REX BURNS – The Killing Zone. Viking, hardcover, 1988. Penguin, paperback, 1989.

   Rex Burns’ latest about Denver homicide detective Gabe Wager is The Killing Zone. I’ve muttered before about Wager, a gloomy, morose, irascible chap with a recently acquired payload of guilt to boot.

   But this one has a strong contemporary plot, with good suspense and character dynamics, and I was well swept along with the flow. A kid finds the city’s latest corpse in a vacant lot. It’s Horace Green, city councilman, black, hero and defender of the black community. Now wearing a bullet hole in the back of his head.

   Racial motives spring to mind, and the city gathers itself for explosion. Wager’s boss wants him to look only in one white place for a killer, for a tension-defusing solution. Wager, who rarely takes orders from anyone and routinely works sixteen-hour days, will look everywhere.

      The Gabe Wager series —

1. The Alvarez Journal (1975)

2. The Farnsworth Score (1977)

3. Speak for the Dead (1978)

4. Angle of Attack (1979)
5. The Avenging Angel (1983)
6. Strip Search (1984)
7. Ground Money (1986)
8. The Killing Zone (1988)
9. Endangered Species (1993)
10. Blood Line (1995)

11. The Leaning Land (1997)

   Rex Burns also wrote four books with PI Devlin Kirk as the lead detective. All 15 books have recently been published as ebooks by Mysterious Press.

FREDERICK NEBEL – The Complete Casebook of Cardigan. Volume 1: 1931-1932. Altus Press, hardcover/paperback, February 2012.

   Matt Moring of Altus Press has just published a collection of stories by Fred Nebel that not only is an excellent collection of hardboiled fiction but also is quite historically significant. Fred Nebel (1903-1967) was one of the early Black Mask authors who started to write detective stories in the hardboiled style. He sold his first story to the magazine in 1926 and editor Joe Shaw encouraged him to join Dashiell Hammett and John Carroll Daly in the writing of hardboiled, tough, fast action stories.

   Nebel had a long running series starring Captain Steve MacBride and a reporter by the name of Kennedy. This was followed by a later series about a private eye named Donahue. When Harry Steeger started Popular Publications, one of his early titles was Dime Detective and he offered Nebel and some of the other Black Mask authors a higher rate if they would also write for him.

   The top writers for Black Mask were probably getting around 3 cents a word, so this meant an increase to 4 cents, which at the time was very good money. a 10,000 word novelette could bring in a $400 check. In the depression era this was like over $4,000 in today’s money.

   The first issue of Dime Detective appeared with the date of November 1931, and it contained the first Nebel story for the magazine. Nebel during the period 1931-1937 would go on to write 44 of these hard driving, tough tales, all starring Jack Cardigan of the Cosmos Detective Agency. At first he was in charge of the St. Louis branch but then moved on to the main headquarters located in New York city.

   I’ve been collecting Dime Detective since 1969 and have read almost all the Cardigan stories, so when I received this book, I thought I’d just read a couple stories to make sure I still felt the same way about the quality and then file the book away with my other hardboiled books written by Hammett, Chandler, James Cain, and Paul Cain.

   However, I was surprised as to how well the stories held up to a second reading and before I knew it, I had read all of them in a space of a few days.

   Altus Press plans to publish all 44 Cardigan stories and this first volume contains the first eleven, written in 1931-1932. There will be not only an additional three volumes, each around 400 pages, but also volumes reprinting Nebel’s series starring Kennedy and MacBride, and Donahue. The book has a nice introduction by Will Murray and each story has the original John Fleming Gould illustrations.

   Now, though I’ve mentioned Nebel with such names as Hammett and Chandler, I do not by any means place him on the same level. They are at the very top. I would place these stories on the the second level along with such writers as Paul Cain, Norbert Davis, Robert Reeves, Merle Constiner, etc, most of whom wrote for both Black Mask and Dime Detective.

   These writers I consider to be very good to excellent, while Hammett and Chandler are in the great class, often considered legitimate, no doubt about it, American Literature.

   So this collection and the future ones which will soon be published by Altus Press, gets my highest recommendation. If you try and collect the original pulps you will run into two problems. The first being that they are now very rare and hard to find, and the second being the prices are very high. Copies of Dime Detective in the 1930’s are now over the $100 per issue level and some are selling for $200 or $300 each. The Chandler issues are even higher.

   One interesting subject is discussed by Will Murray in the introduction and has also been covered before by Steve Mertz and others. This involves the reaction that Joe Shaw encountered when he was compiling the stories for The Hard-Boiled Omnibus, the first hardboiled anthology, published in 1946. He wrote Fred Nebel asking for permission to publish one of his Black Mask stories and Nebel turned him down saying that he considered his pulp work “dated” and not up to the quality of his best work.

   This is another example of how blind some authors can be concerning the quality of their own fiction. In the early 1930’s Nebel broke into the slick market and he actually considered this slick work to be far better than his pulp stories. He certainly got paid a lot more and this must of blinded him to the relative quality.

   The slicks had a very high percentage of women readers and the editors felt that stories should have a strong love or romance element. Nebel was willing to write this type of fiction for such high paying magazines as the Saturday Evening Post, Liberty, Collier’s, and Woman’s Home Companion.

   I collect the slicks also and have read some of Nebel’s slick work and it cannot even begin to compare to his best pulp work as written for Black Mask and Dime Detective. I can understand him writing the slick formula because the pay was so high compared to the pulp rates. He was receiving thousands of dollars for short slick work compared to hundreds for pulp novelettes.

   He also wrote three novels and thought these would be remembered but nothing ever came of his hardcover writing career. While his slick magazine work has been completely forgotten, his pulp stories have appeared in just about every hardboiled pulp anthology. Mysterious Press even published six of the Cardigan novelets in a paper edition over 20 years ago but it failed to sell.

   Copies of this collection are easy to obtain for around $30 for a high quality paper edition and for $10 extra you can get a hardcover. I recommend the hardcover because of the historical and literary significance of the book. You can order from the Altus Press website or from Mike Chomko Books. Amazon.com also carries the paper edition.

   I encourage all lovers of hardboiled and pulp fiction to support this publishing project.

   We do indeed live in The Golden Age of Pulp Reprints.

Contents:    (All stories reprinted from Dime Detective.)

BLUE LIGHT. ABC, 1966. Rogo Production in association with 20th Century Fox Television. Cast: Robert Goulet as David March. Christine Carère as Suzanne Duchard. Created by Walter Grauman and Larry Cohen. Executive Producer: Walter Grauman. Executive Script Consultant: Larry Cohen. Producer: Buck Houghton. Theme: Lalo Schifrin. Music Supervision: Lionel Newman.

   Blue Light is a forgotten TV spy series that, while not the equal, is worthy of mention with other TV spy series such as I Spy and Mission: Impossible.

   Before the Nazis began their advance across Europe, America put eighteen sleeper agents inside Germany. One was American journalist David March. Only the few American government officials behind the Blue Light organization knew the truth, while the rest of the world believed March had betrayed his country and all he loved to join the Nazi war effort. In one episode March learned the woman he loved had committed suicide because of his support of the Nazi cause.

   Occasionally the Nazis used March as a spy, but his usual role was writing and broadcasting propaganda. His underground contact was Suzanne, who fell in love with March as she posed as French Gestapo agent who hated him.

   Considering the creative talent behind Blue Light, it is not a surprise the series was a gritty WWII spy drama with nourish touches. Larry Cohen is best known for his genre films such as Black Caesar, It’s Alive, and Maniac Cop. He also created the TV series Branded, Coronet Blue and The Invaders.

   Walter Grauman is one of television’s iconic directors (Untouchables to Murder, She Wrote). He also won the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service as a fighter pilot in WWII Europe. There is an excellent interview of Walter Grauman by Stephen Bowie at the Archive of American Television. (Follow the link.)

   The series did not pull any punches. Episodes featured dramatic examinations of moral issues as well as surprising twists and great action. March did not just knock out the guard as most TV good guys would. Instead, March did not hesitate to kill the guard with a knife in the back.

   There were few easy solutions to the many choices March was forced to make. In one episode he was forced to choose between some citizens who had escaped a Nazi labor camp or getting a top secret Nazi weapon to the Allies in England.

   Known more as a singer, Robert Goulet was surprisingly believable as David March, double agent. On the other hand co-star Christine Carère proved to be a liability to the series and weaken the possible romantic subplot. The guest stars included some of the best TV characters actors of the 60s, especially European actors on their way to America. (See the episode index below.)

   The production was shot overseas at Bavarian Studios in Munich, Germany. According to an interview of Robert Goulart in Stars & Stripes (2/16/66), Blue Light was the first American TV series filmed in color in Europe.

   The music soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin and others (including Pete Rugalo, Mullendore and David Gruson) was a special delight. Listen to episodes such as “Sacrifice!” and “Agent of the East” and you can hear occasional hints of Schifrin’s future work in Mannix and Mission: Impossible.

   Blue Light had the potential to be something special, but it was limited by its half hour format. While the short time kept the action moving, it eliminated the opportunity to further develop the characters. The villains were often underdeveloped and weakened by the speed March outsmarted them.

   It is best to watch the episodes in order. The first four episodes told the story of David March’s mission to destroy a top secret Nazi weapon base in Grossmuchen, Germany. “Return of Elm” and “The Secret War” are based on events in earlier episodes.

   The first four episodes were linked together and released as I Deal in Danger (1966). I have not seen the movie version, but it is available on DVD. The series itself is available only in the collector-to-collector market.

      EPISODE INDEX —

“The Last Man” (1/12/66). Written by Larry Cohen. Directed by Walter Grauman. Guest Cast: Werner Peters, John Ragin, John Alderson.  â—  The Nazis know about Blue Light, an American undercover spy ring of eighteen agents. Seventeen have been killed. Now, Captain Elm is out to get rid of the man he believes to be the last man of Blue Light, American journalist now Nazi propagandist David March.

“Target David March” (1/19/66). Written by Larry Cohen. Directed by Walter Grauman. Guest Cast: Edward Binns, Hans Reiser, Geoffrey Frederick.  â—  With Elm gone, March still needs to convince some Nazis he is loyal to the cause before he can be assigned to the top-secret weapon base in Grossmuchen. Meanwhile a British officer has sent in three commandos to kill the American traitor David March.

“The Fortress Below” (1/26/66). Written by Larry Cohen. Directed by Walter Grauman. Guest Cast: Eva Pflug, John van Dreelan, Peter Capell, Manfred Andrae.  â—  March gets the assignment he wanted, the top-secret weapon base. The base is buried 200 feet underground and while nearly impossible to sneak in, it is even harder to get out. Unable to sneak any weapons in, March must figure out how to destroy the base.

“The Weapons Within” (2/2/66). Written by Larry Cohen. Directed by Walter Grauman. Guest Cast: Eva Pflug, Horst Frank, Alexander Allerson, Dieter Eppler.  â—  The naïve female German scientist who had agreed to help March’s blow up the base has second thoughts when she is faced with causing the death of her friends at the base.

“Traitor’s Blood” (2/9/66). Written by Larry Cohen. Directed by Walter Grauman. Guest Cast: Jerry Ayres, Henry Beckman, David Macklin.  â—  March visits his younger brother being held in a Nazi POW camp. His brother had lied about his age to join the Army and prove he was not a traitor like his brother.

“Agent of the East” (2/16/66). Teleplay by Donald S. Sanford, story by Larry Cohen. Directed by James Goldstone. Guest Cast: Jan Malmsjo, Dick Davalos, James Mitchell.  â—  To keep the plans for a heavy water plant from Nazi scientists, March must get to a captured Russian spy being held in Gestapo headquarters.

“Sacrifice” (2/23/66). Teleplay by Dick Carr, story by Larry Cohen. Directed by William Graham. Guest Cast: Larry Pennell, Barry Ford, James Brolin.  â—  The Nazis want March to convince a kidnapped All American hero to talk. An Allied bomb hits the Gestapo jail trapping March, the hero and two Nazis underground with no hope of rescue.

“The Secret War” (3/2/66). Written by Larry Cohen. Directed by Walter Grauman. Guest Cast: Roger C. Carmel, Kevin Hagen, Gail Kobe, Fred Holliday, Gilbert Green.  â—  Two Russian agents, who knew the Russian agent from “Agent of the East,” threaten to expose March and Suzanne if he does not work for them instead of the Americans.

“Invasion by the Stars” (3/9/66). Teleplay by Jack Turley, story by Curtis Sanders. Directed by Gerd Oswald. Guest Cast: Francis Lederer, Curt Lowens, Jason Wingreen.  â—  Allies need Operation Sea Lion, Hitler’s planned invasion of England, delayed. March attempts to convince Hitler’s astrologist to advise Hitler to postpone the invasion.

“The Return of Elm” (3/23/66). Written by Larry Cohen. Directed by Robert Butler. Guest Cast: Werner Peters, Malachi Throne.  â—  Elm, the villain of “The Last Man” episode, is back. The one Nazi who knows March is an American agent, Elm escapes a British POW camp. Knowing the Nazis believe he is the traitor, Elm returns to Berlin to kill March and clear his name.

“Jet Trail” (4/6/66). Written by Dan Ullman. Directed by James Goldstone. Guest Cast: Philippe Nicaud. Tony LoBianco, Lamont Johnson.  â—  March poses as an American OSS officer to help the French resistance recover a top secret German jet engine from a crash.

“How to Kill a Toy Soldier” (4/13/66). Written by Merwin Bloch and Roger E. Swaybill. Directed by Leo Penn. Guest Cast: Michael Shea, Donald Losby, Greg Mullavey.  â—  An 11-year-old Nazi witnesses March kill a courier for the plans to every rocket site in Norway. March faces the choice of killing the child or exposing himself as a spy.

“The Deserters” (4/20/66). Writer: Curtis Sanders. Director: Gerd Oswald. Guest Cast: Ken Lynch, Stuart Margolin, George Backman, James Davidson.  â—  The Germans send March into battle posing as an American soldier. He is to learn what direction the Allied forces will take on the Italian front. A Gestapo agent travels with March to watch him.

“The Other Führer” (4/27/66). Written by Walter Brough. Directed by James Goldstone. Guest Cast: David Sheiner, Paul Carr, Jack Colvin.  â—  A German aristocrat seeks the Allies aid to overthrow Hitler. The Germans catch and execute the Allies’ agent sent to meet the aristocrat and send March in the Allies agent’s place.

“The Key to the Code” (5/4/66). Written by Brad Radnitz. Directed by Walter Grauman. Guest Cast: Hans Gudegast (Eric Braeden), Alex D’Arcy, Erik Holland.  â—  While in France to do a radio program, March and Suzanne learn the Germans have set a trap for an upcoming Allies Commando attack. The Germans have broken the underground code putting March and Suzanne at risk and unable to warn the Allies about the trap.

“Field of Dishonor” (5/11/66). Written by Jamie Farr and H. Bud Otto. Directed by James Goldstone. Guest Cast: Steve Ihnat, James Frawley.  â—  High-ranking Nazi General, who has long been suspicious of March’s loyalties, attempts to defect to the Allies.

“The Friendly Enemy” (5/18/66). Written by Harold Livingston. Directed by James Goldstone. Guest Cast: Mark Richman, Robert Doyle, Richard Carlyle, James Doohan, Mort Mills.  â—  March is ordered to kill a German scientist who is close to creating an Atomic bomb for the Nazis.

THAT NIGHT IN RIO. 20th Century Fox, 1941. Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Carmen Miranda, S. Z. Zakall, J. Carrol Naish. Musical direction by Alfred Newman; Hermes Pan, choreographer; music and lyrics by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren. Director: Irving Cummings. Shown at Cinevent 35, Columbus OH, May 2003.

   Oh, that eye-popping technicolor! Great color cinematography makes you want to lap it up like sugar candy, and there was a time when that kind of color was not an unusual occurrence on the screen.

   And That Night in Rio, starring a very popular trio of musical comedy performers, matches its eye-grabbing color with vibrant performances that provide some of the movie magic (and it doesn’t have to involve ghosts) that used to be more commonplace.

   Well, maybe Alice Faye, a favorite of my errant youth, is somewhat matronly and reserved, but she still cuts a mighty lush figure in a nightgown. (Yes, there’s a semi-naughty bedroom sequence that stays fairly primly but still suggestively on the right side of the Production Code.)

   And Carmen Miranda exudes so much energy that it’s relaxing to have Faye taking center screen, with her mellow voice purring seductively in the lyrics for “They Met in Rio.” Ameche’s dual roles may not have the malevolent fierceness of Chaney’s in The Blackbird [reviewed here ], but they suit the well-constructed comic plot to a “T.” A delightful opening film for the Saturday night screenings.

Editorial Comment:   To watch a five minute clip from this movie, featuring Carmen Miranda and Don Ameche singing “Chica Chica Boom Chic”, go here on YouTube. Spectacular, indeed!

GAYLORD DOLD – Bonepile. Ivy, paperback original, 1988.

   Bonepile by Gaylord Dold, the third Mitch Roberts novel, is more ambitious than the Rafferty book by W. Glenn Duncan (reviewed here ) but ultimately less satisfying.

   Dold is another writer to be commended for moving the private eyes’ mean streets from New York and Los Angeles to more unusual locales. In this case it is a rural farming community in Kansas where Roberts, on vacation from Wichita (“…the world’s largest small town”), has gone to recuperate. One can feel the heat and wind blowing off the plains, imagine walking through the park in the middle of town, and understand the people, including their worship of the St. Louis Cardinals.

   The book is set in 1956, but Roberts in true Lew Archer fashion permits guilt to cause him to try to solve a 1940’s murder. Unfortunately, Dold, like Archer’s creator, suffers from a severe case of a disease I believe I was first to diagnose and name: “metaphoritis.”

   Its primary symptom is overwriting, with swelling of metaphors, those necessary usages which transform ordinary into very good writing. When poorly used, as in Bonepile, we get such lines as “Night grew in me like a tumor” and “The tree itself creaked as if its heart were broken.”

   Sometimes, in an effort to be imaginative, Dold is merely anatomically unsound as he writes, “Sweat filled my mind and overflowed.” I suspect that the reason for all the overwriting and padding is that this time around he had too slim a plot and, based on the unsatisfactory ending, didn’t know how to conclude his book.

   Yet I perceive real writing talent here, and Dr. Lachman suspects this case of metaphoritis will not be fatal.

      The Mitch Roberts series —

Hot Summer, Cold Murder. Avon, pb, 1987.

Snake Eyes. Ivy, pb, 1987.
Bonepile. Ivy, pb, 1988.
Cold Cash. Ivy, pb, 1988.
Muscle and Blood. Ivy, pb, 1989.

Disheveled City. Ivy, pb, 1990.
A Penny for the Old Guy. St. Martin’s, hc, 1991.

Rude Boys. St. Martin’s, hc, 1992.
The World Beat. St. Martin’s, hc, 1993.
Samedi’s Knapsack. St. Martin’s, hc, 2001.

  LAWRENCE TREAT – Over the Edge. Ace Double D-51, reprint paperback, abridged edition, 1954. Published dos-à-dos with Switcheroo, by Emmett McDowell. Originally published by William Morrow & Co., hardcover, 1948.

   Over the Edge plumbs some of the same pipes as The Big Clock, to good effect. Alec Rambeau, the central character, is empaneled on a jury in a murder trial and finds that the murdered woman in the case was recently his lover — he didn’t recognize her married name.

   Nagged by guilt (he’s married) Alec pushes for conviction of her suspect/husband in a nicely-turned scene that reads like a reverse 12 Angry Men, skillfully turning the other jurors to his side and sending the accused to the Death House … only to discover later that the man is innocent.

   What follows is a tricky, twisting detection-dance, as Alec tries to investigate the murder and the dead woman’s relationships without revealing his own involvement. Neat enough, but the author puts yet another spin on things as we begin to question just how innocent Alec really is.

   Writing in the third person, Treat reveals/withholds just enough to keep us guessing right up to the last suspenseful chapter, which is skillful writing indeed, and the kind of thing I’ll look for more of.

   Oh. The flip side of this Ace Double is Switcheroo, by Emmett McDowell; a mystery-comedy that could be charitably described as Belabored.

CORTLAND FITZSIMMONS – The Evil Men Do. Stokes, hardcover, 1941.

   Having turned down several lucrative offers to go to Hollywood and do screen writing, mystery writer Ethel Thomas finally accepts as a ploy to help out her niece, an aspiring movie actress.

   The niece’s fiance, fighting for her honor, has apparently killed a man. It’s obvious that the “killing” is but a variation of the old badger game, but these two youngsters get themselves involved with a blackmailer who runs a gambling club. Naturally, he is soon bumped off. The niece, the fiance, the niece’s mother, and Thomas are unlikely suspects.

   Since the idea should be a winner from the start, there ought to be a law that authors writing about septuagenarian lady mystery writers who also detect produce at least a halfway decent novel. If there were such a law, Fitzsimmons would be given twenty years without the option.

      The Ethel Thomas series —

The Whispering Window. Stokes, 1936.
The Moving Finger. Stokes, 1937.

Mystery at Hidden Harbor. Stokes, 1938.
The Evil Men Do. Stokes, 1941.

Editorial Comment:   In a crime fiction writing career that extended from 1930 to 1943, Cortland Fitzsimmons wrote or co-authored another thirteen novels, two of which featured Arthur Martinson as the leading character, and two with Percy Peacock. I know nothing about either of the two, but Bill Deeck’s review of the author’s book The Girl in the Cage, displays an equal lack of enthusiasm for his work:   “…reading Fitzsimmons is like watching grease congeal.”

SUSAN MOODY – Penny Dreadful. Fawcett Gold Medal, paperback; 1st US printing, August 1986. First published in the UK: Macmillan, hardcover, 1984.

   The Penny in the title refers to Penny Wanawake, girl photographer, whose sleuthing activities place her as as nearly the perfect opposite of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple as can be imagined. While she is British, Penny is tall, young, black (corn-row braided hairdo), a sophisticated world traveler, and while a possessor of one live-in lover at home, she is not adverse to having others when she’s not.

   But returning to the title of this one, it’s at least a double, if not triple, play on words. The dead man in the affair is a writer of cheap blood-and-thunder pulp fiction, supplementing his day job as a schoolmaster at an exclusive boys’ school in Canterbury. Penny dreadfuls, in other words. He’s a dreadful man, too, since his books incorporate much of the scandalous activities his roving eyes have uncovered.

   And so no one really minds when he’s found dead. The police think the cause of death was a heart attack. Snooping in the kitchen, Penny finds the smell of gin in the sink, and she wonders if somebody had added something to it before disposing of it. Her interest in the case is not that of bringing a killer to justice, but more of an intellectual exercise in discovering the truth.

   There are any number of suspects. Adding to the thrill of the chase is the competition Penny is provided by the visiting policeman from Detroit she is currently sharing living quarters with. On the other hand, though, what Penny Wanawake doesn’t have is a “Watson” to bounce theories off of, and to be bedazzled by her investigative techniques and abilities and so on.

   We (the reader) follow her activities through the story from nearly beginning to end, and are usually given access to her thoughts, except (of course) when it really matters. Thus when it comes time for revealing the killer, we find that she had eliminated many possibilities lone before, although there was little in what she said or did that would have allowed us to come to the same conclusions.

   Nonetheless, while the story might have moved a bit too slowly for me, I did enjoy Penny Dreadful as a detective puzzle, one populated by people I could see as individuals. Susan Moody has wicked sense of humor, too, maybe even a bit sharper than mine. I could probably quote you parts I liked all day long, but here’s a paragraph I thought you might like. It’ll tell you, at least, what I’m talking about. From pages 141-142:

      The Penny Wanawake series —

Penny Black. Macmillan, 1984.
Penny Dreadful. Macmillan, 1984.
Penny Post. Macmillan, 1985.
Penny Royal. Macmillan, 1986.
Penny Wise. Joseph, 1988.

Penny Pinching. Joseph, 1989.
Penny Saving, Joseph, 1990.    No US edition.

   All but the last were published by Gold Medal in the US as paperback originals.

   After ending the Penny Wanawake series, author Susan Moody began another, this one featuring professional bridge player, Cassandra Swann. Six of the latter’s adventures were recorded between 1993 and 1999, four of them appearing here in the US.

   John Carter, the movie has not yet been reviewed on Mystery*File and this is a movie that demands to be mentioned here. I call it the Pulp Movie of the Century because it actually is. It has been 100 years since the novel appeared in the pulp, All-Story, as a six-part serial in 1912. The movie has been slammed by the critics and is not doing well at the box office, but it has been receiving very favorable comments on some discussion groups I belong to that are focused on pulpish subjects.

   Frankly, I don’t think some of the critics know what they are talking about. Despite some changes, this is a fairly faithful adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels about Mars. His first published work was Under the Moons of Mars in All-Story and was the big first success in his Mars series.

   Without this serial in 1912, All-Story and Science Fiction as we know it might have had a different history. Burroughs was the driving force behind the decision by the All-Story editors to encourage their writers to write what has been called the Scientific Romance.

   When Sam Moskowitz decided to do a collection of SF stories from the Munsey pulps, he called it Under the Moons of Mars. (This by way, is a far better title than John Carter.) In addition to the stories, Moskowitz also included an excellent long history of SF in the pulp magazines up to 1920.

   What do I mean about the critics not knowing what they are talking about? They are treating this film like the plot is a copy of some tired previous SF movie. Gentlemen, this is the serial, the book, the plot, that started the whole craze for SF adventure in the pulps. Sure, there was H.G. Wells before Burroughs, but Wells is on a higher literary level for sure. Though he appeared in the pulps, it was mainly through reprints.

   The critics do not realize the impact in 1912 that Under the Moons of Mars had on the typical reader of popular magazines. It was like a bolt out of the sky shocking the reader who was hungry for imaginative literature.

   Things would never be the same after this serial in 1912. All-Story went on to publish scores of SF adventures and in 1926 the first SF pulp appeared. For many years after, readers in the letter columns requested reprints from the great old Munsey pulps. Then in 1939, a magazine was created that did indeed reprint the Munsey science fiction stories from All-Story, Argosy, and Cavalier. It was called Famous Fantastic Mysteries and is today considered one of the best looking and prettiest pulps ever published.

   So, to the jaded critics of today, sure John Carter has some faults, but in 1912 this story was a stunning achievement. Even decades later, readers would be amazed by the Mars books.

   I know I was at the age of nine years old. In the early 1950’s, I remember my father giving me a stack of the Mars and Tarzan novels and saying how great they were. A year later, I had read and reread them all, and used to think of which books I would try to save if the house ever caught on fire. My answer was always the same: the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

   Now, I’m not saying this movie is great, after all it has been 60 years since Burroughs grabbed hold of me. But it is good and not as bad as the critics are saying.

   As I was coming out of the theater, there were two young boys ahead of me, both of them jumping up and down with excitement. To me they looked to be around nine or ten years old, the same young age that I once was back when I first discovered John Carter and his adventures. One said to the other “Wasn’t John Carter great!,” and his friend replied that the movie was cool. They then started talking about seeing it again.

   There may have been only 15 or 20 people in the theater when I went for the noon showing but seeing these two kids made me realize once again Burroughs still had that power to excite, just like he must have excited readers in 1912. I have a feeling that John Carter may be a failure on this initial release, but like Blade Runner, it will be considered a success many years later.

PROBE. NBC / Warner Brothers, TV Movie, 21 February 1972. Cast: Hugh O’Brian, Elke Sommer, Burgess Meredith, Lilia Skala, Angel Tompkins and Sir John Gielgud. Created, written and produced by Leslie Stevens. Directed by Russell Mayberry.

To view the opening credits on YouTube, click here.

Probe remains one of my favorite TV Movie pilots. It would lead to the TV series Search (a series I will review once I track down all the episodes). While the series is not available in studio approved DVD, this TV Movie is available as a Warner Archive DVD on demand.

Probe is a fine example of 70s TV, charming and entertaining, but when examined more closely, seriously flawed.

Hugh O’Brian played field agent Hugh Lockwood, aka Probe One. He worked for World Securities Corporation, Probe Division (Programmed Retrieval Operations). The agency’s purpose was to search and recover any object or person that was missing. His boss was Director of Probe Control, V.C.R. Cameron, played by Burgess Meredith.

Each field agent was equipped with new futuristic (for the 70s) gadgets. There was the mini-scanner that worked like a camera and allowed Probe Control to monitor the life signs of the agent and others.

The scanner was magnetized so it could be attached to jewelry such as a ring or a pendant. Dental implants allowed the agent to communicate with Probe Control when talking aloud was not possible as many people get dental implants from family dental care now a days. Agents had a surgically implanted earpiece that allowed them to stay in contact with Probe Control (the earpiece could be temporarily disabled by a head cold).

Probe Control was located in the basement of the World Securities Corporation building. There, several trained technicians, with the aide of huge computers, assisted the field agent and monitored for any problems.

Probe Control could serve as translator for any foreign language, give directions, and help open safes. Senior technician Gloria Harding (Angel Tompkins) monitored medical telemetry. By measuring vital signs and the number of vital signs, Gloria could tell if a suspect was lying, how the agent was feeling, and if there was anyone hiding nearby to spring a trap on the agent.

The TV Movie began with an action scene with Lockwood rushing through gunfire to save a kidnapped political official. That solved, his next case involved the missing Entourage Diamond Collection last seen in Nazi hands.

Lockwood heads to Europe to talk to the woman who was the last person known to see the diamonds. At the client’s request, Chief Diamond Appraiser Harold Streeter (Sir John Gielgud) accompanied Lockwood to confirm the diamonds when found was genuine. There, Lockwood met the woman’s daughter Uli (Elke Sommer) for the required love interest.

The search for the diamonds had plenty of twists, action, and even humor; Mom disappears, suspicious fellows lurk in the background, Nazis, fights, traps, and Lockwood trying to seduce willing Uli with Probe Control objecting in his ear. (My favorite line came from Gloria reacting to Lockwood verbally seducing Uli, “Do we have to listen to this?”)

What made this movie fun and special were the gadgets and banter between hero Lockwood, overprotective Cameron, and catty Gloria. The actual story and field scenes were bland and forgettable. O’Brian seemed bored, and the chemistry between O’Brian and Sommer was nonexistent. Sadly, Sir John Gielgud was wasted in this his first TV Movie (TV Guide, February 12, 1972).

In the Los Angeles Herald Examiner’s “TV Weekly” (October 15,1972), Hugh O’Brian discussed what he thought was wrong with the pilot.

“Probe Control is a wonderful gimmick,” he said, “Yes, it’s a great tool. But the FBI doesn’t use a gun until it must. The pilot made me too much the puppet. Now, I’m in command. But there’s to be still less emphasis on Probe Control. We’ve all agreed on that – the network and Warner’s – everybody.”

That quote is a valuable lesson to anyone interested in television, nothing is ever allowed to upstage the star.

The answer to how wise such change was must wait for our look at the series, but without Probe Control this would have been just another TV PI movie, and a boring one at that.