DOUBLE DUTY PEPLUM POSTERS by Dave Goode

As someone who "likes movies about gladiators" I've imagined for years comic book adaptations of Hercules and Maciste movies with cover art by Frank Frazetta and interior art by Wally Wood. An alternative to Frazetta paintings for the covers would have been the posters from the movies themselves. In fact the poster for the Steve Reeves flick HERCULES UNCHAINED was used as the cover for the Dell comic book adaptation of that movie.

One of my favorite sinew & sandal sagas was the movie best known to American audiences as ATLAS IN THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS (Maciste nella terra dei ciclopi). The flick stars Gordon Mitchell and the incredible Chelo Alonso. Sadly it's one of the few films from the genre where La Alonso doesn't perform an exotic dance.

In any case several posters for the movie would have made great comic book covers. MACISTE EL COLOSO reminds me a bit of one of those Will Eisner splash pages where he incorporates the logo into the illustration.

These posters would have made great covers for novelizations of these movies as well. Or even for new stories. I'm surprised there weren't more paperbacks about gladiators during the peplum movie cycle. Considering the implied sexual going ons in these films, it's remarkable how Midwood Books never published a paperback or two on the subject.

THE MONSTER , THE GIRL, AND PHILLIP VAN ZANDT by Dave Goode

 




When I created the Phantom Gorilla with Vance Capley a major inspiration for the character was the 1941 Paramount B-Movie THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL. Produced by Jack Mass and directed by Stuart Heisler THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL was a 65 minute time killer that I liked as a kid. But as an adult...well it seems like it's a lot longer than 65 minutes. It drags in a lot of spots.

The screenplay by Stuart Anthony plays like a grind house exploitation flick. When Susan Webber played by Ellen Drew is tricked into a life of prostitution her brother played by Phillip Terry comes to the big city to rescue her. The small town church organist is instead framed for murder, tried, and executed. This is where the flick gets interesting. Dr. Perry played by the never to be forgotten George Zucco transplants the young man's brain in the body of a gorilla (ape- suit actor Charles Gemora). From there he wrecks vengeance on the men who ruined his sister and caused his death. If this wasn't a superhero origin story I don't know what is.

Any movie automatically becomes better with the inclusion of an ape-suit. You can also say the same about any movie that features actor Phillip Van Zandt. Before I knew his name I knew his face. Van Zandt appeared in over 200 movies including CITIZEN KANE (1941). But I first knew him for his roles on THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. And in 3 Stooges shorts. It was Vance Capley who decided to make the mad scientist in the Phantom Gorilla origin story look like Van Zandt after we discussed the 3 Stooges short SPOOKS (1953).

Produced and directed by Jules White the screenplay for this short that ran just under 16 minutes , was by Felix Adler. The story has Moe, Larry, and Shemp as private detectives hired to rescue the kidnapped Mary Bopper (Norma Randall) from mad scientist Dr. Jeckyl (Phillip Van Zandt) and his assistant Mr. Hyde (Tom Kennedy). Another plus for this one was ape-suit actor Steve Calvert as Dr. Jekyll's pet gorilla. A mad scientist, a damsel in distress and a gorilla. My kind of movie. Now if only the Stooges were playing masked wrestlers.

CHRIS CASTEEL IN HIS GORILLA SUIT...THANK CHRIS!

Thank you again, Chris

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JUST ABOUT EVERYONE'S IMAGINARY TARZAN by Dave Goode

It always amused me while watching the television western series CHEYENNE starring Clint Walker how the writers would find ways to get the star's shirt off. I'm sure those scenes got female viewers to tune in every week.

Standing 6 ' 6 " tall and weighing 245 lbs. with a 48 " chest he was built like a basketball power forward. But like the pulp magazine hero Doc Savage he was so perfectly proportioned that you didn't realize how big he was unless he stood next to something of size to give him scale. That's why I've included pictures of him with Mr. Universe Steve Reeves and NFL Hall of Famer Jim Brown.

I've said jokingly for years that Walker, physically at least, would have been an impressive Superman. But you could never disguise his traps and shoulders with a pair of glasses. I could also see him playing the biblical hero Samson. But the character most people imagine Walker playing on screen was Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan Of The Apes.

At 6' 6" he was quite a bit taller than Burroughs described the "Ape Man". But otherwise he'd be a perfect fit. And he was cast more or less as Tarzan in his very first screen role. Under the name Jett Norman he appeared in a leopard-skin in a scene in the Bowery Boys comedy JUNGLE GENTS (1954).

Fans weren't the only people that imagined Walker as Tarzan. I've no way of confirming it. But I'd say that noted comic book/strip artist Gray Morrow channeled Walker when he illustrated the Tarzan comic strip from 1983 to 2001.

JIMMY OLSEN, JUDO EXPERT by Dave Goode

JIMMY OLSEN, JUDO EXPERT by Dave Goode

Thanks largely through Jack Larson's performance as Jimmy Olsen on The Adventures of Superman television series the powers to be at DC Comics decided the character was popular enough to receive his own comic book title. So Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen No. 1 would premiere in 1954 cover dated September/October. The title was originally a bimonthly. But would become a monthly feature. And would run for 163 issues until March 1974.

One of the best remembered episodes from the Superman television series was from the second series and titled Semi-Private Eye. A spoof of hard boiled detective fiction it featured the immortal Elisha Cook Jr. as private detective Homer Garrity. After Garrity and Lois Lane (Noel Neill) are kidnapped by gangsters Jimmy dons a fedora and trench coat to do a hilarious Bogart ala' Chandler impersonation as he bumbles his way through the episode. The climax has Garrity and Olsen using judo to overcome the two kidnappers while Superman carries Miss Lane to safety.

During the Silver Age of Comics Jimmy Olsen was depicted as being a judo
expert. He used the martial arts from time to time in both his own comic book and World's Finest. One of my favorite examples of Judo Jimmy in action was in a story titled The Dragon Delinquent in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen No. 91 cover dated March 1966. The story written by Leo Dorfman and drawn by Pete Costanza  freely "borrows" from the cult film High School Confidential (1958). The story also, aside from Superman, features DC's resident judo experts Batman & Robin.

Of course by the Bronze Age Jimmy had added karate and other martial arts styles to his bag of tricks. The thing I've wondered about for years was what rank Jimmy held in judo. Was it ever mentioned. The reason that I wonder about it is that in the Silver Age Bat-Girl was introduced as a "brown belt" in judo. And Batman himself says in issue of the Justice League as being able to qualify as a "black belt". Not that he was a black belt. Only that he could qualify as one. At the start of the Bronze Age Robin , the Boy Wonder was described as being a "brown belt in karate ". Wouldn't it have been amusing if Superman's pal was ranked higher than any of them.