUTER SPACE JITTERS both from 1957. Besser doesn't really bring anything special to the table. But in retrospect I don't think either one of these parodies of sci-fi pulp would work as well with anyone else playing the third Stooge. 

SPACE SHIP SAPPY was produced and directed by Jules White and written by his brother Jack White. The story has Moe , Larry and Joe assisting Prof. A.K. Rimple and his daughter played by Benny Rubin and Doreen Woodbury on a mission into space. Landing on the planet Sunev (Venus spelled backwards) and the Stooges meet up with three Amazons played by Lorraine Crawford, Harriette Tarler and Marilyn Harold.

  

The women turn out to be cannibalistic vampires. But just before they're going to suck the blood from our heroes a giant lizard appears, the women run off and the Stooges beat a hasty retreat back to Prof. Rimple's space ship and escape back to Earth.The Stooges had been relating this story to a gathering of the " Liars Club " who present them an award for being the greatest liars in the world.

The second movie OUTER SPACE JITTERS  (also directed and written by the White brothers)  finds the Stooges working as assistants to Prof.Jones played by Emil Sitka and arriving on the planet Sunev. Why waste a good gag. Or a lame one for that matter. Sunev's leader played by Gene Roth is planning on invading Earth with an army of prehistoric zombies.

We only get to see one of these monsters. And it's played played by Dan Blocker of BONANZA fame. Hey. If Marshall Matt Dillion can play a giant carrot from outer space than Hoss Cartwright can play a prehistoric zombie.There is more flirting with sexy aliens played by Diana Darrin , Harriette Tarler and Arline Hunter. The great Phillip Van Zandt is along for the ride as a Sunev military leader the High Mucky Muck. The Stooges free Prof. Jones defeat the zombie and save the Earth.

As a kid I found both of these shorts entertaining and enjoyable. Later I would realize that they were comedic takes on the type of stories that you would find in the pages of science fiction pulp magazines.

CLASH OF THE TITANS by Dave Goode

Not to be confused with SAMSON AND HIS MIGHTY CHALLENGE (1964) , which it quite often is , HERCULES ,SAMSON AND ULYSSES is a favorite of fans of the sinew & sandal genre. But don't let that title fool you. This is the Hercules and Samson show. Ulysses is little more than a spear carrier in this flick. It's the two legendary strongmen that carry the movie.

KIRK MORRIS

Not  exactly an official sequel to HERCULES (1957) and HERCULES
UNCHAINED (1959). But all three were directed by Pietro Francisi who also had a hand in the writing of the screenplays. And the actors all seem to be playing characters as presented in those two movies with Kirk Morris replacing Steve Reeves as Hercules. But seriously...who can stand in for Steve Reeves?

ILOOSH KHOSHUE

Aside from Morris you have Iloosh Khoshue under the name Richard Lloyd portraying the Biblical hero Samson.

LIANA ORFEI

And there is beautiful Liana Orfei as the seductive Delilah. A veteran of the genre Orfei is perfect as the woman whose name has become synonymous with betrayal. Interestingly enough her cousin, Moira Orfei, would essay the role a year later in SAMSON AND HIS MIGHTY CHALLENGE.

production still from the film

The story has Hercules and Ulysses battling a sea monster. Caught in a storm after killing the beast they are thrown off course and end up in Judea. There Hercules is mistaken by the Philistines for their enemy Samson after he kills a lion with his bare hands. The two strongmen are tricked into battling each other before teaming to fight the common enemy.

The highlight of this flick is the clash between Hercules and Samson as the two heroes throw each other through walls, throw boulders at each other and bend iron bars around each other. For those of us in a pre-CGI world this was as close as we really got to two super-humans duking it out. I still like it more than the clash of the Kryptonians in SUPERMAN II.

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Mightier Than The Mastodon! Swifter Than The Cheetah by Dave Goode

During the Silver Age of Comics my favorite Tarzan imitation was Marvel Comics' Ka-Zar. There was a Ka-Zar who appeared in a pulp magazine of the same name published by Martin Goodman's Manvis Publishing for three issues. October 1936 , January 1937 and June 1937. In 1939 the Ka-Zar character was adapted to the comic book page for Timely Comics also published by Martin Goodman. And he made his first comic book appearance in Marvel Comics No.1 alongside the original Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner. The character like the one that Buster Crabbe played in the movie KING OF THE JUNGLE (1933) was raised by lions and not apes.

 

The Silver Age Ka-Zar was a pretty one-note character (as were most Tarzan imitators). He premiered in X-MEN No.10 (March ,1965) and was more or less a Tarzan ala' Weissmuller in the Savage Land, a Pellucidar or Pal-Ul-Don type of lost world beneath Antarctica. Where Tarzan had his golden lion Jad-bal-ja , Ka-Zar had a pet sabretooth tiger Zabu. So if you liked Tarzan vs. Dinosaur stories you might think Ka-Zar was pretty cool. I myself especially liked when he would cut loose against an enemy while exclaiming "Mightier than the Mastodon! Swifter than the Cheetah! Mighty is Ka-Zar, Lord of the Jungle!" or some variation of that phrase.

Ka-Zar would guest star in Daredevil, Spider - Man, and The Hulk. And would get his own features in Astonishing Tales and Savage Tales. He would eventually receive a comic book title of his own. All of these titles were eventually canceled. As I said before Ka-Zar was pretty much a one-note character. And just how many times could you watch a television show about a jungle hero fight a dinosaur before you changed the channel? But then something remarkable happened with the premiere of the comic book KA-ZAR, THE SAVAGE (April 1981).

 

In KA-ZAR,THE SAVAGE No.1 we're introduced to a Ka-Zar that we've never seen before. One who is less "savage". Like Tarzan, Marvel's jungle king was an English lord who grew up in the wilds. Here he's been Americanized to the point that he resembles Ron Ely's Tarzan from the 1960s television series. Only wittier. He and Shanna, the She-Devil (Marvel's answer to Sheena of the Jungle) banter like William Powell and Myrna Loy in THE THIN MAN. This was a much more fun take on the character. And a much better read. The only problem I had with the new take on the character was how to reconcile it with what came before.

I had my own theory. Unlike Tarzan, Ka-Zar didn't come to the Savage Land as a baby. He was a preteen. One who probably watched Weissmuller, Lex Barker, and Gordon Scott movies. He might have read comic books starring Kaanga, Ki-Gor and Thun'Da. In short he was playing a role. Acting out how he thought a "King of the Jungle" would act.

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And now...the Golden Adonis!

For old school comic fans who dig a giant t-rex...

And for younger fans who prefer their

t-rex size to be a more accurate size...

You Would Think This Would Have Been A Given by Dave Goode

A couple of years back I came across the image of a Batman comic from Brazil with a photo cover. Interestingly enough though the comic was from the Batmania era of the 1960s, the actors were from the 1949 serial. Lyle Talbot as Commissioner Gordon, Robert Lowery as Batman and Johnny Duncan as Robin the Boy Wonder. I recently saw the image again on Facebook and it made me think of something I used to wonder about in my youth. Why exactly DC didn't use the occasional photo cover for their Superman , Batman and Wonder Woman titles ?

Imagine a Superman comic book cover during the 50s featuring George Reeves as the Man of Steel. Or during the 70s with Christopher Reeve.















Or how about one with Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman.

But what really made the most sense would have been ones featuring Adam West as the "caped crusader" and Burt Ward as the "Boy Wonder". The folks at DC could have used production stills from the show. Or better still they could have had the actors from the show who played the various Bat - Villains pose for staged photos with Adam and Burt.







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THE ATLAS HEROES OF THE ATOMIC AGE by Dave Goode

Back when I was ten I laid out a quarter for Marvel Super-Heroes No.12 (Dec.1967). A new character named Captain Marvel was making his much hyped debut in it. The name "Captain Marvel" was magic to a comic fan even if this version had nothing to do with the wizard Shazam. In this origin written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Gene Colon, the reader was introduced to a science fiction based superhero. In an interesting twist he was a spy from an alien race called the Kree named Captain Mar-Vell. Some of his actions however led humanity to believe he was a hero which of course he would eventually become. And his name pronounced in English sounded like " Marvel ". The story was continued in the next issue which I came back for. But I stayed for the other features. Reprinted stories from the fabulous 50s when Marvel was known as Atlas Comics featuring Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, and the original android Human Torch. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess I was a retro kind of guy even back then before I had any idea what retro meant. I thought the art on those stories looked pretty cool if a little bit archaic. The Captain America stories were signed Romita. And looked sort of like Milton Caniff's work. Just a touch more dynamic. But then this was a comic book where the emphasis was on action and not story. I didn't think the artist was the same one who turned Peter Parker into a teen idol after Steve Ditko left The Amazing Spider-Man.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sub -Mariner stories were drawn by the character's creator Bill Everett. This was a Prince Namor that I hardly recognized. He was built along the lines of a light-heavyweight boxing champion. And instead of speaking like someone out of Shakespeare he spoke a sort of American slang. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then there was the Human Torch. Some of the stories were drawn by Russ Heath. 'Nuff said. The stories mostly revolved around the heroes smashing some commie plot or another. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Especially the Captain America stories. Later we would find that this wasn't the real Captain America*. Just a psychotic wannabe who got his hands on the super-soldier serum.

Over in Marvel Tales, Marvel's other reprint title, beginning with issue 13 and running through to issue 16 they reprinted some stories featuring Marvel Boy a sci-fi superhero from the 50s who had his stories illustrated by first Russ Heath and then Bill Everett. These reprints were my introduction to Marvel Comics of the Atom Age. Really fun stuff.
















*Thanks to Roy Thomas to retro-active writing



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