harrygbutler keeps reading in 2018 — 9

Welcome to thread 9! I’m Harry, and this is my third year in the 75 Books Challenge. By training I'm a medievalist, by occupation an editor; my taste in reading runs to Golden Age and earlier mysteries, pulp detective and adventure fiction, Late Antique and medieval literature, westerns, and late nineteenth and early twentieth century popular fiction, among others. I also have a fondness for collections of cartoons and comic strips. I usually have a few books going at once.

My wife Erika and I live in eastern Pennsylvania with three cats — Elli, Otto, and Pixie — and a dog, Hildy. Our pets occasionally make an appearance in my thread. My other interests include model railroading, gardening, and birding, so you'll sometimes see something related to them as well.

I’ll be spending time this year building model railroad kits. The boxes for these kits often are good examples of mid-century commercial art design, and I’ll be using scans of some of these as thread toppers.

Two new projects will be features of my threads in 2018 as well: pulp magazine reads and some sort of account of the movies I’ll be watching (I’m aiming to average one a day over the year). These will likely have an impact on my book totals for the year.

I try to provide some sort of comment on the books and magazines I read, but they aren't really reviews.

Hildy mostly sleeps when we are watching movies, but she has shown an interest in the series of northerns starring Kirby Grant as Mountie Rod Webb, who is assisted by his dog Chinook. I caught her watching intently last night as we viewed Snow Dog, though she does tend to lose interest when the dog is not part of the onscreen action.

Books completed in the first quarter of 2018

1. Gold Brick Island, by J. J. Connington
2. Tales of Our Coast, by S. R. Crockett, Gilbert Parker, Harold Frederic, Q, and W. Clark Russell
3. Circus, by Alistair MacLean
4. Poisoned Arrow, by Ibn-e Safi
5. Katzenjammer: A Selection of Comics, by Rudolph Dirks and Harold H. Knerr
6. Vintage Murder, by Ngaio Marsh
7. Cows of Our Planet, by Gary Larson
8. Feeling No Pain, by Syd Hoff
9. The Key, by Patricia Wentworth
10. The Far Side Gallery, by Gary Larson
11. The Groaning Board, by Charles Addams
12. The Old English History of the World: An Anglo-Saxon Retelling of Orosius, ed. and trans. by Malcolm E. Godden
13. The Complete Adventures of Feluda I, by Satyajit Ray
14. Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley, by Lord Dunsany
15. The Rumble Murders, by Henry Ware Eliot Jr.
16. Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, by P. G. Wodehouse
17. The Pocket Book of Cartoons, ed. by Bennet A. Cerf
18. The Years Between, by Rudyard Kipling
19. My Best Girls, by Helen E. Hokinson
20. Mystery in the Channel, by Freeman Wills Crofts
21. Ben Sees It Through, by J. Jefferson Farjeon
22. History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, by Archdeacon Thomas of Split
23. The Far Side Gallery 2, by Gary Larson
24. Walt Disney's Donald Duck: "Terror of the Beagle Boys", by Carl Barks
25. Alexander and Dindimus: or, The Letters of Alexander to Dindimus, King of the Brahmans, with the Replies of Dindimus; Being a Second Fragment of the Alliterative Romance of Alisaunder; Translated from the Latin, about A.D. 1340-50, ed. by Walter W. Skeat
26. Cap'n Warren's Wards, by Joseph C. Lincoln
27. The Horror on the Links, by Seabury Quinn
28. Headlong Hall, by Thomas Love Peacock
29. Look on the Light Side, ed. by Gurney Williams
30. Midnight Murder, by Gerald Verner
31. The Owner Lies Dead, by Tyline Perry
32. The Crimson Query, by Arlton Eadie
33. Smokewater, by Ibn-e Safi
34. Young Men in Spats, by P. G. Wodehouse
35. Sainted Women of the Dark Ages, ed. and trans. by Jo Ann McNamara and John E. Halborg, with E. Gordon Whatley
36. Sailors' Knots, by W. W. Jacobs
37. The Tale of the Good Cat Jupie by Neely McCoy
38. Mr. Pinkerton Goes to Scotland Yard, by David Frome
39. Modern Times: Cartoons from The Wall Street Journal, by Charles Preston
40. The Black Dream, by Constance Little and Gwenyth Little
41. "Honey, I'm Home!": A Collection of Cartoons from The Saturday Evening Post, ed. by Marione R. Nickles
42. The Mystery at Stowe, by Vernon Loder
43. Tales from the White Hart, by Arthur C. Clarke
44. The Broken Fang and Other Experiences of a Specialist in Spooks, by Uel Key

Books completed in the second quarter of 2018

45. Devil's Planet, by Manly Wade Wellman
46. Through More History with J. Wesley Smith, by Burr Shafer
47. Drawn and Quartered, by Charles Addams
48. History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai: Including Translations of Pseudo-Nilus' Narrations, Ammonius' Report on the Slaughter of the Monks of Sinai and Rhaithous, and Anastasius of Sinai's Tales of the Sinai Fathers, by Daniel F. Caner
49. Blood on His Hands, by Max Afford
50. I Meet Such People, by Gurney Williams
51. After Hours: Cartoons from The Saturday Evening Post, ed. by Marione R. Nickles
52. What Am I Laughing At?, by Sgt. Ralph Stein
53. The History of the Norman People: Wace's Roman de Rou, trans. by Glyn S. Burgess
54. "One Moment, Sir!" Cartoons from The Saturday Evening Post, ed. by Marione R. Nickles
55. The Annals of Fulda, trans. by Timothy Reuter
56. At Ease, Beetle Bailey, by Mort Walker
57. Life of Columbanus, Life of John of Réomé, and Life of Vedast, by Jonas of Bobbio
58. The Girl on the Boat, by P. G. Wodehouse
59. She Came Back, by Patricia Wentworth
60. Little God Ben, by J. Jefferson Farjeon
61. More Brother Juniper, by Father Justin McCarthy
62. The Gods of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Books completed in the third quarter of 2018

63. The Rogues' Syndicate, by Frank Froest
64. The Paddington Mystery, by John Rhode
65. The Lyttleton Case, by R.A.V. Morris
66. The Cat Saw Murder, by D. B. Olsen
67. Up Three Points, Please! Cartoons from The Wall Street Journal, ed. by Charles Preston
68. Yondering, by Louis L'Amour
69. Meet Mr. Mulliner, by P. G. Wodehouse
70. Back to B.C., by Johnny Hart
71. The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett
72. The Ponson Case, by Freeman Wills Crofts
73. Punch in the Air: A Cartoon History of Flying, ed. by David Langdon
74. Summer Lightning, by P. G. Wodehouse
75. The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle
76. Bats in the Belfry, by E.C.R. Lorac
77. The Black Iris, by Constance Little and Gwenyth Little
78. The Grell Mystery, by Frank Froest
79. Blood on the Tracks: Railway Mysteries, ed. by Martin G. Edwards
80. Showdown at Yellow Butte, by Louis L'Amour
81. Down the Long Hills, by Louis L'Amour
82. Mr. Mulliner Speaking, by P. G. Wodehouse
83. Death over Newark, by Alexander Williams
84. Renard the Fox, trans. by Patricia Terry
85. The Grouse Moor Murder, by John Ferguson
86. The Crime Club, by Frank Froest and George Dilnot
87. Grin and Bear It, by George Lichty
88. The Body in the Silo, by Ronald A. Knox
89. When Were You Built?, by Helen E. Hokinson
90. A Dreamer's Tales and Other Stories, by Lord Dunsany
91. The Pit-Prop Syndicate, by Freeman Wills Crofts
92. The Plumley Inheritance, by Christopher Bush
93. To the Far Blue Mountains, by Louis L'Amour
94. Detective Ben, by J. Jefferson Farjeon
95. Darkness at Dawn: Early Suspense Classics by Cornell Woolrich, by Cornell Woolrich
96. Belvedere: Hot Dog!, by George Crenshaw
97. Still Dead, by Ronald A. Knox

Books completed in the fourth quarter of 2018
98. Dead Hands Reaching, by Marian Gallagher Scott (Marion Scott)
99. Hello, Grandma?, by Bil Keane
100. Georgie and the Magician, by Robert Bright
101. Dennis the Menace, A.M., by Hal Ketcham
102. Georgie's Halloween, by Robert Bright
103. The Warrior's Path, by Louis L'Amour
104. The Merovingian North Sea, by Ian N. Wood
105. Blonde on a Broomstick, by Carter Brown
106. The Layton Court Mystery, by Anthony Berkeley
107. Knock, Murderer, Knock!, by Harriet Rutland
108. Fire in the Thatch, by E.C.R. Lorac
109. Death on the Riviera, by John Bude
110. Popeye the Sailor on Spook Island, by Bud Sagendorf
111. The Cheltenham Square Murder, by John Bude
112. "Honesty is one of the better policies": Saxon's world of business, by Charles Saxon
113. The Laughing Corpse, by Ibne Safi
114. Best Cartoons of the Year 1952, ed. by Lawrence Lariar
115. The Day of Uniting, by Edgar Wallace
116. The Devil's Rosary, by Seabury Quinn
117. Walt Disney's Donald Duck: "The Black Pearls of Tabu Yama", by Carl Barks
118. Doctor Dread, by Ibne Safi
119. Jubal Sackett, by Louis L'Amour
120. The Hex Murder, by Alexander Williams
121. The Yellow Mistletoe, by Walter S. Masterman

Argosy kicked off the pulp magazine era with its April 1894 issue, and it remained a major pulp until it became a slick-paper magazine in the 1940s.

After years of reading reprinted stories and novels from the pulp magazines, last November I picked up a number of the original magazines, and I’ve decided to try reading approximately one a week. I don’t intend to include them in my book count, so I’ll be tracking them separately here. If all goes well, I should read about 50 over the year.

Magazines completed in 2018

1. Short Stories, September 10, 1947
2. Railroad Stories, July 1933
3. Argosy All-Story Weekly, September 7, 1929
4. The Phantom Detective, September 1934 (facsimile)
5. Railroad Stories, January 1933
6. Argosy, August 31, 1940
7. Tales from the Magician's Skull, No. 1 (pulp-inspired or neo-pulp)
8. Wings, December 1928
9. Argosy All-Story Weekly, September 8, 1928
10. Short Stories, May 1952
11. Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 27, 1923
12. Railroad Stories, May 1934
13. Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 15, 1923
14. Argosy All-Story Weekly, August 8, 1925
15. Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 13, 1923
16. Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 23, 1924
17. Argosy All-Story Weekly, August 16, 1924
18. Cirsova, Spring 2018 (pulp-inspired or neo-pulp)
19. Tales from the Magician's Skull, No. 2 (pulp-inspired or neo-pulp)
20. Storyhack Action & Adventure, Issue 1 (pulp-inspired or neo-pulp)
21. Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 4, 1925
22. Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 3, 1928
23. Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 26, 1925
24. Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 31, 1923
25. Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 25, 1922

Several years ago I challenged myself to view 500 movies in a year. I was successful, but I did find it fairly difficult to manage. I haven’t been watching many movies recently, and I’d like to change that. For 2018, I am hoping to average a movie a day over the whole year, for a total of 365 or thereabouts.

Movies watched in the first quarter of 2018

1. After the Thin Man (MGM, 1936) — viewed Jan. 1
2. Doctor in the House (GFD, 1954) — viewed Jan. 2
3. Lawless Valley (RKO, 1938) — viewed Jan. 3
4. Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (Twentieth Century Fox, 1939) — viewed Jan. 4
5. Unknown Island (Film Classics, 1948) — viewed Jan. 5
6. All Over Town (Republic, 1937) — viewed Jan. 6
7. The Case of the Howling Dog (WB, 1934) — viewed Jan. 7
8. Seven Keys to Baldpate (RKO, 1947) — viewed Jan. 8
9. A-Haunting We Will Go (Twentieth Century Fox, 1942) — viewed Jan. 9
10. Oklahoma Blues (Monogram, 1948) — viewed Jan. 10
11. The Falcon's Brother (RKO, 1942) — viewed Jan. 11
12. The Man They Could Not Hang (Columbia, 1939) — viewed Jan. 12
13. Bringing Up Baby (RKO, 1938) — viewed Jan. 13
14. Air Hawks (Columbia, 1935) — viewed Jan. 14
15. Blackbeard the Pirate (RKO, 1952) — viewed Jan. 14
16. Charlie Chan at the Race Track (Twentieth Century Fox, 1936) — viewed Jan. 15
17. Live Wires (Monogram, 1946) — viewed Jan. 16
18. Hidden Valley (Monogram, 1932) — viewed Jan. 17
19. Conspiracy (RKO, 1930) — viewed Jan. 18
20. Chandu the Magician (Fox, 1932) — viewed Jan. 19
21. Three Smart Girls (Universal, 1936) — viewed Jan. 20
22. The Monster of Piedras Blancas (Filmservice Distributors, 1959) — viewed Jan. 21
23. Tarzan Triumphs (RKO, 1943) — viewed Jan. 22
24. Fog Island (PRC, 1945) — viewed Jan. 22
25. The Old Fashioned Way (Paramount, 1934) — viewed Jan. 23
26. The Garden Murder Case (MGM, 1936) — viewed Jan. 25
27. Doctor X (WB, 1932) — viewed Jan. 26
28. Destination Tokyo (WB, 1943) — viewed Jan. 27
29. Guns in the Dark (Republic, 1937) — viewed Jan. 28
30. Mysterious Mr. Moto (Twentieth Century Fox, 1938) — viewed Jan. 28
31. Nick Carter, Master Detective (MGM, 1938) — viewed Jan. 29
32. Call of the Prairie (Paramount, 1936) — viewed Jan. 31
33. English Without Tears (GFD, 1944) — viewed Jan. 31
34. The Ace of Spades (Radio Pictures, 1935) — viewed Feb. 1
35. The Earth Dies Screaming (Lippert, 1964) — viewed Feb. 2
36. Go West (MGM, 1940) — viewed Feb. 3
37. Charlie Chan at the Opera (Twentieth Century Fox, 1936) — viewed Feb. 5
38. Tarzan's Desert Mystery (RKO, 1943) — viewed Feb. 6
39. The Cat and the Canary (Paramount, 1939) — viewed Feb. 7
40. Bonanza Town (Columbia, 1951) — viewed Feb. 8
41. The Night Cry (WB, 1926) — viewed Feb. 10
42. Frankenstein (Universal, 1931) — viewed Feb. 10
43. Ghost of Hidden Valley (PRC, 1946) — viewed Feb. 11
44. The Deathless Devil (Atadeniz Film, 1973) — viewed Feb. 11
45. The Falcon Strikes Back (RKO, 1943) — viewed Feb. 11
46. Raffles (Goldwyn/UA, 1939) — viewed Feb. 12
47. Before Dawn (RKO, 1933) — viewed Feb. 14
48. Theodora Goes Wild (Columbia, 1936) — viewed Feb. 14
49. Secrets of the Night (Universal, 1924) — viewed Feb. 15
50. Yukon Manhunt (Monogram, 1951) — viewed Feb. 17
51. Desperate Cargo (PRC, 1941) — viewed Feb. 18
52. Old Mother Riley in Paris (Butcher's Film Service, 1938) — viewed Feb. 18
53. The Man from Planet X (UA, 1951) — viewed Feb. 20
54. Charlie Chan's Secret (Twentieth Century Fox, 1936) — viewed Feb. 21
55. Outlaws of Sonora (Republic, 1938) — viewed Feb. 22
56. The Black Cat (Universal, 1941) — viewed Feb. 23
57. The Private Eyes (New World, 1980) — viewed Feb. 24
58. A Song Is Born (Goldwyn/RKO, 1948) — viewed Feb. 25
59. The Case of the Curious Bride (WB, 1935) — viewed Feb. 26
60. Arizona Legion (RKO, 1939) — viewed Feb. 28
61. In Fast Company (Monogram, 1946) — viewed March 1
62. Isle of the Dead (RKO, 1945) — viewed March 3
63. They Live (Universal, 1988) — viewed March 3
64. I Sell Anything (WB, 1934) — viewed March 4
65. Jim Hanvey, Detective (Republic, 1937) — viewed March 5
66. Curtain at Eight (Majestic, 1933) — viewed March 7
67. Passage to Marseille (WB, 1944) — viewed March 7
68. King of the Zombies (Monogram, 1941) — viewed March 9
69. The Fighting Frontiersman (Columbia, 1946) — viewed March 10
70. Charlie Chan on Broadway (Twentieth Century Fox, 1937) — viewed March 10
71. Meet Boston Blackie (Columbia, 1941) — viewed March 11
72. Murder at Midnight (Tiffany, 1931) — viewed March 11
73. Sins of Jezebel (RKO, 1953) — viewed March 14
74. The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (ARC, 1955) — viewed March 16
75. The Wayne Murder Case (Monogram, 1932) — viewed March 15-16
76. Whistling in Brooklyn (MGM, 1943) — viewed March 17
77. Minesweeper (Paramount, 1943) — viewed March 17-18
78. The Girl from Mexico (RKO, 1939) — viewed March 18
79. Bowery Bombshell (Monogram, 1946) — viewed March 20
80. The King Murder (Chesterfield, 1932) — viewed March 20-21
81. Hands Across the Table (Paramount, 1935) — viewed March 21
82. The Canary Murder Case (Paramount, 1929) — viewed March 22
83. Strangler of the Swamp (PRC, 1946) — viewed March 22-23
84. The Gay Divorcee (RKO, 1934) — viewed March 23
85. Seven Men from Now (WB, 1956) — viewed March 24
86. Mystery House (WB, 1938) — viewed March 25
87. Mystery of the Wax Museum (WB, 1933) — viewed March 26
88. Fugitive of the Plains (PRC, 1943) — viewed March 27
89. Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (Universal, 1949) — viewed March 27
90. The Ghost and the Guest (PRC, 1943) — viewed March 28
91. Tarantula (Universal International, 1955) — viewed March 28
92. Charlie Chan in Honolulu (Twentieth Century Fox, 1938) — viewed March 28
93. Murder at Glen Athol (Chesterfield, 1936) — viewed March 28-29
94. The Devil Commands (Columbia, 1941) — viewed March 29
95. Jungle Bride (Monogram, 1933) — viewed March 29-30
96. The Thing from Another World (RKO, 1951) — viewed March 30
97. House of Danger (Peerless, 1934) — viewed March 30-31
98. Cavalier of the West (Artclass, 1931) — viewed March 31
99. Sword of Venus (RKO, 1953) — viewed March 31
100. Murder She Said (MGM, 1961) — viewed March 31

By Source, Fair use, Link

Movies watched in the second quarter of 2018

101. The Case of the Lucky Legs (WB, 1935) — viewed April 1
102. Sinister Hands (William Steiner, 1932) — viewed April 1-2
103. The Narrow Margin (RKO, 1952) — viewed April 2
104. Murder by Television (Cameo, 1935) — viewed April 2-3
105. Death from a Distance (Invincible/Chesterfield, 1935) — viewed April 4-5
106. Below the Border (Monogram, 1942) — viewed April 5-6
107. Face in the Fog (Victory, 1936)
108. A Shot in the Dark (Chesterfield, 1935)
109. Jaws of Justice (Principal, 1933)
110. The Dark Hour (Chesterfield, 1936) — viewed April 10-11
111. The Prisoner of Zenda (UA, 1937)
112. The Giant of Marathon (Italian/MGM, 1959)
113. The Crooked Circle (Sono Art-World Wide Pictures, 1932)
114. Wild Horse Mesa (Paramount, 1925)
115. The Devil Plays (Chesterfield, 1931)
116. Devil Woman from Mars (Danziger/British Lion, 1954)
117. A Shriek in the Night (Allied, 1933)
118. West of Cimarron (Republic, 1941) — viewed April 17-18
119. The Case of the Velvet Claws (WB, 1936) — viewed April 18
120. Ali Baba and the Seven Saracens (1964) — viewed April 20-21
121. The Falcon in Danger (RKO, 1943) — viewed April 21
122. Strangers of the Evening (Tiffany, 1932)
123. The Moonstone (Monogram, 1934)
124. Army of Darkness (Universal, 1992) — viewed May 1
125. The Tall T (Columbia, 1957) — viewed May 6
126. The Lady in Scarlet (Chesterfield, 1935) — viewed May 5-6
127. Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (Twentieth Century Fox, 1939) — viewed May 8
128. The Black Raven (PRC, 1943) — viewed May 8-9
129. The Wolf Hunters (Monogram, 1949) — viewed May 11
130. The Case of the Black Cat (WB, 1936), with the cartoon Mexicali Schmoes (WB, 1959) and short subject The Trouble with Husbands (Paramount, 1940) — viewed May 12
131. The Phantom of 42nd Street (PRC, 1945) — viewed over a few days, ending May 12
132. Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (Columbia, 1956) — viewed May 13
133. Captain January (Twentieth Century Fox, 1936) — viewed May 13
134. A Canterbury Tale (Eagle-Lion, 1944), with the cartoon Here Today, Gone Tamale (WB, 1959) and Chapter 1 of the serial Daredevils of the Red Circle (Republic, 1939) — viewed May 13
135. The Monster Walks (1932)
136. Crime Doctor (Columbia, 1943), with the cartoon The Sleepwalker (Disney/RKO, 1942) and short subject The Wide Open Spaces or The Cowboy's Lament (RKO Pathé, 1931) — viewed May 15
137. Without Reservations (RKO, 1946), with the cartoon T-Bone for Two (Disney/RKO, 1942) and short subject Thru Thin and Thicket or Who's Zoo in Africa (RKO, 1933) — viewed May 16
138. The Devil Bat (PRC, 1940) — viewed May 17-18
139. Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise (Twentieth Century Fox, 1940), with the cartoon Pluto at the Zoo (Disney/RKO, 1942) and Chapter 2 of the serial Daredevils of the Red Circle (Republic, 1939) — viewed May 20
140. Bloodhounds of Broadway (Twentieth Century Fox, 1952), with the cartoon The Beach Nut (Lantz/Universal, 1944) and short subject Unaccustomed As We Are (Roach/MGM, 1929) — viewed May 22
141. Mr. Wong, Detective (Monogram, 1938)
142. Zombies of Mora Tau (Columbia, 1957), with the cartoon Ski for Two (Lantz/Universal, 1944) and short subject Berth Marks (Roach/MGM, 1929) — viewed May 25
143. Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion (Universal, 1950), with the cartoon Chew-Chew Baby (Lantz/Universal, 1945) and short subject Men o' War (Roach/MGM, 1929) — viewed May 26
144. Blazing Across the Pecos (Columbia, 1948), with the cartoon Woody Dines Out (Lantz/Universal, 1945) and Chapter 3 of the serial Daredevils of the Red Circle (Republic, 1939) — viewed May 27
145. Tonight We Raid Calais (Twentieth Century Fox, 1943) — viewed May 27
146. The Mystery of Mr. Wong (Monogram, 1939)
147. Mr. Wong in Chinatown (Monogram, 1939)
148. Blacula (American International, 1972), with the cartoon Wild Elephinks (Fleischer/Paramount, 1933) and short subject Hoi Polloi (Columbia, 1935) — viewed May 30
149. The Falcon and the Co-Eds (RKO, 1943), with the cartoon Sock-a-Bye Baby (Fleischer/Paramount, 1934) and short subject Three Little Beers (Columbia, 1935) — viewed May 31
150. We're Not Dressing (Paramount, 1934), with the cartoon Let's You and Him Fight (Fleischer/Paramount, 1934) and short subject Lost in Limehouse, or Lady Esmerelda's Predicament (RKO, 1933) — viewed June 1
151. The Glass-Bottom Boat (MGM, 1966), with the cartoon The Man on the Flying Trapeze (Fleischer/Paramount, 1934) and Chapter 4 of the serial Daredevils of the Red Circle (Republic, 1939) — viewed June 2
152. Trailing Double Trouble (Monogram, 1940) — viewed June 3
153. El ataúd del Vampiro (The Vampire's Coffin) (Cinematográfica ABSA, 1958 / K. Gordon Murray Productions, 1965) — viewed June 3
154. Charlie Chan in Panama (Twentieth Century Fox, 1940), with the cartoon The Case of the Stuttering Pig (WB, 1937) and short subject The Revelers (WB, 1927) — viewed June 4
155. The Penguin Pool Murder (RKO, 1932), with the cartoon Little Pancho Vanilla (WB, 1938) and short subject The Morrissey & Miller Night Club Revue (WB, 1928) — viewed June 6
156. Trouble in Texas (Grand National, 1937)
157. The Fatal Hour (Monogram, 1940)
158. Operation Amsterdam (Rank, 1959), with the cartoon Little Beau Porky (WB, 1936) and short subject Sharps and Flats (WB, 1928)
159. Scream Blacula Scream (American International, 1973)
160. Twentieth Century (Columbia, 1934), with the cartoon Now That Summer Is Gone (WB, 1938) and Chapter 5 of the serial Daredevils of the Red Circle (Republic, 1939) — viewed June 10
161. Doomed to Die (Monogram, 1940)
162. Northwest Territory (Monogram, 1951), with the cartoon Porky in the North Woods (WB, 1936) and Chapter 6 of the serial Daredevils of the Red Circle (Republic, 1939) — viewed June 15
163. The Corpse Vanishes (Monogram, 1942)
164. News Hounds (Monogram, 1947)
165. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (RKO, 1949), with the Oswald the Rabbit cartoon Hells Heels (Lantz/Universal, 1930) and short subject The Forgotten Man (Paramount, 1941)
166. Affairs of Cappy Ricks (Republic, 1937)
167. Footsteps in the Dark (WB, 1941), with the Oswald the Rabbit cartoon Spooks (Lantz/Universal, 1930) and short subject The Moonshiner's Daughter, or Abroad in Old Kentucky (RKO, 1933)
168. Partners of the Sunset (Monogram, 1948)
169. The Giant Claw (Columbia, 1957) — viewed June 24
170. Creature with the Atom Brain (Columbia, 1955) — viewed June 24
171. Bluebeard (PRC, 1944)
172. Phantom of Chinatown (Monogram, 1940)

Source: "The Story Behind... The Universal Pictures Logo," MyFilmViews.com

Movies watched in the third quarter of 2018
173. Murder over New York (Twentieth Century Fox, 1940), with the Oswald the Rabbit cartoon Grandma's Pet (Lantz/Universal, 1932) and Chapter 7 of the serial Daredevils of the Red Circle (Republic, 1939) — viewed July 8
174. Tarzan and the Amazons (RKO, 1945), with the Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's Steam Roller (Disney, 1934) and the Laurel & Hardy short subject Perfect Day (MGM, 1929/1937) — viewed July 9
175. Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (Twentieth Century Fox, 1940)
176. The Mummy's Hand (Universal, 1940)
177. The Ninth Guest (Columbia, 1934)
178. Charlie Chan in Rio (Twentieth Century Fox, 1941)
179. Invisible Ghost (Monogram, 1941)
180. Yukon Gold (Monogram, 1952)
181. Saludos Amigos (Disney/RKO, 1942)
182. International House (Paramount, 1933)
183. Castle in the Desert (Twentieth Century Fox, 1942)
184. Fighting Fools (Monogram, 1949)
185. The Swordswoman in White (1992)
186. The Mummy's Tomb (Universal, 1942)
187. The Mandarin Mystery (Republic, 1936)
188. Tremors (Universal, 1990)
189. Officer Thirteen (Allied, 1932)
190. House of Mystery (Monogram, 1934)
191. The House of Secrets (Chesterfield, 1936)
192. Laramie (Columbia, 1949)
193. The Rogues' Tavern (Puritan, 1936)
194. Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (RKO, 1946)
195. The Ghoul (Gaumont-British, 1933)
196. The Panther's Claw (PRC, 1942)
197. Cowboy Cavalier (Monogram, 1948)
198. Doctor at Sea (Rank, 1955)
199. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Universal, 1943)
200. Snow Dog (Monogram, 1950)

As I somewhat expected, things slowed up during the summer.

By Warriorboy85 (talk) - extracted from http://us.alliedartists.com/images/aalogos.png, Public Domain, Link

Movies watched in the fourth quarter of 2018
201. Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (Monogram, 1944)
202. Murder by Invitation (Monogram, 1941)
203. Son of Dracula (Universal, 1943)
204. House of Frankenstein (Universal, 1944)
205. House of Dracula (Universal, 1945)
206. The Chinese Cat (Monogram, 1944)
207. The Mystery Man (Monogram, 1935)
208. Sinbad the Sailor (RKO, 1947)
209. House of Wax (WB, 1953)
210. The Italian Job (Paramount, 1969)
211. The Raven (American-International, 1963)
212. The Mummy's Ghost (Universal, 1944)
213. Night of the Living Deb (Cocksure Entertainment, 2015)
214. The Mummy's Curse (Universal, 1944)
215. Murder on the Blackboard (RKO, 1934)
216. Roberta (RKO, 1935)
217. The Patient in Room 18 (WB, 1938)
218. Sh! The Octopus (WB, 1937)
219. Call of the Klondike (Monogram, 1950)
220. The Rescuers (Disney, 1977)
221. El barón del terror (The Brainiac) (Cinematográfica ABSA, 1962)
222. The Jade Mask (Monogram, 1944)
223. Cult of the Cobra (Universal, 1955)
224. The Public Menace (Columbia, 1935)
225. Where There's a Will (Eros, 1955)
226. Taste the Blood of Dracula (Hammer, 1969)
227. Murder at the Gallop (MGM, 1963)
228. Top Hat (RKO, 1935)
229. Trouble in Sundown (RKO, 1939)
230. Dracula A.D. 1972 (Hammer, 1972)
231. Port of Missing Girls (Monogram, 1938)
232. Mr. Moto in Danger Island (Twentieth Century Fox, 1939)
233. Lucky Ghost (Dixie National, 1942)
234. Meeting at Midnight (Monogram, 1944)
235. Trail of the Yukon (Monogram, 1949)
236. Fangs of the Arctic (Allied Artists, 1953)
237. Northern Patrol (Allied Artists, 1953)
238. Murder Ahoy (MGM, 1964)
239. Murder Most Foul (MGM, 1964)
240. The Scarlet Clue (Monogram, 1945)
241. Forbidden Trails (Monogram, 1941)
242. Follow the Fleet (RKO, 1936)
243. Murder on a Honeymoon (RKO, 1935)
244. All Through the Night (WB, 1942)
245. Gun Law Justice (Monogram, 1949)
246. Before I Hang (Columbia, 1940)

Next one's yours!

Happy new thread :)

All this and working full time? My hat's off to you, Harry.

>13 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita!

>14 weird_O: Thanks, Bill! It certainly helps that I telecommute; I relish the time freed up that way.

Movie 178. Charlie Chan in Rio (Twentieth Century Fox, 1941)

Source: IMDB

Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) comes to Brazil in pursuit of a nightclub singer (Jacqueline Dalya) suspected of murdering someone back in Honolulu, but the woman is killed before he can arrest her, and the inspector is called upon to solve the killing, with son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) on hand to lend his sometimes doubtful assistance. Throw in a jealous friend, a suspicious servant, a wealthy fianc&eacute, and a phony psychic, among others, as well as missing jewelry and another killing, and it's clear that Charlie's work is cut out for him. Recommended.

Happy new thread, Harry! Boy, that's a lot of movies!

Happy new thread!

>18 mstrust: Thanks, Jennifer! I'm rather behind and think it unlikely that I'll hit my goal of an average of one per day, but I do expect to end up with somewhere between 250 and 300 movies for the year.

>19 drneutron: Thank you, Jim!

Happy New Thread, Harry! And hooray for seeing the Cooper's Hawk. Always a treat. Have you read The Searchers? I finally started it today and it has been terrific. I plan on re-watching the the amazing film sometime after.

Happy new thread, Harry!

>2 harrygbutler: Lovely picture of Hildy watching TV :-)
We have had some pets watching the screen. Most notable was Rowan, a big red cat, who watched snooker with Frank. Somhow the balls rolling on the screen were irrisitable, once in a while he tried to catch them.

>22 msf59: Thanks, Mark! I don't think I've ever read anything by Alan Le May, so thanks for the tip on the book; I'll keep an eye out for it when I'm browsing westerns.

>23 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita!

That's a cute story about Rowan; did he have little balls that rolled around in the house to play with? We sometimes have gotten them for our cats, but they always end up disappearing very quickly.

Every now and then something on TV catches the attention of one of the cats, but they aren't regular watchers. Otto occasionally is fascinated by the pointer cursor on the laptop and will try for it, but even that is fairly rare.

>25 harrygbutler: We tried with little balls for Rowan, Harry, but the dog we had back then (a Belgian Shepherd) was very fond of destroying anyting that happened to be at the floor.... so they never lasted long.

>26 FAMeulstee: Ah, I can understand that.

Movie 179. Invisible Ghost (Monogram, 1941)

Source: IMDB

Wealthy and respected Charles Kessler (Bela Lugosi), deserted by his wife (Betty Compson), periodically is gripped by a homicidal mania set off when he glimpses her wandering around the grounds. (She is being hidden and cared for by the gardener after an accident on the night of her departure that killed her lover and left her disoriented.) When Kessler kills a new maid (Terry Walker), young Ralph Dickson (John McGuire) is convicted of the murder and executed because of his history with the victim. The arrival of Ralph's twin brother, Paul, sets the stage for more murder. A bit confused, and it's rather inexplicable that the police have been unable to get to the bottom of the killings that happen in Kessler's home, but enjoyable enough. Mildly recommended.

Hi Harry, and a belated Happy New Thread and happy Wednesday to you.

>2 harrygbutler: Aww, Hildy looks so sweet.

>29 karenmarie: Thanks, Karen! Hildy can be a sweet dog, though the cats might disagree. :-)

Movie 180. Yukon Gold (Monogram, 1952)

By Source, Fair use, Link

Mountie Rod Webb (Kirby Grant) investigates a killing with the help of his dog Chinook and the aid of a murder victim's niece (Martha Hyer). Another enjoyable entry in Hildy's favorite series. Mildly recommended.

Movie 181. Saludos Amigos (Disney/RKO, 1942)

Source: IMDB

The Disney studio looks to Latin America with this film, which proved successful enough that the perhaps more-famous The Three Caballeros was made as a follow-up. Something of a virtual tour, with cartoon segments interspersed with live-action sequences, providing both amusement and education. Recommended.

Hi Harry! I hope you're having a good weekend.

>33 karenmarie: Hi, Karen! It has been pretty good, thanks.

Magazine 22. Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 3, 1928



Seeing the review of Voodoo'd over on lyzard's thread reminded me that I needed to discuss another issue of Argosy All-Story Weekly, this one from March of 1928. As usual, since I lack the issues to permit me to read any of the serials completely, I skipped them and concentrated instead on the novelette, short stories, and poems. The novelette, Joseph Ivers Lawrence's "Believe What You See," was a tale of how out-of-work actors hoodwinked an aviation-mad millionaire and his neighbors — with a twist that was a real pleasure. "Gods of the Rangelands," by James Perley Hughes, is a western in which a small-time rancher turned hired hand tries, and fails, to drive a sheepherder off the range, and in the process learns to be a better judge of men. In Garret Smith's "Sight Unseen," young Charley Cross finds excitement and romance when he retrieves a lost purse and buys a package — contents unknown — in an auction. Rose Henderson's "The Right Technic" is a story of romance in the city, and the final story, John Wilstach's "Ticket Trickery," relates how an accountant who aspires to be an artist brings his artistic training to bear to unravel an embezzlement scheme. None of the poems really stood out, I'd say, except perhaps H. F. Stout's sentimental "The Old Home Town," but all were OK.

Morning, Harry. I hope you had a good weekend. I am enjoying the day off but it looks like another damp one, which will be probably keep me from taking a stroll or 2. Boo!!

>36 msf59:, Hi, Mark! It was pretty good, but fairly quiet. On Sunday, I went to a train show and picked up a few things, including a kit I've wanted for some time.

Hello Harry! I hope all is well with you.

>17 harrygbutler: Excellent that I found that you saw this film. In fact, I stopped by to say I just pick up the 'Classic American Crime fiction 1920s' annotated by Leslie S. Klinger. The first novel, which I have started is The House Without A Key. I suspect you have read this one. What did you think?

>38 brodiew2: Hi, Brodie! Thanks for stopping by!

That anthology seems a good buy. I finally picked up a copy of The Benson Murder Case recently myself.

It has been a number of years since I last read any of Biggers' Charlie Chan novels, and they're likely due to be revisited. I recall liking them, but I'm afraid I don't recall the details.

182. International House (Paramount, 1933)

Source: IMDB

A slight plot involving an invention related to television is used to string together a series of comic and musical sketches in this amusing little time-waster. Notorious real-life gold-digger Peggy Hopkins Joyce, known for her affairs with and marriages to wealthy men, heads the cast, which also features W. C. Fields — who delivers the comic goods as usual — and George Burns and Gracie Allen, as a doctor and his featherbrained nurse. Bela Lugosi has a good, if small, part as a competitor for the invention who happens to be one of Joyce's ex-husbands. Musical interludes include songs by Rudy Vallee and by Baby Rose Marie, as well as Cab Calloway and his orchestra performing "Reefer Man." There's not much substance here, but the froth is fun. Recommended.

HarperCollins Detective Club has announced that it will be limiting its hardcover reprints to a single print run of about 1,000 copies and may or may not reprint them in paperback (though it plans to keep them available as ebooks). Per the announcement, the following titles are now out of stock at the publisher and will not not be reprinted:

The Perfect Crime, by Israel Zangwill
The Mystery of the Skeleton Key, by Bernard Capes
The Grell Mystery, by Frank Fröest
The Mystery at Stowe, by Vernon Loder
The Mystery of the Mud Flats, by Maurice Drake
Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper, by Donald Henderson

The publisher said that the following are likely to go out of print quite soon as well:

The Mayfair Mystery, by Frank Richardson
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Ponson Case, by Freeman Wills Crofts
The Blackmailers, by Émile Gaboriau
The Nursing Home Murder, by Ngaio Marsh
The Paddington Mystery, by John Rhode

I was able to get the couple that I still needed from Amazon, but in-stock quantities did seem to be limited, so I'd encourage people to pick up any they think they may want sooner rather than later.

>41 harrygbutler: At least they plan to keep the ebooks available. My library offers many of the titles so I'll probably just borrow from there.

Morning, Harry. Happy Wednesday. Just spotted a turkey vulture on the route. I saw 2 last week also. I believe this is the first time ever, for the route.

>42 thornton37814: Yes, it's good that they won't become completely unavailable, but a bit disappointing that they have no ability to make use of, or no interest in, print-on-demand technology to let the books remain perpetually available in printed form. I've purchased some well-made books from smaller publishers that were POD, and it's a pity that more isn't done along those lines for books that can be expected to have a limited audience, but an audience with small numbers of new members on an ongoing basis.

I haven't checked whether our library system has the books, but I do make use of it for out-of-print mysteries, whether in the system's holdings or via ILL.

>43 msf59: Hi, Mark. We've been seeing a number of black vultures around here. They've gradually been expanding their range northward, I believe, but the turkey vultures remain plentiful as well.

'Morning, Harry, and happy Thursday to you!

>43 msf59: Some of my favorite folks are in that movie. I just watched a trailer on YouTube. "stars of the screen, stars of the stage, stars of radio, stars of the boudoir!" And, of course the Girls in cellophane. *smile*

>46 karenmarie: Good morning, Karen! We bought the W. C. Fields DVD sets when they came out and have watched many of them so far. He's consistently entertaining. And Burns & Allen perk up most any show where they appear.

Movie 183. Castle in the Desert (Twentieth Century Fox, 1942)

Source: IMDB

A forged letter brings Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) to the home of reclusive Philip Manderley (Douglass Dumbrille), which is a castle he has had built in the Mojave Desert. When death strikes, suspicion falls on Mrs. Manderley (Lenita Lane), a descendant of the Borgias, but others are on hand — or come out to the house during the proceedings — to complicate the investigation. Entertaining stuff, with son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) on hand to enliven the case. Recommended.

Hi Harry, and I wish you a happy weekend.

I have and have read W. C. Fields By Himself by his grandson Ronald J. Fields and W. C. Fields and Me by Carlotta Monti. He definitely was a fascinating and larger-than-life character.

>49 karenmarie: Hi, Karen! It was a good weekend, thanks. I can recall seeing both those books kicking around at book stores and book sales over the years, but I've never read either one.

Movie 184. Fighting Fools (Monogram, 1949)

Source: IMDB

The Bowery Boys tangle with crooked fight promoters after a friend is killed in the boxing ring. Frankie Darro has a decent role as a comeback kid, and Lyle Talbot makes an effective heavy. A good entry in the series.

Movie 185. The Swordswoman in White (1992)

The swordswoman of the title helps her father to resist oppression in 18th-century China. This action film is apparently based on a real person, Wang Cong'er, who was a leader in an anti-Manchu rebellion during the Qing dynasty. The dubbing is rather replete with anachronisms, and thus undercuts the seriousness of the story, but I enjoyed the swordwork nonetheless. Not really recommended.

Hello Harry!

>48 harrygbutler: I will definitely be seeing some Charlie Chan on film as soon as I finish The House Without A Key.

>51 harrygbutler: I rather enjoyed the Dead End Kids in both Dead End and Angels With Dirty Faces. I know they became The Bowery Boys, but I have not seen much beyond these.

>53 brodiew2: Hi, Brodie!

The films are rather different from the books, but Chan is consistently the smartest person around in them.

As the Dead End Kids became the East Side Kids and then the Bowery Boys, the emphasis shifted from drama to slapstick comedy, with eventually a fairly tight focus on Leo Gorcey's malapropisms and Huntz Hall's comic antics. There were nearly 50 of the Bowery Boys films, following on from 25 East Side Kids movies, so there's plenty to try.

'Morning, Harry! I hope your week is going well so far.

Movie 186. The Mummy's Tomb (Universal, 1942)

Source: IMDB

The first of three sequel's to The Mummy's Hand finds the mummy Kharis transported to New England to wreak vengeance on the surviving members of the expedition that encountered him in the first movie, including Dick Foran and Wallace Ford reprising their roles. An efficient little programmer, with Turhan Bey as the Egyptian priest and Lon Chaney Jr. appearing as Kharis. Recommended if you liked the first.

>55 karenmarie: Hi, Karen! Not bad; I've been busy putting my pulp magazines in protective sleeves preparatory to updating my checklists.

Movie 187. The Mandarin Mystery (Republic, 1936)

Source: IMDB

Ellery Queen has not been particularly well-served by the movies, and Republic's 1936 The Mandarin Mystery is a case in point. Eddie Quillan plays a wise-cracking Ellery who investigates murder, and the theft of a valuable stamp, because of his interest in the young woman (Charlotte Henry) at the center of the case. The culprit is fairly obvious, and Quillan's character is fairly annoying. Not recommended.

>56 harrygbutler: I love how the name Lon Chaney is so big, then you have to squint to see the "jr." And one guy on the left looks horrified to see the mummy carrying the girl, while another looks just mildly interested and the other looks like "now's a good chance to go rob her apartment".

Morning, Harry! Happy Wednesday. I hope the week is chugging along there, all right. All good here, despite the chilly temps. I switched to pepper suet, to keep the squirrels at bay, otherwise they are hanging from the feeder all day long, nibbling away. I will pick up some peanuts for them.

Hi Harry!

>57 harrygbutler: 'Playing with' collections is always fun.

>59 mstrust: Hi, Jennifer! I think that is an "in" rather than "jr." in that poster. By this point in his career they were often leaving it off, I think.

That's a pretty good insight into the three characters shown, I think. It will come as no surprise that the suspicious-looking fellow, Turhan Bey, is up to no good. :-)

>60 msf59: Good morning, Mark! I've got to refill all the feeders today. So far the squirrels have ignored the suet, going for the seed feeders if the peanut feeders are empty, so we've been able to stick with fruit and nut suet.

>61 karenmarie: Good morning, Karen!

Quite true! I imported a few thousand pulp magazine titles into my Wishlist collection yesterday and will do the same soon for another couple magazines where I'm planning to start out concentrating my collecting. Then, as I update my checklists, I'll move the owned magazines out of Wishlist and into a new Magazines collection.

I also have found my partial lists of DVDs that we have, so I'll be setting up some imports for those, too, I think. I've begun to run into enough possible duplicates while out shopping that it's time to update our holdings. :-)

Movie 188. Tremors (Universal, 1990)

Source: IMDB

Easily my favorite "modern" monster movie series is that kicked off by this movie in 1990. Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon play handymen stuck in remote, tiny Perfection, Nevada, dreaming of getting away to find success but still fairly content to just get along day by day. When they finally do screw up the ambition to hit the road, fate steps in, in the form of Graboids, monstrous worm-like creatures that have shown up out of nowhere and are bent on chowing down on whatever they can find, and it's up to our heroes, and the rest of the townfolk, to figure out how to escape or defeat the menace. This is a fun but suspenseful movie, and Michael Gross found the role of a lifetime as survivalist Burt Gummer (and he knew it, as he obtained the rights, I believe, and keeps making sequels). Highly recommended.

That is a good movie.

Yup, one of our faves - watched it bunches of times!

>66 mstrust: >67 drneutron: I picked up a four-movie set, with the first three sequels. I enjoyed the abbreviated TV series, too, with the surprising (to me) return of Marcia Strassman. I also see that there's a new Tremors movie (direct to video that just came out this year, Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell, but I haven't seen it yet.

'Morning, Harry! Happy Thursday to you.

I love the LT mobile app - I can quickly check to see if a book is already on my shelves. I don't keep my wishlist in my LT catalog, so if it 'pops' when I look it up on my cell phone, then I know I can avoid purchasing a duplicate. Isn't technology (occasionally) wonderful?

>69 karenmarie: Hi, Karen! The LT mobile app played a part in my decision to finally get a cellphone; the convenience of being able to check quickly is great. It hasn't completely displaced paper checklists for me, as I usually have about three pages worth of titles I'm still seeking handy to allow even quicker checking — chiefly for authors with many books, where I'm down to needing just a few and might waste a lot of time when confronted with a stack of a dozen or more to check. And I'm sticking with paper checklists for magazines because the critical variable is issue date, not title.

I don't use the LT Wishlist for books, either, but it seemed like a good collection for stashing all the magazine issues at once to save time. Starting from available electronic lists, I was able to easily create a complete list of issues in a particular date range, with title as I record them, date, publisher, and tags, and then I can just edit the collection for those I own.

Since you can search within a specific collection in the mobile app, I decided that I will go ahead and add all my movies on DVD to my current LT library, rather than creating a second one that would require me to switch user IDs in the mobile app. Often enough I'm shopping for both DVDs and books in the same shop, but just which may change from booth to booth at a flea market or antique mall, so it would be tedious to be switching back and forth all the time.

I only use the wishlist in my main account for Christmas swap. I have wish lists at Amazon and Book Depository which are more up-to-date than the separate wish list account I set up years ago. I'm not doing a very good job at maintaining that list at the moment. Too much going on.

>71 thornton37814: My attention to keeping wish lists up to date certainly waxes and wanes. I know right now I need to do some updating of my lists at Amazon. (I have several there, broken down in various ways to help me keep books of particular types — especially those from certain publishers — as well as DVDs and CDs and other items, together at a glance.) I haven't set one up at Book Depository, but I think I do have an old wish list kicking around at Abebooks, as I occasionally get emails about items I wanted.

Hello Harry!

>65 harrygbutler: Tremors! A definite favorite of mine. You hit the nail on the head; ' fun, but suspenseful'. Ward and Bacon, and Gross make this film imminently rewatchable. Their 'redneck' back and forth has me in stitches every time I watch it.

>69 karenmarie: >70 harrygbutler: >71 thornton37814: I downloaded the app, but found I wasn't using it. I primarily us the LT site at work, so having it mobile didn't do much for me.

Morning, Harry. Happy Friday. I like Tremors too, although it has been many years since I seen it. I should do a re-watch.

>73 brodiew2: Hi, Brodie! The characters were a strength of Tremors, I'd say.

I find the app useful when visiting book sales, flea markets, and antique stores, but its limited feature set means I'm much more likely to hop on my laptop when I'm at home — especially when I'm shopping for books online, since I don't do that from my phone.

>74 msf59: Good morning, Mark! I'd say Tremors is worth revisiting. Now that I own a copy, I expect it will pop up in my viewing every few years.

Movie 189. Officer Thirteen (Allied, 1932)

Source: IMDB

Fading film stars Monte Blue and Lila Lee are the featured performers in this low-budget, melodramatic story of a policeman quitting the force to pursue justice when the man who ran his partner off the road, killing him, avoids prosecution. Blue is OK as the stalwart lead, but the movie is no great shakes. Young Mickey Rooney plays the son of the officer who is killed. Not particularly recommended.

Good morning, Harry, and happy Saturday to you!

I only use the LT mobile app to check titles, but for that it's superb. Right now I'm at my desk in the Sunroom with my second cup of coffee and using LT on my monitor, separate keyboard, and wireless mouse. The laptop is off to the side. I always add books through the LT website and frequently have to scan in my exact cover so as to avoid using Amazon's. I'm slowly going back through my catalog and making sure I have a high quality non-Amazon cover for every book.

I keep my wishlist on a spreadsheet AND in Bookmooch in case a title pops up and I can mooch it. It's grown to 408 titles, but I need to review it and get rid of books I'm no longer interested in reading.

>78 karenmarie: Hi, Karen! We went antiquing on Saturday. A fun time, and I found a few books to buy.

I'm gradually replacing all generic and Amazon covers with scanned covers myself. I have used some of the high-quality covers from the site, but whenever possible I'm aiming to have the cover be that of the actual book I own — even if that cover is somewhat less appealing than others available.

And yesterday I got the first batch of movies we own on DVD imported into a new Movies collection on LT: just over 280 crime and mystery movies. For space reasons, we try ( :-) ) to keep our DVDs in albums I got a few years ago from an office supply store, but I know I need to pick up a few more, as we're already on a second comedy album and definitely need a second for mysteries, too.

Morning, Harry! I'm all caught up with you, and Jennifer's comments about the movie poster for The Mummy's Tomb made me laugh out loud. Making a note of Tremors, as I have not seen that one.

>79 harrygbutler: I try to match the cover as much as possible too. For newer items, I can often find the real cover on the publisher's website and let it pull the cover in from there with the ADD FROM URL option. I've scanned some though and did a big scanning project a few years back.

>80 Crazymamie: Hi, Mamie! Thanks for dropping by! I hope you enjoy Tremors when you get around to seeing it.

I'm fairly far behind on my movie posts, so I'll probably aim to put up two a day for a bit, if I can manage it.

>81 thornton37814: I'll have to remember to try that ADD FROM URL option for books that are too large to fit on my scanner. Thanks for the tip, Lori!

For awhile I had the scanner right next to my laptop, so I'd set a stack of books beside me and scan one whenever I had a chance. Now many of the books that still need to be scanned are nowhere near the scanner, which is not particularly near my computer, so it takes more of an effort, and I only scan book covers occasionally, or when I finish reading and get ready to write it up for my Talk thread.

Movie 190. House of Mystery (Monogram, 1934)

Source: IMDB

The "Curse of Kali" stalks those who claim a share in the riches that an archaeologist gone bad, and now in a wheelchair, brought back from his expedition. A muddled mess, and even the presence of a gorilla can't really save this one. Not recommended.

Hello Harry! Just dropping in with a question. I went through a fairly intense Noir film phase in my 20s, but sadly never got around to Kansas City Confidential. Have you seen this one? I know the films you review are more mystery/suspense, but I thought I'd ask.

Hi, Brodie! I don't think I've ever seen Kansas City Confidential, though it sounds like a good one.

I've watched plenty of noir in the past, but this year perhaps the only film that qualifies is The Narrow Margin. I'm considering rewatching a Mitchum movie soon — probably either The Big Steal or His Kind of Woman or both. And going through my binder of mystery DVDs reminded me of some others that may make it onto the viewing schedule sooner rather than later.

>86 harrygbutler: I loved 'The Narrow Margin' Marie Windsor was great as was Charles Mcgraw. The remake was also well done.

As for Mitchum, Out of the Past and Where Danger Lives among other made my list back then.

>87 brodiew2: Hmm. Maybe it's time for a Mitchum marathon! His noir turns are uniformly excellent.

>88 harrygbutler: No doubt. I was fortunate enough to have a couple of the less available one (at the time) recorded on a videotape.

>83 harrygbutler: Author's web sites are another good place to retrieve from URL.

Hi, Harry. I hope your Monday went smoothly. It was a beautiful day here, in the Midwest. I got some outdoor chores done and got a little birding in, in the morning. The bonus being another GHO, which I have not seen perched in nearly 6 months. Yah!

Movie 191. The House of Secrets (Chesterfield, 1936)

Source: IMDB

Barry Wilding (Leslie Fenton) meets a young woman (Muriel Evans) shortly before learning that he has inherited an estate, the Hawk's Nest. When he tries to visit his new property, he finds strangers in residence, among them the woman, and is rushed off the premises and treated as a trespasser. Further investigations suggest weird experiments and the involvement of a high government official in the plot, while at the same time some American gangsters seem intent on unraveling the mystery as well. A rather outlandish story, with too much repetition. Not particularly recommended.

Where to watch: As a public domain movie, available on DVD and for online streaming.

>89 brodiew2: Several years ago, Warner put out several "film noir" collections on DVD, and other companies, such as VCI Entertainment, did the same. Many of the movies in the sets aren't really noir, but there were some more obscure pictures in the mix.

>90 thornton37814: Another good tip. Thanks! I don't read that many contemporary authors, but I'll definitely bear that in mind.

>95 harrygbutler: Hi, Mark! I haven't managed an owl sighting in some time. I think this winter we'll try to get a look at a snowy, assuming they come down this far again.

Movie 192. Laramie (Columbia, 1949)

Source: IMDB

The Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) intervenes when an evil cavalry scout stirs up trouble between the army and the local Indians in an effort to line his own pockets. Smiley Burnette is on hand for comic relief. Recommended to fans of the series, but probably not of much interest if you don't care for B westerns.

Where to watch: Available on DVD.

Movie 193. The Rogues' Tavern (Puritan, 1936)

By Puritan Pictures - source, Public Domain, Link

Two department store detectives (Wallace Ford and Barbara Pepper), who have come to Red Rock Tavern to be married by a justice of the peace, instead find themselves embroiled in mystery when a dog apparently kills one of the guests and more death follows and it is revealed that most of the guests are crooks. The plot is a bit muddled but entertaining enough, and Joan Woodbury has a fun role as a psychic. I was a bit surprised by the resolution of the mystery. Mildly recommended.

Where to watch: Available on DVD, and for online streaming at the Internet Archive.

Movie 194. Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (RKO, 1946)

Source: IMDB

A secret leopard cult has been killing travelers, though the authorities believe the attacks have been conducted by actual leopards. Tarzan disagrees, but the clever cultists set live leopards on a government expedition, which seems to confirm the official interpretation. When another caravan disappears, Tarzan undertakes his own investigation, while at the same time a young member of the cult group plots to murder Jane. An interesting storyline with an excellent concluding sequence. Recommended.

Where to watch: Available on DVD.

Movie 195. The Ghoul (Gaumont-British, 1933)

Source: IMDB

A dying Egyptologist seeks to be entombed with a gem that he believes holds the key to eternal life. After his death, the gem is stolen by an unknown figure, and the dead man, now a revenant, stalks the household. Good stuff from Karloff here. Recommended.

Where to watch: Available on DVD.

There were several good posters, and I couldn't choose just one, so I've included three more below.

Source: IMDB

Source: IMDB

Source: IMDB

Those posters are great! It's interesting to see the different styles - are they from different years or were they all made about the same time?

Awesome posters! I love them all, and I'm glad the movie was good enough to be recommended.

Morning, Harry. Sweet Thursday. My work week has been going smoothly. Our temps have been cool but the sunshine has been welcome. Not much to report on the bird front. The usual suspects on the route and the feeders.

>100 drneutron: I think they are all contemporary with the movie's release, but the one at the top and the one at the bottom seem to be related to the American release, while the two in the middle look to be from the original British release.

>101 mstrust: I think the two "Weird Happenings" posters have an interesting depiction of Karloff. His face is very strange. I like the poster with the open sarcophagus best.

>102 msf59: Hi, Mark! My week has been fine so far. No unusual birds sighted here, either.

Movie 196. The Panther's Claw (PRC, 1942)

Source: IMDB

Everett P. Digberry (Byron Foulger), a mousy, middle-aged man, is caught by police climbing out of a cemetery in the middle of the night. He tells the officers that he had gone there in answer to a threatening note from "the Panther" and had left $1,000 on a grave, but the money has vanished when they go in. It turns out other people, all connected with an opera company, have also received such notes. Police Commissioner Thatcher Colt (Sidney Blackmer) investigates, and the case becomes more serious when one of the members of the opera company is murdered. A fairly enjoyable little film, despite its budgetary restrictions. Mildly recommended.

Where to watch: Available on DVD and for online streaming at the Internet Archive.

Hi Harry, and happy Friday to you.

>79 harrygbutler: If I can find a good high quality cover that is EXACTLY my cover, I'll use it, but I've scanned in lots of covers. I've even gotten a helper's badge for Cover Uploading!

Have you ever read the Tarzan books? I read them in high school, still have all the old now-yellowed-but-still-readable Ballantine editions. I've re-read the first several times, but haven't further into the series again. I've also read the Pellucidar series, one of which is Tarzan at the Earth's Core.

>107 karenmarie: Good morning, Karen! Congrats on the helper's badge!

I've been busy importing more lists of movies this week, and it seems that they are not combining automatically with the movies already cataloged on the site, probably because of my way of identifying movies in the title field so as to prevent automatic combination with books. It doesn't bother me much, but it does mean that none of them gets a "cover" image. I suspect I'll end up eyeing theatrical release poster images, since my interest is in the movies, not so much particular DVDs of the movies.

I haven't read the Tarzan books, though I own a few of them. I think I started one of them once and got distracted. I own the first couple and a few from later in the series, and I have been meaning to read them, as well as the Pellucidar books, but I've not gotten around to it yet. I'm currently stalled with Barsoom because I'm not sure where my copy of The Warlord of Mars is located, and with the Venus series because I don't have all the books.

Movie 197. Cowboy Cavalier (Monogram, 1948)

Source: IMDB

Villains target a stage line owned by a reputed widow, Mary Croft (Claire Whitney), whose husband, Patrick Collins (Steve Clark), is actually in prison. The crooks are aided in their efforts by an inside man, Lance Regan (Douglas Evans), who met their daughter Pat Croft (Jan Bryant) on a stage and secures employment with Mrs. Croft because of his connection with her husband. Foreman Jimmy Wakely and his sidekick Cannonball (Dub Taylor) are suspicious of Regan. Fairly fast-moving, with a few songs. Mildly recommended.

Where to watch: Available on DVD.

Morning, Harry. No birding for me yesterday, due to house chores and a family get-together but my feeders were sure hopping. But, I am off tomorrow...

I hope you had a good weekend.

Movie 198. Doctor at Sea (Rank, 1955)

Source: IMDB

Just a year or so out of medical school, Dr. Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde) flees the prospect of matrimony with the daughter of the physician he assists, taking refuge as ship's doctor aboard a vessel commanded by blustery Captain Hogg (James Robertson Justice), who is reputed to be a woman-hater. Circumstances nonetheless give the young doctor the opportunity for romance, when he meets singer Hélène Colbert (Brigitte Bardot) and the singer travels aboard the ship with her friend, Muriel Mallet (Brenda de Banzie), daughter of the shipping line's owner, who has her eye on Captain Hogg. Fun froth. Recommended.

Where to watch: Available on DVD.

>110 msf59: Good morning, Mark. A fairly rainy weekend here, so there wasn't too much to see, but the birds were definitely at the feeders. I haven't looked this morning, but I suspect it's time to refill them again.

Good morning, Harry, and happy Monday to you!

I need to fill some feeders, too. I'm having somewhat below normal activity here, bird-wise.

>113 karenmarie: Hi, Karen!

I was pleased to see that peanuts in shell are back on sale at the local grocery store, so I'll have to lay in a supply for the squirrels, too.

Movie 199. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Universal, 1943)

Source: IMDB

In the first of Universal's monster mashes, grave-robbers inadvertently bring werewolf Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) back to life, and the cursed man travels to central Europe in the hope of finding a way to truly die, and thus escape his torment. Aided by the gypsy Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya), he seeks Dr. Frankenstein's secrets of life and death. Well-done, with Chaney sympathetic as always in this role and Patric Knowles convincing as a doctor tempted to follow in Frankenstein's footsteps. Recommended.

Where to watch: Available on DVD.

Movie 200. Snow Dog (Monogram, 1950)

Source: IMDB

When Mountie Rod Webb (Kirby Grant) investigates the depredations of a wolf, Chinook gets a chance to face a canine combatant. This is a well-scripted movie that moves at a good clip, a solid entry in the series. Recommended.

Where to watch: Available on DVD.

98. Dead Hands Reaching, by Marian Gallagher Scott (Marion Scott)



When an actress returns to her hometown to seek a divorce from her older husband, a prominent but not well-liked local, murder soon follows. Author Marian Gallagher Scott keeps the story moving, with multiple mysterious parties who may have committed the crime and perhaps have plots of their own going as well. Mildly recommended.

99. Hello, Grandma?, by Bil Keane



One can't exactly recommend collections of Family Circus cartoons, but if you enjoy them, you'll probably like this volume, too.

201. Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (Monogram, 1944)

Source: IMDB

When an inventor working on a means of helping the war effort is murdered and the plans of his device are stolen while his house is full of guests attending a cocktail party, Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler), now in Washington working for the Secret Service, is called on to investigate. With No. 3 son Tommy (Benson Fong) and No. 2 daughter Iris (Marianne Quon) on hand and the delightful Mantan Moreland offering comic support, this is a good debut for the series at its new studio, Monogram. Recommended.

Where to watch: Available on DVD.

New in the house today are two DVD sets: the Will Rogers Collection, Volumes 1 and 2, with 8 movies starring the famed humorist.





(Both images from Amazon.)

Vol. 1:
Life Begins at 40
In Old Kentucky
Doubting Thomas
Steamboat 'Round the Bend

Vol. 2:
Ambassador Bill
David Harum
Mr. Skitch
Too Busy to Work

>118 harrygbutler: That's one of my all-time favorite comics, and I used to own several collections. I think I've probably traded most by now, simply to make space for other books.

>121 thornton37814: Glad to find someone who enjoys them, Lori! I like them well enough to pick up the books when I run across them at library sales, and dip back into them from time to time, but I know they aren't universal favorites.

Movie 202. Murder by Invitation (Monogram, 1941)

Source: IMDB

Death stalks the relatives of old Cassie Denham, who has invited them to her house — after they tried unsuccessfully to have her committed — ostensibly to decide who will be her heir. After the first killing, reporter Bob White (Wallace Ford) arrives, and he, with his girlfriend and his photographer, take a hand in unraveling the mystery. Fun enough old-dark-house movie. Mildly recommended.

Where to watch: Available on DVD and for free online streaming at the Internet Archive.

100. Georgie and the Magician, by Robert Bright



When the Whittakers' barn burns down, a benefit is planned to raise funds to rebuild it, and Mr. Whittaker ends up volunteering to do a magic act, but he seems likely to flop. Luckily, Georgie and his friends Herman the cat and Miss Oliver the owl are prepared to take a hand. Recommended.

Movie 203. Son of Dracula (Universal, 1943)

Source: IMDB

Dracula comes to America in this Universal film, with "Count Alucard" (Lon Chaney, Jr.) drawn to Louisiana by occult-obsessed Katherine Caldwell (Louise Albritton), who is fascinated by his promise of immortal undeath despite the misgivings of family and friends, including her erstwhile fiancé, Frank Stanley (Robert Paige). A fairly effective little horror film, with an unexpected twist or two, even if Chaney is rather more robust than one usually expects a vampire to be. Recommended.

101. Dennis the Menace, A.M., by Hal Ketcham



More spirited hijinks on the part of young Master Dennis. Recommended.

102. Georgie's Halloween, by Robert Bright



Halloween means a costume party on the village green, and the Whittakers will be taking part. Shy little Georgie is persuaded to venture from the house to witness the proceedings, where he is seen by the children but not, of course, by the adults. Recommended.

Hi Harry, and happy Halloween to you!

Do you get trick-or-treaters?

>128 karenmarie: Thanks, Karen! We usually do get a moderate number of trick-or-treaters, so I went out yesterday and picked up some candy to distribute. It's not a night that Hildy particularly enjoys, as she doesn't like people coming into our yard. I'll distribute candy until Erika gets home; she'll stop on the way and pick up a pizza, as I find it a hassle to try to cook while covering the door, too.

103. The Warrior's Path, by Louis L'Amour



When the sister of Yance Sackett's wife is kidnapped, apparently by Indians, he and his elder brother Kin Ring head north to Massachusetts in search of the missing girl and another taken with her. Putting an end to the disappearances brings even farther-reaching travel for the eldest son of Barnabas Sackett, as well as adventure, romance, and battle. Recommended.

Movie 204. House of Frankenstein (Universal, 1944)

Source: IMDB

After escaping from prison, mad Doctor Gustav Niemann (Boris Karloff), with the aid of his hunchbacked assistant, Daniel (J. Carrol Naish), seeks revenge on the burghers who put him behind bars. He first revives Dracula (John Carradine) and then the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.) and Frankenstein's Monster (Glenn Strange), to use as tools to accomplish his ends. Complicating matters is the presence of the gypsy Ilonka (Elena Verdugo), whom Daniel loves. A fast and fun monster rally, even if a bit jumbled. Recommended.

Hi, Harry. I've been too long away from your thread, and it is fun to get caught up. I follow a batch of blogs on Tumblr and have been floored by how many films the classic horror film actors—Chaney, Lugosi, Karloff, et al—made.

I too prefer to have "my" book's cover shown in my LT catalog. I've found a lot of them via Google Images. It sometimes takes a while to zero in on what I want, but I pick up lots of trivia along the way. Microsoft's image search engine, Bing, is good too. I have books that didn't have dust jackets when I got them, and I've been able to scare up an image to use.

Print on Demand is intriguing, but I have no idea of what's involved. Our kids bought a book for my wife's birthday, a Google product, with photos taken during our trip to Ireland this summer. The format is limited; you have no control over sizing and layout of the photos, little or no captioning capability. But it represents a beginning.

Movie 205. House of Dracula (Universal, 1945)

Source: IMDB

More monstrous mayhem as both Count Dracula (John Carradine) and Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) separately come to Dr. Franz Edlemann (Onslow Stevens) asking for his help in curing their conditions, though we soon learn that all is not as it seems. Mildly recommended.

>132 weird_O: Hi, Bill! Thanks for stopping by.

The productivity of even the major stars during the 1930s and 1940s is pretty amazing — if someone has just a couple dozen credits, it is likely they didn't work more than a decade or so. And secondary stars and character actors did what would seem a staggering amount of work, often with hundreds of credits.

Thanks for the search tips. Have you seen the companies that offer reproduction dust jackets? I've been tempted to get them for a few old books, but I haven't taken the plunge yet.

For the deep catalog of out-of-print books, I'd be pleased to have a POD option. I'm unlikely at this point to buy ebooks, but I'd certainly be willing to pick up some books of interest if I could get the same items printed on demand. Handled correctly, and with the right technology (and I believe some early versions are in place), I think it could be a boon to small bookstores, or even make books accessible in other stores as well, in the form of a vending book-printing machine with an effectively unlimited stock.

Happy Halloween, Harry. Plenty of classic horror to celebrate the holiday with, right? I think TCM has some Hammer films showing today.

It may be time for me to revisit The Uninvited. I have never really been into horror movies or even classic ghost stories but I recall enjoying this Ray Milland film.

>135 msf59: Thanks, Mark. We stuck with It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, followed by a minor movie, Lucky Ghost, starring Mantan Moreland — a comedy, but with ghosts.

>136 brodiew2: I don't really think of myself as a big fan of horror, but cataloging our movies on DVD reveals that I've picked up quite a few older horror movies, so I guess I'm more of a fan than I had presumed. I do have little interest in most of the more modern films in the genre.

Movie 206. The Chinese Cat (Monogram, 1944)

Source: IMDB

Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) investigates the locked-room murder of wealthy chess expert Thomas P. Manning (Sam Flint), with little time to do it as he must head back to Washington in a couple days. Moderately effective use of a funhouse setting and some good support from Benson Fong (as son Tommy) and Mantan Moreland. Mildly recommended.

Movie 207. The Mystery Man (Monogram, 1935)

Source: IMDB

Brash reporter Larry Doyle (Robert Armstrong), out of a job and nearly out of money, nevertheless helps out another unfortunate, Anne Ogilvie (Maxine Doyle), and together they contrive to get lodging and food — and then they become embroiled in a bank robbery and murder. Mildly recommended.

Movie 208. Sinbad the Sailor (RKO, 1947)

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., is a delight echoing his father in this Technicolor tale of adventure, as Sinbad quests for the lost island of Deryabar and the treasures of Alexander the Great. Anthony Quinn plays the emir who also wants the treasures, and Maureen O'Hara the tempestuous Shireen, who may love Sinbad but may be playing a game for the emir instead. Overall lurks the menace of an evil sorcerer, Jamel, who desires the treasures, too. Loads of swashbuckling fun. Highly recommended.

Movie 209. House of Wax (WB, 1953)

Source: IMDB

Vincent Price in the movie that made him a horror star, playing an artist in wax driven mad by his disfigurement in a fire caused by a crooked associate and recreating his previous masterpieces using the bodies of real people. Recommended!

Hi Harry! Happy Friday to you.

>129 harrygbutler: Pizza and Halloween candy to trick-or-treaters sounds great to me.

>143 karenmarie: Hi, Karen! Most of the trick-or-treaters were younger kids this year, too, perhaps because the weather was good, and they seem to enjoy it more.

Magazine 23. Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 26, 1925



Christmas gets a look-in in this issue of Argosy All-Story Weekly, as a lonely lineman makes a generous gesture and finds the joy of the holiday, and a future, in Ralph E. Mooney's short story "All of a Sudden, Christmas!" In "Is That Nice?" by Walter A. Sinclair, anaction-packed and amusing novelette, the city editor of a new newspaper scrambles to find the proof to prevent a libel lawsuit on the very day the new paper is launching. "The Shoo Fly Meeting House," by E. K. Means, has an amusing kernel undermined by its trappings, as a conniver raises money for a new venture by hoodwinking visiting conventioneers. Also in the comic vain is Samuel G. Camp's "Exactly the Type," in which a man schemes to get his annoying brother-in-law a job that will cause him to travel. Yet another with an element of humor is "His Bargain," by Gordon Stiles, in which an unemployed man's suit purchase defies expectations. But adventure is not neglected, with a western, Earl C. McCain's "Rolling Stones" recounting how a Pony Express rider strives to save a wagon train, and also a contemporary tale of crime, Hamilton Craigie's "The Hill-Billy." Just a few poems in this issue, but "Christmas Joys: 1925" is amusing, highlighting aspects of a "modern" Christmas celebration. I may post it next month.

Not a bad outing today to Pulp Adventurecon, put on by Bold Venture Press in Bordentown, New Jersey. I followed it up with a quick stop at a library book sale in Hamilton.

My haul:

• 44 magazines
  
  
  • 38 issues of Argosy or Argosy All-Story Weekly from the 1920s and 1930s
  
  
  • 1 issue of Railroad Stories from 1936
  
  
  • 5 issues of Ranch Romances from the 1950s


• 9 books, nearly all mystery or espionage:
  
  
  • Murder on the Ten-Yard Line, by John Stephen Strange (1931; hardcover)
  
  
  • Exit a Dictator, by E. Phillips Oppenheim (1939; hardcover)
  
  
  • The Baited Blonde, by Robinson MacLean (1948; paperback)
  
  
  • While the Wind Howled, by Audrey Gaines (1940; paperback)
  
  
  • Date with Death, by Leslie Ford (1949; paperback)
  
  
  • The French Touch, by Jack Iams (1950, orig. 1939; paperback)
  
  
  • Trial by Fury, by Craig Rice (1941; paperback)
  
  
  • Murder in Mink, by Robert George Dean (1945, orig. 1941; paperback)
  
  
  • The Secret Ways, by Alistair MacLean (1960, orig. 1959; paperback)


• 3 movies on DVD:
  
  
  • The Nutty Professor
  
  
  • Harum Scarum
  
  
  • Kissin' Cousins

Morning, Harry. I hope you had a good weekend. We had a great time at the raptor event on Saturday. I love getting close and personal, with some of my favorite birds. I hope to bird a bit on Wednesday.

'Morning Harry, and happy Monday to you. Congrats on your haul.

>146 harrygbutler: Wow, that's a lot of stuff! Congrats on finding it!

>147 msf59: Thanks, Mark! Glad you enjoyed the raptor visit. I don't think I'll get in any birding this week, but I've seen some red-tailed hawks while driving around.

>148 karenmarie: Hi, Karen! Thanks. I hope your week has gotten off to a good start as well.

>149 mstrust: Thanks, Jennifer! Collecting a weekly pulp certainly gives me a lot of issues to look for.

I'm traveling for work this week, so I'm unlikely to be on LT very much. On the other hand, I expect to get in a fair amount of time reading.

104. The Merovingian North Sea, by Ian N. Wood

Scarcely more than a pamphlet, this "occasional paper" discusses what is known of Merovingian rule and influence in the lands bordering the North Sea, with a particular focus, it seems, on the earlier Merovingians. Among interesting aspects of the discussion was a look at Saxon "proto-Viking" raiding, extending so far as Saxon settlements in northern Frankish territory similar to those of the Normans centuries later and the highlighting of the fact that the Saxons, brutally conquered by Charlemagne at the close of the eighth century, had actually for a time acknowledged Merovingian overlordship before successfully rebelling. Mildly recommended.

105. Blonde on a Broomstick, by Carter Brown



Private eye Rick Holman is hired by a talent agent to find out why a fabulous singer refuses to sign a contract but instead seems content to waste her talent in a nightclub, apparently under the control of a manager who does all the talking for her. Holman's investigation uncovers an apparent suicide and more, including suspicious goings-on at a private sanitarium. Holman is not my favorite of Brown's detectives, but this one was OK.

Movie 210. The Italian Job (Paramount, 1969)



Michael Caine heads the cast in this comic caper film, as a thief newly released from prison and seeking to complete the heist a murdered friend had planned. The famous highlight of the film is the escape of the plotters in Mini Coopers, and the extended segment is indeed quite entertaining. Noël Coward has a good turn as a patriotic crime boss living well in prison. Recommended.

Movie 211. The Raven (American-International, 1963)



Wizard Adolphus Bedlo (Peter Lorre), defeated by the evil Dr. Scarabus (Boris Karloff) in a magic battle and turned into a raven, seeks the help of Dr. Erasmus Craven (Vincent Price), son of a great wizard who had been the enemy of Dr. Scarabus, but who himself had disdained participation in wizard society. Though he persuades Craven to restore him to human form, Bedlo is less successful in inducing him to help battle Scarabus — until he reveals that he has seen the wife Erasmus thought dead, Lenore (Hazel Court), in Scarabus's castle. Together with their children, Bedlo and Craven head off to find out the truth of what Bedlo has seen, and perhaps to defeat the wicked magus once and for all. An utter delight. Highly recommended!

Morning, Harry. Happy Wednesday. I am off today but it will be a chilly one. Only low 40s. I plan on trying to get out for a walk, at some point.

Hi Harry! I hope you have a great Wednesday.

The juxtaposition of The Merovingian North Sea and Blonde on a Broomstick from one message to the next is amusing.

And, courtesy of YouTube, I loved the mini-Cooper car chase!

I hope it's a good trip!
Yes, "The Raven"! Funny, and what a cast.

>158 msf59: Hi, Mark! I'll swing by your thread and catch up.

>159 karenmarie: Hi, Karen! I do like a little variety in my reading! :-)

I'm glad you liked the car chase sequence from The Italian Job.

>160 mstrust: Thanks, Jennifer! It was a good trip. Though I didn't manage to find any books to bring home, I got a fair amount of reading done.

This week will be spent trying to put a bit more order into our library, and I expect I'll be setting some books free by the end.

Movie 212. The Mummy's Ghost (Universal, 1944)

Source: IMDB

This is a particularly grim entry in the Mummy series from Universal, with John Carradine as the priest sent to America to reunite Princess Ananka and Kharis and bring them back to Egypt. Perhaps a little rushed, but entertaining. Mildly recommended.

Morning, Harry. I hope you had a good weekend and your travels went smoothly. I have the holiday off today, so I plan on a bird stroll and then lots of reading later on.

>165 msf59: Thanks, Mark! It was a pretty good weekend, though I did spend some time catching up on rest.

Movie 213. Night of the Living Deb (Cocksure Entertainment, 2015)

Source: IMDB

A mismatched pair end up facing a zombie apocalypse together in this horror comedy that was recommended by Jennifer (mstrust) over on her thread. I enjoyed it moderately well, despite some clichés. Mildly recommended.

106. The Layton Court Mystery, by Anthony Berkeley



The first of the Roger Sheringham mysteries is a fairly amusing romp, with the amateur sleuth madly dashing after evidence supporting one theory after another, as each founders on contradictions. I spotted the actual culprit rather early on, and my recollection is that E. C. Bentley did the flawed detective better in Trent's Last Case, but I certainly liked this one well enough to plan on reading more in the series. Recommended.

'Morning, Harry, and happy Tuesday to you.

I have two of three works by Bentley - I've just added Trent's Own Case to my wishlist.

As an interesting side note, I also never realized that Edmund Clerihew Bentley invented a type of poem called the clerihew, defined as: A whimsical, four-line biographical poem. The first line is the name of the poem's subject, usually a famous person put in an absurd light, or revealing something unknown or spurious about them. The rhyme scheme is AABB, and the rhymes are often forced. The line length and metre are irregular. Bentley invented the clerihew in school and then popularized it in books.

Here's one (LT brackets added):

John Stuart Mill,
By a mighty effort of will,
Overcame his natural bonhomie
And wrote Principles of Political Economy.

107. Knock, Murderer, Knock!, by Harriet Rutland



Someone is killing young folk at a run-down health spa. The culprit is rather obvious and the crimes brutally offputting: altogether too modern for my tastes. Not recommended.

>169 karenmarie: Good morning, Karen! I've got the three Trent books but haven't reread them for some time. I think I must have encountered Bentley's association with the clerihew at some point, but I had no recollection of it, so thank you for sharing! It prompted me to go look up a few more of the poems — best sampled in small doses, I suspect.

Movie 214. The Mummy's Curse (Universal, 1944)

Source: IMDB

The last of Universal's Mummy series finds Kharis strangely relocated to bayou country, despite the previous films' setting in New England. An odd film, with Ananka coming back to "life" from a watery grave and the mummy also unearthed by work on a swamp-clearing and irrigation project. Some good effects, but not a lot to this one. Mildly recommended if you enjoyed the others.

Movie 215. Murder on the Blackboard (RKO, 1934)

Source: IMDB

Edna May Oliver shines in the second Hildegarde Withers mystery, this time investigating the murder of the music teacher at her own school. Once again Inspector Piper (James Gleason) is on hand to head up the official efforts to solve the case. The banter pleases, and the mystery is effective. Recommended!

>167 harrygbutler: :-D Sorry my rec didn't work out so well for you! I thought it was pretty entertaining, but then I love stuff like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland.

>174 mstrust: No worries there. I did like it, but probably not enough to watch it again. Erika and I both like Shaun of the Dead; we've seen it two or three times, and I picked up the DVD when I ran across it used so that we can watch it again. I wanted to like Zombieland but thought there was at least one severe misstep that undermined the comic tone and will likely keep me from watching it again.

While getting ready to remove Old-Time Schools and School-books from our collection, I flipped through a little, and I came across this lyrical criticism that I could have used for a number of books I've read in the past:

If there should be another flood,
Then to this book I'd fly;
If all the earth should be submerged
This book would still be dry.

Movie 216. Roberta (RKO, 1935)

Source: IMDB

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are once again in supporting roles in this, their third film together. Irene Dunne heads the cast as Stephanie, an invaluable assistant at a dress shop in Paris inherited by likable John Kent (Randolph Scott), a former football player with no knowledge of fashion. Astaire is Huck Haines, who has come to Paris with his band for a job, which they promptly lose, and Rogers is Tanka Scharwenka, Paris nightclub sensation, who is in fact Huck's hometown gal pal, Lizzie Gatz. Jerome Kern's music is a delight, with Dunne performing a few songs with her fine voice, and Astaire and Rogers both singing and dancing. Recommended.

Note: One song from the picture, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," topped the charts for the Platters in 1958.

'Morning, Harry, and happy Tuesday to you.

If there should be another flood,.... I love it.

>178 karenmarie: Hi, Karen! I'm continuing my reshuffling of our library. I've found a moderate number of books, and a few duplicate DVDs, that can go away, but have more to look through.

Hello Harry.

>177 harrygbutler: I have enjoyed many Astaire/Rogers films, but this one escaped my notice. I'll have to give it a gander. After a Charlie Chan, of course.

How do you feel about James Cagney as singer/dancer? Did you enjoy Footlight Parade?

>180 brodiew2: Hi, Brodie! Roberta couldn't be seen for many years, apparently because MGM bought the rights in order to do a remake in the early 1950s, but at some point, perhaps after Turner obtained both the MGM and the RKO libraries, it became available. It was in one of the two Astaire-Rogers DVD sets Warner released a number of years ago, which were among my earliest DVD purchases.

I like Cagney's dancing, which I think of as rather jerky without being awkward. I'd call his singing just OK. I can't recall anything about Footlight Parade; in fact, I think I may never have seen it — though I've seen a few of the Warner Bros. musicals, I have more in the "to be watched" category because, though I enjoy musicals, they don't consistently rise to the top of the pile when deciding what to watch.

Have you ever seen this dance number from The Seven Little Foys?

https://youtu.be/JOoNOs8Ql28

I don't usually think of Bob Hope as a dancer, but he does an excellent job, as of course Cagney does as well. Both were in their 50s at the time.

>181 harrygbutler: I'll definitely look for Roberta.

That seven Little Foys scene is brilliant! I watch it every other year or so because it makes me feel good. I agree about the jerkiness of Cagney's dancing, but it is an logical extension of how he carried himself.



If you get a change, Footlight Parade is worth a watch. It is directed by Busby Berkeley, has standout supporting performances by Frank McHugh and Joan Blondell, as well as excellent musical numbers featuring Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell (and Cagney).

>182 brodiew2: Thanks for the tip on Footlight Parade, Brodie! I'll keep an eye out for it. I see it has been released on DVD, so perhaps I can get one of the sets that contains it. (For some reason I have only the second Busby Berkeley set; I must have missed the first one.)

Morning, Harry. Sweet Thursday. I hope the work week is going smoothly. I have the day off, but I have some appointments and things going on, so I doubt I will get out for a stroll. Sad face.

>181 harrygbutler: loved that routine. I'd label Cagney's tap as "energetic" or "cocky", but thought that both he and Hope did a very nice soft shoe routine. I also enjoyed the gentle wisecracks, nothing mean-spirited.

I believe all the old Hollywood talent had to know tap dancing in order to get a job, but not all could be Astaire or Kelly.

EDIT: here's the only time Kelly and Astaire danced together in their prime:

https://youtu.be/K_Zb1mnxXzM?t=95

108. Fire in the Thatch, by E.C.R. Lorac



During the latter part of World War 2, Nicholas Vaughan, a young man who has been invalided out of the navy owing to an eye injury sustained when a gun exploded, leases a neglected smallholding, Little Thatch, from Devon landowner Colonel St. Cyres with an aim of happily working the land and getting it back into productive shape over the coming years. A few short months later, a fire consumes the house, and a body is found therein. It appears that the fire was accidental, and that Vaughan was overcome by smoke before he could awaken. Yet Vaughan's former commander believes an accident unlikely and successfully pressures Scotland Yard to send Inspector Macdonald to investigate, and he soon uncovers indications of foul play. Was it indeed an accident? Was the victim in fact Vaughan? Well-plotted, with interesting characters and a sense of nostalgia; I concur with Lori (thornton37814) that this is one of the better mysteries in the British Library Crime Classics series. Recommended.

>184 msf59: Good morning, Mark. Erika tells me there's a chance of snow for us, so I'll have to tend to the feeders sometime today. We both have next week off work, so there's a chance we'll get to fit in some weekday birding then.

>185 fuzzi: Glad you liked it! I like your characterization of Cagney's style. And it is a very fun routine.

It certainly wasn't uncommon to expect nearly anyone to do a turn singing -- or seeming to sing :-) -- or dancing, even if just a bit. I recall reading once that quite a few songs now considered standards were introduced in the movies by performers not really considered primarily singers; Astaire heads the list of course, but Hope was in second place.

Hi Harry!

Nice to hear that both you and Erika have all of next week off. Any special plans or just general hanging around?

>189 karenmarie: Good morning, Karen! We were going to travel to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with my parents, but they have to come east this weekend, so they will just be extending their stay with us through the holiday instead. We don't have much planned for their visit at this point, but we'll probably do a little visiting with family and perhaps some antiquing or sightseeing.

Movie 217. The Patient in Room 18 (WB, 1938)

Source: IMDB

Ann Sheridan is back as Mignon Eberhart's sleuth, Nurse Sarah Keate, in this programmer from 1938, though Patric Knowles steps into the role of Lance O'Leary (played in Mystery House by Dick Purcell). This time, murder strikes in a hospital where O'Leary is staying to recover from a nervous breakdown and Keate is serving as his nurse. Coupled with the murder is the theft of $100,000 worth of radium. There's nothing particularly distinctive about this picture, but it's a pleasant way to fill a little time. Mildly recommended.

Movie 218. Sh! The Octopus (WB, 1937)

Source: IMDB

Supporting players Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins get a chance to star in this comedy-mystery. Police detectives Kelly (Herbert) and Dempsey (Jenkins) travel to a supposedly deserted lighthouse, where they find an assortment of odd characters, while confronting the menace of both a master criminal called The Octopus and an actual cephalopod as well. Oddity is piled on oddity, and if the overall mix isn't quite successful, it's not for want of zaniness. Mildly recommended.

Movie 219. Call of the Klondike (Monogram, 1950)

Source: IMDB

We're back up north with Mountie Rod Webb (Kirby Grant) and his dog Chinook. This time, they're investigating unexplained disappearances with the aid of the daughter of one of the victims (Anne Gwynne). Rod's suspicions are soon directed toward the only productive gold mine in the area, leading to some underground sequences as well as the usual developments on the surface. Recommended.

109. Death on the Riviera, by John Bude



The activities of a counterfeiting ring, whose product bears evidence of the work of a known British forger, brings Detective-Inspector Meredith and his assistant Sergeant Strang to the Riviera to assist their counterparts in France. The investigation soon points them toward the odd household of Nesta Hedderwick, an English widow who has gathered several others around her — including her niece, a young wastrel and his lover, and a putative artist. A mysterious disappearance points to murder as the case develops. I thought this well-plotted but in parts rather sad, with the optimistic note of a developing romance not quite enough to overcome the weight of the account of a dying, or even dead, relationship among two other parties. There were some interesting twists, though I recognized the one that was central to the resolution of one of the mysteries rather earlier than the earnest inspector. Recommended.

Good morning Harry! How's the snow?

Hello Harry!

Sadly, my library system does not have Charlie Chan in Rio. However it has may more. Which one is your favorite?

Do you do the screwball comedies? Even the more obscure ones? Have you seen Love Crazy?

Are you a fan of William Powell? Any favorites?

Hi, Harry. I think you mentioned you were off this week. I hope you are having a good time and getting a little birding in, weather permitting.

Hello Harry! I've found my way to your thread at last. Bounteous offerings of ways to fill my copious free time, for which I am grateful.

/irony

I wonder...have you ever considered scanning your mountain of Argosy et alii into Project Gutenberg? Every one you have (prior to 1974, that is) is long out of the 28-year copyright zone and none of the individual stories or other content are subject to individual copyright because they are presented as part of a separately copyrighted whole...the magazine...and I know I'd be over on PG downloading Kindle versions of them like a b...oss.

This not being something I can do, I realize I'm volunteering your labor, but one can never get if one never asks.

>195 fuzzi: The snow disappeared rapidly, which was a good thing under the circumstances.

>196 brodiew2: Hi, Brodie! For Warner Oland pictures, you might try Charlie Chan on Broadway or Charlie Chan at the Olympics, or the earlier Charlie Chan in Paris. For Sidney Toler pictures, maybe Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise or Dead Men Tell might be a good place to start. I'd avoid the movies with Roland Winters as Chan, as they're awful.

I do like screwball comedies and have seen quite a few over the years. I think I saw Love Crazy a long time ago, but I don't really remember it.

I am indeed a fan of William Powell. I like him as detective Philo Vance, though those movies — save for The Kennel Murder Case — are difficult to find, and I've not seen them all, and of course as Nick Charles. My Man Godfrey is a delight, and I enjoy his performances in both Star of Midnight and The Ex-Mrs. Bradford. Though my recollections are vague, I do recall quite liking him in Life with Father, too.

>197 msf59: It has been a good week so far, Mark. I have indeed been off work since last Friday, and my parents have been in to visit us for the holiday as well.

>198 richardderus: Hi, Richard! Nice to have you drop by again.

I have considered scanning those magazines that are in the public domain. I believe the rights owner renewed the copyrights for at least some of the issues of Argosy but I'd have to research further to be certain. I do know that unlike some of the more obscure pulps, or some whose publishers went out of business, the contemporary small-press publishers have not included stories from Argosy in their reprints (save one who first reached a licensing agreement with the rights holder and then, I believe, actually bought the rights). However, I've not bothered to really research the matter.

I do know an obstacle is appropriate scanning equipment, as use of the sort of flatbed scanner I currently own would be destructive. I've seen an example or two of relatively affordable book scanning equipment that pages through and takes photos of each individual page, but I don't know whether the setups work for relatively fragile old magazines.

That being said, there are already quite a few pulps available at the Internet Archive, and quite a few more are available via Hathi Trust (although I think those can only be downloaded by patrons of participating libraries).

On Saturday, Nov. 17, our family welcomed home my Great Uncle Karl R. Loesche, 76 years — almost to the day — after his death in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines during World War II. His two surviving siblings, my Great Uncle Dick and Great Aunt Marion, were on hand as he was buried with their parents in southern New Jersey. The day, the service, and the outpouring of support from veterans groups and others were moving indeed.

To read more about my uncle's life and return, you can look to a couple columns in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

After 76 years, a World War II soldier’s remains will finally come home to his New Jersey family

A World War II soldier is finally laid to rest near his childhood home in New Jersey

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Among my many blessings, I'm grateful for the acquaintances that have come my way through LibraryThing.

Happy Thanksgiving Harry, and a welcome back home to your great uncle. May the rest of your week/weekend be pleasant.

>205 fuzzi: Thank you! I hope you had a good holiday and are having an enjoyable weekend as well.

110. Popeye the Sailor on Spook Island, by Bud Sagendorf
This little paperback collection brings together a few adventures of the spinach-loving sailor, presumably first appearing in the newspaper strip. Fun enough for what it was. Mildly recommended.

Happy Friday, Harry. I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. I am off today. We finally got some sunshine and milder temps. I think I will go for a bird stroll.

>208 msf59: Good morning, Mark. It was a good day, thanks. Enjoy your bird walk and your day.

Movie 220. The Rescuers (Disney, 1977)



A young girl held prisoner in a swamp sends a desperate plea for help, and mice from the Rescue Aid Society (Miss Bianca, voiced by Eva Gabor, and Bernard, voiced by Bob Newhart) set out to come to her aid. A pleasing minor animated movie from Disney. Recommended.

That's so great that your uncle has come home! After so many decades, that took a lot of work for whoever worked on his case. Was this a U.S. government project or a military group that identified him?

>210 harrygbutler: Oh wow, The Rescuers! I took a friend's little sister to see that one back in the day. She was kinda swoony that a high-school boy would take *her* to a movie. Heh.

Hi Harry. Welcome back from your holiday.

It's always good to know that there is another William Powell the fan out there. My highlights are Nick Charles, My Man Godfrey, and 'Doc' from Mister Roberts.

>210 harrygbutler: A fine film and a Hallmark of my childhood. The Rescuers was made in a time when Disney's villains were edgier than they later became.

>210 harrygbutler: now watch The Rescuers Down Under. I watched that one with my children and thought it was pretty good.

‘Morning, Harry, and happy Monday to you.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was busy and fun.

>200 harrygbutler: My absolute favorite William Powell movie is his last – Mister Roberts.

>203 harrygbutler: What an amazing story. Your Great Uncle Karl sounds like a devoted son and brother. Thank you for sharing.

I am a bit slow these days Harry but I wanted to visit and express the hope that you had a great Thanksgiving Weekend.

>211 mstrust: Hi, Jennifer! I think both government and non-government groups were involved. There's an ongoing effort to establish the identity of those buried as unknowns.

>212 richardderus: It had been many years since I had last seen it, though I'm pretty sure I caught it on television at some point.

>213 brodiew2: Hi, Brodie! I most appreciate the Disney cartoons in which there is at least a moment when — despite knowing all will turn out well — it is possible to feel a slight bit of fear on behalf of the protagonists.

>214 fuzzi: I'll check it out. I may have seen it at some point, but if so, I don't recall its details.

>215 karenmarie: Good morning, Karen! We had a good Thanksgiving with my parents, thanks.

Powell's performance as Doc in Mister Roberts is a delight.

>216 PaulCranswick: Thanks for dropping by, Paul! Good to see you out visiting threads.

Movie 221. El barón del terror (The Brainiac) (Cinematográfica ABSA, 1962)

Source: IMDB

The wizard Baron Vitelius (Abel Salazar) is sentenced to death by the Inquisition in 1661 for black magic and gives proof of his powers before his execution, while vowing vengeance on the families of his judges. Three hundred years later, the baron returns, brought back to Earth by a returning comet, and he proceeds to attack the descendants of those who condemned him. To do so, he turns into a strange monster with a long forked tongue, which he uses to feed on their brains. Enjoyable stuff, despite some poor effects and odd scripting choices. Mildly recommended.

111. The Cheltenham Square Murder, by John Bude



When Captain Cotton, one of the inhabitants of Cheltenham Square, is slain by an arrow while visiting a neighbor, Inspector William Meredith, vacationing at one of the other houses on the square, is drawn into the investigation — an investigation complicated by the fact that there are indeed several expert archers in the neighborhood but time seems to preclude most, if not all, from committing the crime. A second murder follows in due course, also committed with an arrow, and assorted ugly secrets are revealed. I spotted the guilty fairly early on but not the full explanation of the crimes. Mildly recommended.

Movie 222. The Jade Mask (Monogram, 1944)

Source: IMDB

When a paranoid scientist is apparently slain by his own death trap, Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is on hand to investigate, assisted once again by one of his children (No. 4 son Eddie, played by Edwin Luke, brother of Keye Luke, who had formerly played No. 1 son Lee) as well as Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland). Al Bridges makes a good contribution as a wry sheriff, too. Recommended.

Good to see you back, Harry.
>223 harrygbutler: Looks like must-see tv to me. I recently saw a doc called "Midnight Madness" or "Midnight Mayhem", something like that, that looked at the six great movies that became cult classics almost exclusively playing the midnight schedule. One was a Mexican movie called "El Topo" from the early 70s that I'd never heard of before, which is known for being the first midnight movie. Just the clips they showed it to be incredibly bizarre. Seen it?

>226 mstrust: Thanks, Jennifer. A company called Casa Negra put out several DVDs of Mexican horror movies back in the Aughts, and I scooped up all I could get. Sadly, they didn't last.

I've not seen El Topo that I can recall. I checked out the stills on IMDB, and none struck me as at all familiar. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

Were the movies all theatrical midnight movies? Though I went to the movies a lot in high school, my attendance dropped off dramatically thereafter, and I'm not sure I went to anything that would be classed as a midnight movie.

112. "Honesty Is One of the Better Policies": Saxon's World of Business, by Charles Saxon



Cartoons about businesses and businessmen, first published chiefly in The New Yorker. Though at times amusing, the cartoons are rather too repetitive when collected in this way. Not recommended, save for dipping in from time to time; it is probably better to encounter these in a mix with other cartoons.

Movie 223. Cult of the Cobra (Universal, 1955)



A sinister snake woman stalks a group of GIs whose curiosity led them to trespass on a private local ceremony. The fun of this movie really is seeing familiar TV faces — e.g., Richard Long, David Janssen — in a horror movie setting. Not a lot of thrills to be had. Mildly recommended.

Faith Domergue! This Island Earth and Vendetta were the two of her performances I've seen. She was what I think was called "a spitfire."

>230 richardderus: I never really found Faith Domergue appealing, but despite her small filmography, I run into her performances fairly often. I probably am in the minority in preferring It Came from Beneath the Sea to This Island Earth, but I like Kenneth Tobey (perhaps thanks to The Thing from Another World) rather better than Jeff Morrow.

113. The Laughing Corpse, by Ibne Safi



A young woman's inheritance makes her the object of criminal plotting, and the hand of the nefarious Doctor Dread can be discerned. Luckily, Colonel Faridi and Captain Hameed are on hand to battle the evildoers. The third of four short novels in the "Doctor Dread" plot arc in Ibne Safi's Jasusi Dunya series is OK as a stand-alone but better as part of the sequence. Mildly recommended.

Movie 224. The Public Menace (Columbia, 1935)

Source: IMDB

A forgettable newspaper-crime-comedy movie, with George Murphy as a reporter who becomes entangled with charming, but problem-bearing, Jean Arthur. Mildly recommended.

Hi Harry! Happy Thursday to you.

Morning, Harry. Sweet Thursday. I hope you are having a good week. Two more days before vacation. Yah!!

And nothing to report on the bird front...

>227 harrygbutler: Were the movies all theatrical midnight movies?

They weren't made specifically for midnight showings, but with all of the six movies profiled, they didn't find their audience until they started playing at midnight, where they were embraced by the night owls and weirdos. Several premiered in America as midnight showings at one particular NYC theater.El Topo, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Eraserhead, The Harder They Fall, Pink Flamingos, and I think the last one was Basket Case.

>234 karenmarie: Good morning, Karen! Thanks for dropping by.

>235 msf59: Hi, Mark. I expect you'll have some good bird reports from your vacation. Enjoy!

>236 mstrust: Thanks for the additional explanation, Jennifer! I think I've seen about half those you listed on video at some point.

114. Best Cartoons of the Year 1952, ed. by Lawrence Lariar



A solid entry in the long-running series edited by Lawrence Lariar, with ample opportunities for amusement. Recommended.

115. The Day of Uniting, by Edgar Wallace



Wealthy Jimmy Blake, a former ace who now spends his days in idleness, is caught up in strange doings when his scientific researcher cousin, Gerald Van Roon, is murdered soon after famed scientist Walter Maggerson warns of "the Terror." As disaster seems to stalk the attendees at a luncheon with the Prime Minister where Jimmy had also been a guest, the young man seeks to unravel the plot and secure justice. The far-fetched plot, which reminded me in some ways of the movie The House of Secrets (itself based on a Sydney Horler thriller), just wasn't up to Wallace's usual standards, which doubtless explains why it was available for republishing as a Mystery League volume. Not recommended.

116. The Devil's Rosary, by Seabury Quinn



The second volume in Night Shade Books' reprinting of all of Seabury Quinn's Jules de Grandin stories collects stories that first appeared in the magazine Weird Tales in 1929 and 1930. In the stories, the intrepid occult investigator encounters supernatural creatures and uncanny vengeance. A few of the situations find mundane explanations, as was common in weird menace stories, but most acknowledge and incorporate the fantastic, even if the tools of battle are sometimes quite modern. I enjoyed the stories but found them more effective if not read in close succession, as there is a certain similarity to the proceedings in most. Recommended with that caveat.

Movie 225. Where There's a Will (Eros, 1955)

Source: IMDB

George Cole heads the cast in this rural comedy. A family of Londoners inherits a rundown farm, and though most want to sell out and head back to the city with the proceeds, Fred Slater (Cole) has always dreamed of having someplace in the country, and he wants very much to stay and make a go of it. Complicating matters is the presence of Annie Yeo (Kathleen Harrison), longtime housekeeper for the previous owner, who had expected to inherit the farm herself. A pleasant, gentle comedy. Recommended.

Movie 226. Taste the Blood of Dracula (Hammer, 1969)

Source: IMDB

Thrill-seeking English gentlemen aid in reviving Dracula, but they also kill the undead Count's servant, inspiring him to seek revenge by having the men killed by their own children. OK entry in the series, though Dracula's motivation seems a trifle far-fetched, and the targets of his wrath unsympathetic. Mildly recommended.

>244 harrygbutler: ...not enough popcorn in the world...

You're on a roll of reporting!

>243 harrygbutler: Durn it! Not in my library system.

>245 richardderus: We watched the Hammer horrors when I was growing up, so I like to revisit them from time to time.

I'm way behind — nearly 20 movies, as well as some books and magazines — so I'm trying to get something, however brief, posted as soon as I can.

>246 2wonderY: I watched it as part of the British Cinema: Renown Pictures Comedy Collection from VCI Entertainment (https://www.vcientertainment.com/Film-Categories/British-Cinema?product_id=505), so perhaps it is cataloged as the set. There's an earlier, unrelated Will Hay film called Where There's a Will that VCI has released on DVD as well, but I've not seen that one.

117. Walt Disney's Donald Duck: "The Black Pearls of Tabu Yama", by Carl Barks



The latest reprint of Donald Duck comics by Fantagraphics is another fine volume mixing adventure and humor. Recommended.

118. Doctor Dread, by Ibne Safi



The four-novel arc describing the efforts of Colonel Faridi and Captain Hameed to thwart the plots of American arch-criminal Doctor Dread comes to a close in this volume, which sees the crook blackmailing a wealthy widow and also battling his nemesis, the curious monkey-like Finch. Faridi's counterplots and investigations remain inscrutable but effective. Mildly recommended.

119. Jubal Sackett, by Louis L'Amour



Driven by the same urge to explore that compelled his father, Jubal Sackett finds adventure and romance beyond the Far-Seeing Lands, in a story with a hint of the supernatural such as is found in some other L'Amour works (e.g., The Californios) and some interesting speculation. The novel, published near the end of the author's life, gives evidence that further stories might have been planned, but it is a satisfyingly complete story in itself. Recommended.

>251 harrygbutler: love Jubal Sackett. Wish Louis L'Amour had the time to write a sequel of Jubal's decendants. I would have liked that.

Ride the River coming next...

Hello Harry!

>99 harrygbutler: I didn't comment on it before, but 'The Ghoul' posters are pretty impressive. I've never seen the film.

>251 harrygbutler: Nice review of Jubal Sackett. I enjoyed it on audio a few years back.

>252 fuzzi: Yep. I think I may have read that one just once or twice. I'm looking forward to revisiting it.

>253 brodiew2: Hi, Brodie! The posters for The Ghoul were the most distinctive set I've encountered so far this year while looking for images to go with my movie comments.

Thanks re the review. I went through a stretch where I wasn't reading L'Amour after many years of rereads, so it's good to be getting back to his works.