Overlooked Movies: Goodnight for Justice: Queen of Hearts (2013)

QUEEN OF HEARTS is the third and final Hallmark Channel movie in which Luke Perry played frontier judge John William Goodnight, a character Perry created. In this one, Goodnight tangles with a beautiful female con artist and a vengeful former colonel discharged from the army because of his brutal methods. As usual, there’s plenty of action with a few heart-warming moments along the way. A lot of the story takes place on a riverboat, one of my favorite settings for Westerns.

I think this is my favorite of the three Goodnight movies. The script, while still pretty predictable, is more focused than the first one (which really meandered around) and less stereotypical than the second one. The production values seem a little higher, and it helped that there weren’t too many scenes in that touristy-looking Western town in Canada where so many Westerns have been filmed in the past 20 years. Also, the villain is a cast-against-type Rick Schroder playing the crazed colonel, and it’s good for Perry (who’s as stalwart as ever) to have somebody stronger to play against. The final slugfest/shootout between the two of them on the riverboat is excellent.

I liked this one enough that I’m sort of disappointed there weren’t more of them. As it is, it’s a worthy conclusion to the Goodnight series and well worth watching for Western fans.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Planet Stories, Summer 1945

I'm seriously out of step with modern life in many respects, of course, and science fiction is one of them. This is the kind of SF I like: rayguns, space babes, and monsters. Just the sort of things PLANET STORIES specialized in. This issue has a nice cover by Parkhurst and stories by Fiction House regulars Emmett McDowell and Wilbur S. Peacock, as well as long-time SF pro Ross Rocklynne. The other authors are unfamiliar to me, but I wonder about one of them, George A. Whittington, who published only a handful of stories, all in PLANET STORIES. Makes me think that might be a pseudonym or house-name. At any rate, this looks like a fine issue to me, although most current SF readers would be either uninterested (at best) or horrified to the point of outrage (at worst).

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Ranch Romances, First January Number, 1955

I don't know who did the cover on this issue of RANCH ROMANCES, but I'm quite fond of it. That is one beautiful woman. Inside are stories by Parker Bonner (who was really W.T. Ballard), Michael Carder (who was really Vernon Fluharty, who also wrote Westerns as Jim O'Mara), J.L. Bouma, Harold Preece, Elsa Barker, and a writer I'm not familiar with, Lloyd Kevin.

UPDATE: That great cover art is almost certainly by Everett Raymond Kinstler. Thanks to Sheila Ann Vanderbeek for the ID.

Forgotten Novellas: Satan Calls His Children - Arthur Leo Zagat

As I’ve said before, since the Weird Menace genre is all about dressing up and saying “Boo!”, I find it very appropriate for the Halloween season. So this week I read a “gripping mystery-terror novel” (actually a novella) by one of the masters of the genre, Arthur Leo Zagat.

“Satan Calls His Children” was published in the May 1937 issue of DIME MYSTERY, probably the leading Weird Menace pulp. It actually starts off quite differently from most of these stories I’ve read. The protagonist is Jennie Gant, a young woman who works in a commercial laundry and lives in a lower-class neighborhood populated mostly by immigrants from eastern Europe. She has a young brother, but they’re orphans and she supports them both. Her boyfriend is a medical student who works as a night watchman to make ends meet. Zagat establishes all this pretty quickly, while at the same time sketching a vivid, naturalistic portrait of the neighborhood that seems almost more like something from a mainstream novel of the time.

Then, one of the poor immigrant women kills her own infant and then herself in a really shocking murder-suicide, all because she doesn’t want Satan to get her baby. There’s a mysterious talisman involved, as Jennie discovers to her fear and regret when her own brother is targeted by sinister forces. Other than the one instance of violence, the first half of this novella is a slow burn, as Zagat steadily ratchets up the psychological suspense. It’s genuinely creepy and had me looking over my shoulder a little as I read it.

The second half is considerably different, as Zagat falls back on more familiar Weird Menace tropes. We get desperate chases through the sewers, a spooky crypt full of cages where stolen children are kept locked up before apparently being turned into savage beasts, a red-robed mastermind, his hulking minion, and the inevitable logical explanation for all the supposedly supernatural stuff.

The thing is, Zagat was better at this sort of thing than most of the writers in the genre, and his excellent storytelling is compelling enough that I read the whole novella in one sitting, something very unusual for me in these attention-span-challenged days. Ultimately, “Satan Calls His Children” is a very good Weird Menace yarn, with the added bonus of the fine writing in the first half. You can find the e-book version on-line, and I give it a high recommendation.

Avenging Angels #2: Sinners' Gold - A.W. Hart (Wayne D. Dundee)

Gunslinging twins Reno and Sara Bass are back in AVENGING ANGELS: SINNER’S GOLD, the second novel in this top-notch new Western series. Behind the A.W. Hart house-name this time around is Wayne D. Dundee, one of the most dependably entertaining writers in the business today.

Reno and Sara, whose entire family was murdered by ex-Confederate outlaws in the first book, are on the drift after tracking down those renegades and avenging their parents and siblings. A chance encounter at an isolated roadhouse results in them killing four outlaws, and when they realize there are prices on the heads of those men, they decide they might as well take the corpses to the nearest town and collect those bounties. A woman they meet at the same time wants to go there, too, so she travels along with them.

Unfortunately, when they get there they discover that the place is ruled with an iron fist by a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher who also happens to be the local lawman. Also, their traveling companion has come there to claim an inheritance that leads to even more trouble, and before you know it, Reno and Sara are involved in a dangerous quest for hidden treasure that may or may not exist.

As usual, Dundee spins this yarn in smooth, fast-moving prose with interesting characters and great action scenes. SINNER’S GOLD is a worth successor to the first book in the series, VENGEANCE TRAIL, and I’m really looking forward to the rest of the books. This one gets a high recommendation from me.

Overlooked Movies: The Dark Valley (2014)

A mysterious stranger rides into an isolated settlement in a high mountain valley as winter is coming on. The settlement and the valley are ruled with an iron fist by an evil old man and his six brutal sons. (One of the sons wears an eye patch and another looks like Richard Boone, so you know they're bad guys.) The stranger has a camera with him, something that the settlers have never seen before, and claims that he wants to make photographs of them. He stays with an elderly widow and her beautiful daughter, who is engaged to be married to one of the young men in the settlement. Then someone starts killing the old man's sons . . . 

Now here's the oddball twist. The mysterious stranger is from America, but the settlement is high in the mountains in Germany. THE DARK VALLEY is, in fact, a German film, but it sure does look and play like an American Western. If you've ever seen or read a revenge Western movie or novel, you'll have a pretty good idea what's going to happen in this film, although there's a nice twist that I'll admit I didn't see coming.

Actually, a lot of the time THE DARK VALLEY seems like it wants to be a Spaghetti Western even more than it does a traditional American Western. There are bizarre characters, long, lingering, almost silent shots, sudden outbreaks of frenzied violence . . . What it really needs is an Ennio Morricone score and a few close-ups of squinting eyes, and you'd swear you were watching a Sergio Leone film.

A friend of mine recommended this movie to me, and I'm glad he did. Other than a few lapses in logic and being a little too slow and brooding at times, I thought it was very well done and enjoyed watching it. It's offbeat enough to appeal to viewers who aren't necessarily Western fans but has enough of the traditional Western to it that those viewers might like it, too. If you haven't seen it, I think THE DARK VALLEY is well worth watching.

The Headstone Detective Agency - Robert J. Randisi

Not many authors are as devoted to the private eye genre as Bob Randisi. Not only did he found the Private Eye Writers of America many years ago, he's also written many excellent novels in the genre himself.

The latest of them is THE HEADSTONE DETECTIVE AGENCY, which is set in New York City and narrated by John Headston, once the youngest detective in the NYPD and then later the owner of a large, flourishing private agency with many operatives working for him. But as this book opens, those glory days are in the past, and Headston himself is the only one left in the agency. Most of the time he's little more than a glorified process server, but along comes a case more like what he handled in the old days. A highly successful Wall Street stockbroker has disappeared, and the man's beautiful wife hires Headston to find him.

He actually accomplishes that task in pretty short order, but his troubles are just beginning. There's a murder, and while Headston himself isn't suspected of being the killer, he still feels driven to solve the case even though it might put him in danger of losing his license, something that's happened to him in the past.

As always with a Randisi novel, THE HEADSTONE DETECTIVE AGENCY is fast-paced and dialogue-driven. The plot is suitably twisty, the solution is satisfying, and John Headston is a world-weary, occasionally wisecracking PI in the classic mold. I just had a great time reading this book. It reminded me of the private eye novels I grew up reading, while at the same time having a contemporary edge to it. There are more John Headston books coming, and I'm looking forward to them.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Astonishing Stories, February 1943

Pretty good cover by Milton Luros on this issue of ASTONISHING STORIES, Popular Publications' science fiction pulp. And you certainly can't argue with the quality of the authors inside: Leigh Brackett, Henry Kuttner, Robert Bloch, and James MacCreigh, who was really Frederik Pohl. There's also a story by Walter Kubilius, a name that's familiar to me but I don't really know why. I do know this looks like a fine issue, though.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Leading Western, January 1946

I don't know the cover artist on this issue of LEADING WESTERN, but I think it's a decent cover, as most of the covers on the Trojan Western pulps were. I can't argue with the authors inside, either: William R. Cox and Laurence Donovan were prolific, well-regarded pulpsters. M. Howard Lane's stories appeared frequently, too, most often in Popular Publications pulps. House-name Max Neilson is on hand, too, and since Donovan has a story under his own name in this issue, that makes me suspect he may have been Neilson in this instance, too. The other author is Tonto Green, which sounds like a pseudonym or house-name to me, but that's pure speculation on my part.

Forgotten Books: The Living End - Frank Kane

Frank Kane has been one of my favorite authors since I first read one of his Johnny Liddell private eye novels in high school, fifty years ago. I never read any of his stand-alone books until now, though. THE LIVING END was published by Dell in 1957, and it’s going to be reprinted soon by Stark House as part of its Black Gat Books line. That’s an excellent choice, because I really enjoyed this novel.

THE LIVING END is the story of Eddie Marlon, an ambitious, hustling young songwriter who winds up working as the assistant to a popular disc jockey at a New York radio station. This is early in the disc jockey era, and Marty Allen, Eddie’s boss, is one of the first really successful ones. The music industry is changing, and so is radio.

Eddie’s story is as old as the hills, though. He’s a heel, through and through, and will resort to any tactic, crooked or not, in order to advance his career. When a lucky break allows him to strongarm himself into a position of power, he uses his admittedly canny instincts to reinvent himself as the most influential personality in radio, and every bit of power he seizes just emboldens him to grasp for more. The question is when, not if, all this is going to catch up to him . . .

Although laws are broken and gangsters play a part in the plot, THE LIVING END isn’t really a crime novel. It’s more a character study of a sociopathic personality, as well as a vivid portrait of the music and radio industries in the mid-Fifties. Eddie seems to be loosely based on Alan Freed, who is sometimes referred to as the man who invented rock and roll. Other characters are based on real people as well, and some actual historical figures skirt around the edges of the story.

Even though there’s very little action, Kane keeps the pace in this book really racing along. His style is terse, hardboiled, funny at times, poignant at others. I really enjoyed THE LIVING END and am glad it’s being reprinted. I give it a high recommendation.