For the fortieth anniversary of Nicholas Meyer’s romantic fantasy masterpiece, released September 28th, 1979, here is a look back at the soundtrack release of the brilliant motion picture classic, Time After Time, and its legendary score by Miklos Rozsa.
The film, which suggested an entirely imaginary friendship between writer H.G. Wells and Jack The Ripper, follows the exploits of the famed science fiction author as he courageously chases the infamous murderer through time and space in a fabulous device of his own making.
His journey to prevent future bloodshed is the intoxicating premise of this sublime science fiction thriller for which three-time Oscar winning composer Miklos Rozsa fabricated one of his most exquisite romantic scores.
Produced by Lukas Kendall for his wonderful succession of soundtrack releases at Film Score Monthly, Rozsa’s inspired score is a musical journey worth taking … Time After Time.
By Steve Vertlieb: Toward the end of a summer cluttered with loud, virtually indistinguishable motion picture fare, a small cinematic miracle called Time After Time emerged quietly amidst the visual noise. Released by Warner Bros. on August 31, 1979, Nicholas Meyer’s tender fantasy was a ray of radiant sunshine spilling over a cloud covered, obediently commercial horizon. Based upon a novel by author Karl Alexander, from a story idea by Alexander along with Steven Hayes, the story found its inspiration unashamedly in the pages of Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, in which a resurrected Sherlock Holmes battles his arch nemesis once more on paper and on film. Rather than pit the master detective against crime and punishment, however, Alexander decided to extract H.G. Wells from Victorian England and have him impersonate Holmes while trailing Jack the Ripper through portals of time. Nicholas Meyer, both flattered and intrigued by this updated tribute to his own work, decided that the novel might make an interesting film and, when approached by Karl Alexander, determined to option the novel with Warner Bros. for the screen rights.
Meyer wished to helm the picture himself and, as a novice director, wanted to fashion a retro sense about his introductory screen effort. He envisioned the traditional Max Steiner logo sequence opening the film, a concept that didn’t particularly excite Warner Bros, as the Forties intro hadn’t been used by the studio in years. He cast Malcolm McDowell as his hero, a courageous reversal of type casting since the actor had largely portrayed only villains and sleazy anti-heroes thus far in his career. It was an interesting choice, considering that Wells would be enacted as a sweet, innocent idealist with little worldly background or sophistication. For the music, Meyer wanted to have an old fashioned Hollywood score as the blanket caressing his lost protagonists. He chose one of his favorite composers, the legendary Miklos Rozsa, to create the magical score for his fantastic voyage.
Rozsa, for his part, was in the process of winding down his motion picture career and had been called upon only sporadically in the past twenty years by a film industry jaded, cynical, and blithely ignorant of its musical past. After winning his third and final Oscar for MGM’s 1959 epic Ben Hur, the composer found his talents ill used in a growing climate of slavish adoration to youthful demands, and insistence upon popular song score compilations. Except for a precious handful of worthwhile offers, such as Billy Wilder’s unforgettable The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes in 1970, Rozsa remained content to write music solely for the concert stage. All of that was about to change in 1975 with Jaws and, more importantly in 1977, with Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The rising popularity of composer John Williams, coupled with the spectacular sci-fi/fantasy epics of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, had returned symphonic film music to its former glory. With increasing, renewed demand for dramatic, full blown orchestral scoring, both Williams and Jerry Goldsmith leaped to the forefront of a new musical renaissance in Hollywood. While each rose admirably to the occasion, neither composer had either the time or the opportunity to score every new film on the drawing boards. Out of respect for their remembered legacy, a daring handful of youthful directors reached back into time to utilize the talents of the few remaining composers from filmdom’s fabled golden age.
Nicholas Meyer and Steve Vertlieb.
Time After Time was all the more remarkable for its Victorian sensibilities, and tender sensitivity in the midst of global narcissism, and cultural disdain. Both the screenplay, and its direction by Nicholas Meyer, seemed to embrace a painful longing for values long since replaced by worldly cynicism and ridicule. Vibrant in its infectious enthusiasm, the film seemed to hit a nerve with a small, yet influential segment of the film going population, quickly elevating the tiny “motion picture that could” to cult status and artistic reverie. Time After Time functioned comfortably on a variety of conceptual levels. It was an old-fashioned thriller in which author H.G. Wells, a Victorian novelist and unabashed idealist, chases the very personification of ancient evil through time, and the painful evolution of modern society.
It worked as a lovely comedy in which the now archaic Puritanism of nineteenth century England finds awkward reconciliation upon the mean streets of twentieth century San Francisco. It works equally well as pure storybook romanticism in which the handsome prince from another reality steals away the beleaguered heroine of a cruel and unforgiving kingdom, from which love and compassion have grown sublimated by callous cruelty, and emotional detachment.
For his part, composer Miklos Rozsa found comfort and creative reassurance in his own distinguished background and breeding, for Meyer’s cultural homage enveloped the world weary musician in a vaporous world that had long since vanished from experience. While only two film assignments remained in his future after completion of Nicholas Meyer’s romantic thriller, this haunting tale of poetic fate and synchronicity led Rozsa to compose a rich, brilliant score that has come to be regarded as a final masterwork by one of cinema’s most gifted artists. Rozsa’s music, like the cautionary loss of innocence articulated in Meyer’s fantasy, symbolizes a lush, passionate, deeply reflective longing for a world that has disappeared from the Earth that sired it. It is the bittersweet search for peace of mind and of heart that have gone with the wind, lost in the angry cynicism of societal maturity, and intellectual detachment. H.G. Wells has grown lost, a displaced “stranger in a strange land” trying to find home and, with its attainment, a return to simplicity and moral civility. Rozsa, himself adrift as a composer in a “brave new world” of noise and shallow contemplation, must have found a chord of artistic recollection and redemption within this sensitive visual remembrance, for his score is merely sublime.
Steve Vertlieb with Miklos Rozsa.
The score for Time After Time has long been considered among the richest of Rozsa’s symphonic career. It is a dazzling musical tour de force, capturing every imaginative nuance of both character and characterization with complexity and radiant vitality. Rozsa paints his symphonic canvas with the expressive brush strokes of a great artist. He is a master of emotional interpretation, conveying each subtle nuance of character reflection and vulnerability in brilliant musical strokes and terminology. Whether illustrating thrilling chases through valleys and corridors of time or finding, in moments of quiet desperation, love’s passion lost and found, this cultural icon from cinema’s beginnings and roots, has invested ageless enthusiasm into a final portal of grace and cinematic eloquence.
The score for Meyer’s precious gem of a motion picture had been released on both album and compact disc in 1979 when Rozsa entered the studio one more time to re-record his music for Entr’acte Records. That excellent recording has stood well the proverbial test of time for the past thirty years. In an age, however, of archival restoration, Lukas Kendall and his brave army of preservationists have returned this brilliant score to its original stereophonic splendor with their spectacular release of the complete, original soundtrack on their Film Score Monthly label. Co-produced and issued through Craig Spaulding and his exhaustive Screen Archives Entertainment resource, the magnificent music for this timeless enterprise has now come full circle with a new and definitive representation of a glorious score. With the participation of Nicholas Meyer, original orchestrations by the late Christopher Palmer, and a handsome accompanying booklet with both literate and informative liner notes by Jeff Bond and Frank DeWald, this spectacular production is a joy to hear and to behold.
In its final moments, as Wells and Amy Catherine Robbins reach out their hands to one another, lonely souls conjoined across a sea of time and space, the sheer poetic grace of Meyer’s and Alexander’s tender science fiction fantasy reaches romantic crescendo. The heartbreaking passion of Rozsa’s orchestral rhapsody finds the summit of its power in the final chords of a brilliant career. Miklos Rozsa found his voice once more, as he had on so many occasions during a life in film spanning forty-five years…as he had done Time After Time.
By Steve Vertlieb: There is a contemptuously lazy notion that Silents in theaters are anything but golden, and that black and white cinematography is somehow impotent and ineffectual. Contemporary audiences, jaded by three dimensional, digital technology and a ravenous appetite for fast paced action, have callously abandoned nuance and subtlety in favor of instant, if mindless, gratification. It’s somehow more comforting to dismiss films lacking modern sensibilities and technology than to place one’s self in the cultural context of the time in which they were conceived and filmed. The concept is as plausible as dismissing historical events and psychology because they occurred in a distant context. Art is no less valid because it was created in a “foreign” culture. What passes for shock value in present day entertainment may well become valueless five years down the road. Time doesn’t necessarily diminish the import of art’s original power or significance, nor should it. Hitchcock’s Psycho was a groundbreaking shocker upon its initial release, and remains a masterpiece of subtle horror. However, it isn’t uncommon for jaded collegiate audiences to jeer and ridicule sequences that, after nearly half a century, have understandably become copied, imitated and clichéd. That shouldn’t diminish the film’s importance or contribution to the popular culture and mystique.
The Black Cat, filmed prior to the advent of the infamous Hollywood Production Code was, for its time, a lurid and perverse cinematic revelation. That this macabre melodrama continues to fascinate modern audiences after nearly ninety years is a tribute to its hypnotic treatment and charm. Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, who seemingly did little else of serious consequence in his career, Cat is a sublime experience and remains among a small handful of the most noteworthy horror films of the period. Along with MGM’s The Mask of Fu Manchu, The Black Cat is a delirious excursion into sadism, satanism and drooling sensuality. It’s also a supreme surrender to the prurient fantasies of a sexually repressed and frustrated American populace, drowning in the Victorian niceties of naïve drama and extraordinarily silly comedies proliferating during the period.
The Black Cat is a dark, Germanic descent into torture, depravity and virgin sacrifice that, except for a brief and unfortunate comedic interlude that Universal felt somehow compelled to insert midway into the picture, perhaps to lighten the intensity of its surrounding sequences, remains one of the most unforgettable horror films of the golden era. It is also the single most effective pairing of the studio’s acclaimed titans of terror…Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. As in the aforementioned Mask of Fu Manchu, Karloff subtly conveys the brooding intensity of evil he so ably mastered throughout the decade. Like his brilliant portrayal of Ardeth Bey in The Mummy two years earlier, his demonic Hjalmar Poelzig is a cold, calculating instrument of devilish determination, a vile, vicious sociopath whose obsessive lust for domination enslaves everyone within his demented sphere of demonic influence. Without the slightest hint of guilt, conscience or remorse, he imprisons his once closest friend…steals and marries his bride…beds and weds their innocent child and, later, cruelly murders her when his friend returns from years of incarceration, discovering the unholy deception. His smile, upon welcoming unwelcome guests to his chateau, is bone chilling…a thinly masked sadistic anticipation, darkly reminiscent of a carnivorous spider, awaiting unwitting insects entering his veiled and deadly web. Poelzig is an unrepentant hedonist, a grinning cobra slithering across a corrupted paradise, whose personal desires, gratification and pleasures come at the expense of all who tragically stand in his way.
Bela Lugosi, still at the height of his all too brief success, convincingly offers one of his finest, most passionate and dramatically intense performances as Dr. Vitus Werdegast, a deeply scarred and broken being returning from the graves of his martyred comrades…a walking skeleton obsessed by thoughts of revenge against the maniacal martinet who betrayed his people. He is a grim, yet pathetic soul…a vengeful somnambulist whose one remaining goal in life is to eradicate from the Earth the monstrous machinations of the Judas priest of the black arts who murdered his heart. His anguish at discovering the murder of his daughter is nearly too painful to watch. While Lugosi’s performance is among his best, one cannot help comparing the career paths taken by these titans of terror from the golden age. Lugosi gives it his all, and yet his performance seems to foreshadow the unfortunate series of choices and events that would soon diminish his stature and popularity. His was a raw talent that, perhaps, needed nurturing from better agents and directors than he encountered, while Karloff seemed to better understand and underplay his own gifts as an actor. Subtlety of performance may have been the key to Karloff’s longevity, while Lugosi’s flame blew, unrestrained, in its raging intensity until, at last, both the actor and his artistry had been consumed and dethroned. Lugosi’s artistry quickly lapsed in self parody and humiliation before he fully understood the rapid, unalterable decline of his once proud reputation and career.
The Black Cat, while loosely based upon a premise by Edgar Allan Poe has, of course, little to do with that author’s work or imagination. Like the Roger Corman/Vincent Price collaborations that followed decades later, this is an original work merely attempting to capitalize on Poe’s reputation and persona. Having said that, the film is nonetheless a revelation, and as fresh today as when it was filmed in 1934. The supporting players have little to do other than stand around and react to the sublime hysteria of their imposing co-stars. David Manners offers a characteristically bland performance, a dramatic counterpoint comparable to the comedic, yet clueless Margaret Dumont in the Marx Bros. pictures. Perhaps it was Ulmer’s instruction to simply get out of their way, but Manners seems mere window dressing to the drama and characters unfolding frantically about him. Jacqueline Wells, later Julie Bishop, fares somewhat better as Manners’ wife, and the sensual object of Karloff’s lust and carnal desires but she, too, is ultimately consigned to mere set decoration. Both the camera and direction are focused obsessively upon the ensuing battle of wills brewing between Karloff and Lugosi, representing damnation and hope.
The Black Cat’s startling freshness is also due, at least in part, to the astonishing set decoration by Art Director Charles D. Hall. The Art Deco structure built by Engineer Poelzig upon the bloody foundation of the fortress he commanded and betrayed, Fort Marmaros, is eerily reflective of the ultra modernist architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. The Satanist’s castle is a wondrous amalgamation of light and shadow; on its surface a bright, visionary world’s fair of excitation and imagination while, below the bright promise of tomorrow lies the deadly, intricate catacombs of a darker world adorned with cells and heinous chambers of torture and depravity. Lights in the upper structure appear to come to life as if by will alone, as in Karloff’s startling introduction, rising methodically from sleep, much as “Nosferatu” rose from his coffin in Murnau’s 1922 UFA production of Dracula, aboard the vessel transporting him back to England to feed. He is a vile, predatory creature, feline by nature, accursed by circumstance and fate, stalking unwary innocents as a hungry rodent creeping along the cobwebbed catacombs of his grotesque chambers of torture and damnation.
As in many of Universal’s early horror films, music plays an intense, integral part in the calculated gloom gradually intensifying the brooding production. The studio borrowed heavily from Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Franz Lizst. The film is frequently swallowed by wall to wall music, drowning its victims in somber sacrament, while its overpowering adaptations add immeasurably to the suspense, moodiness and frenetic flow of its bizarre climactic sequences. Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony morosely illustrates Poelzig’s tour of the catacombs for his former friend, while Lizst’s Piano Sonata in B Minor accompanies the breathtaking, roller coaster action that thrillingly paints the Grand Guignol finale. The lower catacombs are littered with magician’s tubes encasing the preserved remains of Poelzig’s former lovers, lifelike and morbidly displayed as part of a proud fetishist’s carnival sideshow…the sacrificial victims, perhaps, of his unholy cult, encased forever in fluorescent embalming tombs.
But now the moon has risen and Herr Poelzig has once again summoned the believers to his black church to offer another unfortunate bride to Satan in ritualistic defiance of civility and law. The remaining moments of the film are among the most insatiable of the period as Werdegast and his ineffectual compatriot (Manners) conspire to save his wife, presumably from a fate worse than death. Poelzig is carried to the torture chambers beneath the main structure of the honey combed castle by Werdegast’s loyal manservant where he is flayed alive on his own embalming rack. “Do you know what I’m going to do to you now, Hjalmar,” asks Werdegast in nearly sexual excitation. “I’m going to tear the skin from your body…BIT BY BIT.” Photographed in disturbing, brightly lit silhouette, Werdegast’s insane laughter splinters the soundtrack as Poelzig’s agonized writhing can be observed upon the opposing wall of the chamber. Frighteningly animalistic to the end, Poelzig’s death cries are more like a savaged panther than a human being in mortal torment. He is a decadent creature of the night, a cunning and ravenous vulture avenged by the contemptuous conspiring of his own deceit and debauchery.
Part of the thoroughgoing depravity of The Black Cat is that while the secondary players add little to the structure of the film, the characters that they play mean even less to their malevolent hosts. Although Werdegast offers a hint of scarred nobility in sacrificing himself, allowing his young companions to escape, his compelling obsession for revenge against the man who wronged him is his dominant, obsessively consuming concern. Peter and Joan Alison are merely an annoying diversion. He cares no more for their plight than Poelzig. Indeed, when Poelzig and Werdegast engage in a deadly game of chess which will, ultimately, determine whether young Alison and his bride survive the evening, neither foe is particularly interested in the bland conversation awkwardly devised by Peter. The Alisons are as meaningless to their adversaries as the pawns adorning their antique chessboard. Peter and Joan are truly inconsequential chess pieces, for all of this is ultimately a game to both Poelzig and Werdegast. When Peter attempts to use the telephone in order to call for a cab to transport them out of their Wagnerian dungeon he discovers, to virtually no one’s surprise, that the phone is dead. “Did you hear that, Vitos?” Poelzig leers with contemptuous delight. “The phone is dead. Even the phone is dead.”
There is more than a hint of Poelzig’s inner depravity, so brilliantly expressed by the subtleties of evil, masterfully conveyed in Karloff’s finely etched portrayal. His face is a treacherous mask, vaguely suggesting the quiet sadism and sexual perversion lurking menacingly beneath the surface of his grotesquely mocking smile. It’s astonishing, even by modern standards, to imagine the intensity of evil so devilishly consuming this dark, Faustian figure. Karloff, a genuinely kind and gentle soul away from the camera, possessed an uncanny ability to convert Jekyll into Hyde, summoning the inner demons slumbering beneath the mannered goodness awash within the human soul. In performance after performance, either as a malicious mummy awakened in modern Egypt, or as the deliciously vile Dr. Fu Manchu, Karloff could wrench an uncanny malevolence from the cultured pretense of mannered civility, and hide beneath its cloak before the rolling cameras. It is no mere accident that his name remains synonymous with cinematic evil so many years after his time, and passage, despite his own personal gentility and almost legendary kindness.
The Black Cat today continues to thrill and fascinate adoring admirers of both the film and its stars. It was an anachronism in its time, a bizarre transplant provocatively out of step with the tenor of the period in which it was filmed. Its brooding sadism, and perverse sexuality, have elevated the film from a standard assembly line potboiler to cult status among critics and adoring fans of the popular genre. With its frenetic pacing, breathtaking set design, haunting performances and boundless excitement, The Black Cat has admirably survived and surpassed its ambitions, becoming an exuberant and remarkably abstract artifact of cinematic antiquity.
What I admire most about Neil Gaiman is his belief in the necessity of storytelling: it’s something we need on a DNA level.
I first read a book by Neil when I was 14 years old. It was Good Omens, his brilliant 1990 collaboration with Terry Pratchett. Two decades later, I got the opportunity to star in the 2013 BBC radio adaptation of Neverwhere. I remember feeling so excited that I was being inducted into his sphere of influence—one that has only grown. It’s fantastic to see Neil’s work gain new fans, most recently with the Netflix adaptation of his award-winning comic-book series The Sandman.
Neil’s point of entry into the storytelling realm is darkly fantastical and occultish. The way he writes makes you feel like you’re being let in on a massive secret. His worlds are hidden, shrouded in mystery, yet they’re never that far removed from ours. They’re always just barely within your peripheral vision—under the street or in a dark building or at the end of a lane. He brings dreamscapes to life.
Fox has ordered the reality series “Stars on Mars,” a new celebrity unscripted series featuring “Star Trek” star William Shatner in a host-like role. The series, set to air this summer, will follow stars as they are suited up to live in a colony set up to simulate what it might be like to be an astronaut on Mars.
“Stars on Mars” premieres on Monday, June 5, at 8 p.m. on Fox. The show comes from Fremantle’s Eureka Productions. The idea centers on the celebrity contestants competing in the Mars-like surroundings until there is just one “celebronaut” left standing. Shatner will deliver tasks to the celebs as “Mission Control.”
… Shatner, in a quippy quote, added: “Thanks to lower gravity on Mars, you’ll weigh 62% less. Bad news: the air is unbreathable, so if you’re from LA, it’ll remind you of home.”
The show will open with the celebrities living together as they “live, eat, sleep, strategize, and bond with each other in the same space station,” according to the network.
Here’s more from the show description: “During their stay, they will be faced with authentic conditions that simulate life on Mars, and they must use their brains and brawn – or maybe just their stellar social skills – to outlast the competition and claim the title of brightest star in the galaxy. The celebrities will compete in missions and will vote to eliminate one of their crewmates each week, sending them back to Earth. Cue the intergalactic alliances and rivalries. ‘Stars on Mars’will send these famous rookie space travelers where no one has gone before and reveal who has what it takes to survive life on ‘Mars.’”…
(3) IS THIS THE CRÈME DE LA CRÈME? Earlier this week the LA Times rolled out The Ultimate L.A. Bookshelf, devoting one of the shelves to 13 works of Speculative Fiction.
For our Ultimate L.A. Bookshelf, we asked writers with deep ties to the city to name their favorite Los Angeles books across eight categories or genres. Based on 95 responses, here are the 13 most essential works of speculative fiction, from Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, Aldous Huxley, Salvador Plascencia and many more….
Although these are all books, since two of them are collections of short fiction – Dangerous Visions (1967) and Speculative Los Angeles (2021) – it seems to me there should have been a way to get quintessential LA stories like Heinlein’s “And He Built A Crooked House”, and Niven’s “Inconstant Moon” into the mix. I’ll leave aside Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian” which doesn’t actually say what city it takes place in, though no one has ever had any doubt…
Imagine 2200 challenges entrants to write stories that help envision the next 180 years of climate progress. Whether built on abundance or adaptation, reform or a new understanding of survival, the contest celebrates stories that provide flickers of hope, even joy, and serve as a springboard for exploring how fiction can help create a better reality.
Stories will be judged by a panel of literary experts, including acclaimed authors Paolo Bacigalupi, Nalo Hopkinson, and Sam J. Miller.
The winning writer will be awarded $3,000, with the second- and third-place winners receiving $2,000 and $1,000, respectively. Nine additional finalists will each receive $300. All winners and finalists’ stories will be published in an immersive collection on Grist’s website.
Read more and find out how to submit a story here.
(5) FAN HISTORY ZOOM. Fanac.org’s program on “Researching (& Saving) Fan History” with Rob Hansen, Andy Hooper, Mark Olson and Joe Siclari can be viewed online April 22, 2023 beginning at 4 pm EDT, 1 pm PDT, 9 pm BST London, 6 am Sunday in Melbourne, AU. See the details in the poster. To get a link to the program, write to [email protected].
National Public Radio is quitting Twitter after the social media platform owned by Elon Musk stamped NPR’s account with labels the news organization says are intended to undermine its credibility.
Twitter labeled NPR’s main account last week as “state-affiliated media, ” a term also used to identify media outlets controlled or heavily influenced by authoritarian governments, such as Russia and China. Twitter later changed the label to “government-funded media,” but to NPR — which relies on the government for a tiny fraction of its funding — it’s still misleading.
NPR said in a statement Wednesday that it “will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent.”…
(7) GATEWAY TO ORSON WELLES. [Item by Steve Vertlieb.] Celebrating the genius of this extraordinary artist with my published look at the turbulent life and career of Orson Welles, the fabulous, visionary film maker whose personal demons sadly overshadowed his staggering talent, and finally, tragically destroyed him.
Yet, in spite of his personal failings or, perhaps, because of them, Welles rose to become one of the most remarkable film makers of his, or any other generation.
From his groundbreaking first feature length motion picture Citizen Kane, regarded by many still as the greatest single film in motion picture history, to Touch Of Evil, his remarkable “Cinema Noir” tale of a squandered life and legacy corrupted by bribery and temptation, Welles remains one of the most extraordinary directors in the history of film.
His is a story of unwitting sabotaged achievement and haunting, incomparable genius.
Alison, Liz, John and Alison are live from Conversation! We talk about the convention, in a rather more haphazard way than normal. Art by the amazing Sue Mason.
(9) MORE WRITERS’ RESPONSES TO AI. The SFWA Blog has updated its webpage and now has over 50 SFWA members’ writing and thoughts on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications and considerations. “SFWA Members Weigh in on AI & Machine Learning Applications & Considerations”. In case you looked at the original version, the additions are designated “NEW” to make them easy to find.
SFWA also focused attention on a video is now available from the AI/ML Media Advocacy Summit, a free online event last month that brought together experts and creators to discuss the creative community’s response to AI/ML media generators. SFWA Vice President John Murphy served as a panelist for the writers’ forum, along with moderator Donna Comeaux, Ed Hasbrouck of the National Writers Union, and Mary Rasenberger of the Authors Guild.
With our discipline specific panels we will be talking to a variety of individuals from across the creative industries including visual artists, voice actors, musicians, animators, photographers and writers on the different types of AI media generators and the unique challenges they pose.
(10) VIRGINIA NORWOOD (1927-2023). Physicist and inventor Virginia Norwood, who devised the scanner that has been used to map and study the earth from space for more than 50 years, died March 27. The New York Times obituary detailed the unexpected triumph of her contribution to the first Landsat.
…In the late 1960s, after NASA’s lunar missions sent back spectacular pictures of Earth, the director of the Geological Survey thought that photographs of the planet from space could help the agency manage land resources. The agency would partner with NASA, which would send satellites into space to take the pictures.
Ms. Norwood, who was part of an advanced design group in the space and communications division at Hughes, canvassed scientists who specialized in agriculture, meteorology, pollution and geology. She concluded that a scanner that recorded multiple spectra of light and energy, like one that had been used for local agricultural observations, could be modified for the planetary project that the Geological Survey and NASA had in mind.
The Geological Survey and NASA planned to use a giant three-camera system designed by RCA, based on television tube technology, that had been used to map the moon. The bulk of the 4,000-pound payload on NASA’s first Landsat satellite was reserved for the RCA equipment.
Ms. Norwood and Hughes were told that their multispectral scanner system, or M.S.S., could be included if it weighed no more than 100 pounds.
Ms. Norwood had to scale back her scanner to record just four bands of energy in the electromagnetic spectrum instead of seven, as she had planned. The scanner also had to be high precision. In her first design, each pixel represented 80 meters.
The device had a 9-by-13-inch mirror that banged back and forth noisily in the scanner 13 times a second. The scientists at the Geological Survey and NASA were skeptical.
A senior engineer from Hughes took the device out on a truck and drove around California to test it and convince the doubters that it would work. It did — spectacularly. Ms. Norwood hung one of the images, of Yosemite National Park’s Half Dome, on the wall of her house for the rest of her life.
The first Landsat blasted into space on July 23, 1972. Two days later, the scanner sent back the first images, of the Ouachita Mountains in Oklahoma; they were astounding. According to a 2021 article in MIT Technology Review, one geologist teared up. Another, who had been skeptical about the scanner, said, “I was so wrong about this. I’m not going to eat crow. Not big enough. I’m going to eat raven.”
The RCA system was supposed to be the primary recording instrument aboard the satellite, and the M.S.S. a secondary experiment.
“But once we looked at the data, the roles switched,” Stan Freden, the Landsat 1 project scientist, said in a NASA report.
The M.S.S. proved not only better, but also more reliable. Two weeks after liftoff, power surges in the RCA camera-based system endangered the satellite and the camera had to be shut down….
(11) MEMORY LANE.
1945 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
August Derleth’s “A Word From Dr. Lyndon Parker”
Sherlock Holmes pastiches must be almost as old as the stories themselves. The first credited one was sixteen years after the first Holmes story and was in Greek, Sherlock Holmes saving Mr. Venizelos (Ο Σέρλοκ Χολμς σώζων τον κ. Βενιζέλον). Our Beginning tonight isn’t from a work that old as it’s taken from August Derleth’s In Re: Sherlock Holmes.
It came from the collection of short stories, In Re: Sherlock Holmes, first published seventy-eight years ago in the US by Mycroft & Moran which was an imprint of Arkham House. The imprint was in part created for these stories. Wise choice I’d say.
Pons, a Consulting Detective in the mold of Holmes, exists because Derleth desired so much to do Holmes stories after Doyle ceased that he wrote him and asked if he could. Doyle unsurprisingly said no. The Solar Pons name is supposedly syllabically similar to Sherlock Holmes. Huh.
I like them because Derleth is obviously a fanboy of Holmes and his detective. Pons isn’t Holmes but is what a fan would write if he was creating his own loving version of Holmes.
And now for our very British Beginning…
A Word From Dr. Lyndon Parker
The way in which I first made the acquaintance of Mr. Solar Pons, who was destined to introduce me to many interesting adventures in crime detection, was exceedingly prosaic. Yet it was not without those elements suggestive of what was to come. Though it took place almost thirty years ago, the memory of that meeting is as clear in mind as if it had taken place yesterday.
I had been sitting for some time in a pub not far from Paddington Station, ruefully reflecting that the London to which I had returned after the first World War was not the city I had left, when a tall; thin gentleman wearing an Inverness cape and a rakish cap with a visor on it, strode casually into the place. I was struck at once by his appearance: the thin, almost feral face; the sharp, keen dark eyes with their heavy, but not bushy brows; the thin lips and the leanness of the face in general–all these things interested me both from a personal and a medical standpoint, and I looked up from the envelope upon which I had been writing to follow the fellow with my eyes across the floor to the bar.
A waiter, who was wiping tables next to me, noticed my interest and came over. “Sherlock Holmes’,” he said. “That’s who he is. The Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street,’ is what the papers call him. His real name’s Solar Pons. Ain’t much choice between the two, eh?”
Pons had had a few words with the man behind the bar and now turned to look idly over the room. I looked away as I saw that his glance was about to fall on me, and I felt him examining me from head to toe. I felt, rather than saw, that he was walking over toward my table, and in a few moments he came to stand beside my bag on the floor next to my chair.
“Fine color,” he said crisply. “Not long back from Africa, I see. “Two days.”
“Your scarab pin suggests Egypt and, if I’m not mistaken, the envelope on which you have been writing is one of Shepheard’s. From Cairo, then.”
“On the ship Ishtar.”
“At the East India Docks.”
I looked up and he smiled genially. “But, really, you know, my dear fellow–London is not as bad as all that.”
“I should not like to think so,” I answered him, without at once realizing that I had given him no clue to my thoughts. “Obviously you have been walking.”
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 13, 1931 — Beverly Cross. English playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Yes librettist. He’s here because he wrote the screenplays for Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans. Not remotely genre related but worth mentioning, is that he worked uncredited on the script for Lawrence of Arabia although it is unknown if any of his material made it to the film we see. (Died 1998.)
Born April 13, 1943 — Bill Pronzini, 80. Mystery writer whose Nameless Detective has one genre adventure in A Killing in Xanadu. Genre anthologist, often with Barry N Malzberg, covering such varied and wide-ranging themes as Bug-Eyed Monsters (with Malzberg), Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural (with Greenberg and Malzberg) and Arbor House Necropolis. As Robert Hart Davis, he wrote “The Pillars of Salt Affair”, a Man from U.N.C.L.E. novella that ran in the The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine.
Born April 13, 1950 — Ron Perlman, 73. Hellboy in a total of five films including three animated films (Hellboy: Sword of Storms, Hellboy: Blood and Iron and the Redcap short which is elusive to find unfortunately). Still by far the best Hellboy. He’s got a very long association with the genre as his very first film was Quest for Fire in which he was Amoukar. The Ice Pirates and being Zeno was followed quickly by being Captain Soames in Sleepwalkers and Angel De La Guardia in the Mexican horror film Cronos. Several years later, I see he’s Boltar in Prince Valiant, followed by the hard SF of being Johnher in Alien Resurrection and Reman Viceroy in Star Trek: Nemesis. And I should note he was in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as Gnarlack, a goblin gangster if I read the Cliff Notes to that correctly. No, I’m not forgetting about his most amazing role of all, Vincent in Beauty and The Beast. (Having not rewatched for fear of the Suck Fairy having come down hard on it. So who has watched it lately?) At the time, I thought it was the most awesome practical makeup I’d ever seen. And the costume just made look him even still more amazing.
Born April 13, 1951 — Peter Davison, 72. The Fifth Doctor that I came to be very fond of. For twenty years now, he has reprised his role as the Fifth Doctor in myriad Doctor Who audio dramas for Big Finish. And he put a lot of gravitas into the voice of Mole he did for The Wind in the Willows animated special Mole’s Christmas. And let’s not forget he showed up in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as the Dish of the Day. I’m going to note that I first saw him in Tristan Farnon in the BBC’s adaptation of James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small stories, a lovely role indeed. And I’m very fond of The Last Detective series where he played DC ‘Dangerous’ Davies.
Born April 13, 1954 — Michael Cassutt, 69. Producer, screenwriter, and author. His notable TV work includes work for the animated Dungeons & Dragons, Max Headroom, The Outer Limits, Beauty and The Beast, SeaQuest, Farscape, Eerie, Indiana and The Twilight Zone. He’s also written genre works including the Heaven’s Shadow series that was co-written with David S. Goyer. His latest piece of fiction was the “Aurora” novelette published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, March/April 2022.
Born April 13, 1954 — Glen Keane, 69. He’s responsible for all of the layout work on Star Trek: The Animated Series and also My Favorite Martians which I can’t say I recognize. As a character animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios, he worked on Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas.
Born April 13, 1959 — Brian Thomsen. Editor, writer and anthologist. He was founding editor of Warner Books’ Questar Science Fiction, and later served as managing fiction editor at TSR. He co-wrote the autobiography of Julius Schwartz. And yes I’ve actually read one of his anthologies, A Yuletide Universe, as I remember it from the cover art. (Died 2008.)
April 13, 1967 — Rogers Cadenhead, 56. This Filer is a computer book author and web publisher who served once as chairman of the RSS Advisory Board, a group that publishes the RSS 2.0 specification. Very, very impressive. He also gained infamy for claiming drudge.com before a certain muckraker could, and still holds on to it.
(13) COMICS SECTION.
The Far Side shows what preceded that famous Viking headgear.
(14) RIVERS OF LONDON. Titan Comics has revealed the covers for Here Be Dragons – the next phase of Rivers of London comics, set in the world of the bestselling novel series. For this upcoming series, comic series writers Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London) and Andrew Cartmel (The Vinyl Detective) are joined by BAFTA-nominated scriptwriter, and award-winning New York Times bestselling author James Swallow, with artwork by José María Beroy.
Thiscover preview shows the first look at a dangerous monster at large above the streets of London. After a Met Police helicopter on night patrol is attacked by an unidentified aerial phenomena, the Met’s only sanctioned wizard, Peter Grant, and his mentor, Thomas Nightingale, are called to investigate.
Rivers of London: Here Be Dragons issue #1 (on sale in comic shops and digital July 12th, 2023) features covers by series artist José María Beroy, alongside David M. Buisan and V.V. Glass.
That vast repository of American history that is the Smithsonian Institution evolved from an organization founded in 1816 called the Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences. Its mandate, the collection and dissemination of useful knowledge, now sounds very much of the nineteenth century — but then, so does its name. Columbia, the goddess-like symbolic personification of the United States of America, is seldom directly referenced today, having been superseded by Lady Liberty. Traits of both figures appear in the depiction on the nineteenth-century fireman’s hat above, about which you can learn more at Smithsonian Open Access, a digital archive that now contains some 4.5 million images.
Just for practice I searched “science fiction” and one of the images that returned was Octavia Butler’s typewriter.
This Olivetti Studio 46 Typewriter belonged to Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006), who wrote science fiction when few black writers did. Butler began writing at age 10 and eventually used a computer to compose, but noted, “I didn’t always. I wrote my first ten books on a manual typewriter of one kind or another….She [my mother] did day work; she made not very much money….here she had a daughter begging for a typewriter.” Butler’s blue typewriter dates to the 1970s….
…Over the following five decades, Vonnegut established himself as one of the most creative and humorous voices in science-fiction. Like an American Douglas Adams, his books would frequently deal with aliens, time travel, and metafiction, but always with the intent of getting to the heart of human nature itself….
The first example on their list is:
1. “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
From Vonnegut’s third novel ‘Mother Night’, it’s a beautiful and quick summation of an appreciation of the stark importance as well as the flimsiness of human identity.
The series will be written and executive-produced by Martin and Ira Parker. Ryan Condal, who currently serves as House of the Dragon‘s showrunner, and Vince Gerardis also will be EPs.
“A century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros,” the official logline reads. “A young, naive but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall” (aka Dunk) “and his diminutive squire, Egg. Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends.”…
(18) A FROZEN FLAME. And if you’d like to see George R.R. Martin posing with his Dragon Award from last year, click on this link to his March 29 blog entry.
My thanks to all of the attendees of last year’s Dragoncon, and to all the Dragon Award voters who chose ELDEN RING as the best game of the year. Like all my friends at From Software, I am thrilled that you enjoyed the play… as challenging as it can be.
We humans have always been explorers. The great civilizations that have arisen across the world are owed to our restless ancestors. These days, there’s not much of Earth left to explore. But if we look up, there’s a whole universe out there waiting for us. Future generations may one day explore the cosmos and even settle entire other galaxies. But there is a hard limit to how much of the universe we can expand into. So, how big can humanity get?
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steve Vertlieb, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]
(1) UKRANIAN BRADBURY TRANSLATOR MOURNED. [Item by Susan de Guardiola.] It’s being reported that Ukrainian researcher/editor/translator/”culturologist” Yevhen Gulevich (Gulevych), who, among other things, was the translator of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, was killed fighting at Bakhmut in Ukraine.
???? The famous culturologist and researcher Yevhen Gulevych died in the battles near Bakhmut.
Gulevich was a critical figure in detailing the history of Ukrainian art, explaining the origins of Ukrainian culture, and in mapping that history onto modern Ukraine. He was the editor of a Ukrainian magazine and frequently in demand for his skill at translating books written in other languages into Ukrainian while preserving the emotion and beauty of language. Among others, he translated Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes” so that it can be read by generations of Ukrainians the way it has been read and enjoyed by generations of Americans. Gulevich died on Bakhmut. He probably died all the way back at the end of December, but his body could not be found, and his fellow soldiers maintained some level of hope that he was still out there until he was finally declared dead last month. “
The image at the top of that article is from his funeral (”A guard of honor for Yevhen Gulevich at Garrison Church, Lviv, Ukraine. April 10, 2023”) and you’ll see another picture from it if you scroll down to the quote.
…As I discussed yesterday in the roundtable on adaptations of Tolkien, the backlash against Amazon’s Rings of Powers series is part of the ongoing “culture war” effort by contemporary fascists, many who love Tolkien’s work. They are creating “a new front . . . in a decades’-long, international, far-right, culture war. The people waging it aren’t just fighting to keep Tolkien’s imaginary world white and manly and straight. They’re fighting to restore that white-supremacist system in the real world, too” (Craig Franson, personal communication). Yesterday I focused on the question of what fandom, or more specifically, what progressive fans might do. Today, I focus on the question of what white academics can do….
…Too many of the articles on race and Tolkien dismiss racist readers as atypical, as ignorant, as reading the Legendarium badly, and, by extension, dismiss the question of structural/systemic racisms in Tolkien’s legendarium as unimportant to the field of Tolkien scholarship….
(3) JEREMY RENNER ON JIMMY KIMMEL. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The “Live!“ in the name of Jimmy Kimmel’s show may never have been more relevant than it was Monday night. Jeremy Renner made his first talkshow appearance following his January 1st accident that saw him basically crushed by a multi-ton snowplow.
Renner was there nominally to promote his new Disney+ show “Rennervations,” but it’s certain that his fans were cheered by his ability to walk to the interview chair using nothing more than a cane.
It’s time to boldly go back to the big screen! The final two episodes of Star Trek: Picard Season 3 are getting a one-night-only theatrical release in select IMAX theaters on April 19 followed by a pre-taped Q&A with the cast of the hit series. Participating cities include Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC. What’s even better is that tickets for the event are free, and they’ll be available on Wednesday, April 12 at 1 PM ET.
(5) GUGGENHEIM. The 2023 Guggenheim Fellows were announced April 5, 171 fellows from 48 fields. Jacqueline Woodson, who has done much genre work, was one of the people named as fellows in the Fiction category.
Fiction
Lucy Corin, Writer, Berkeley, California; Professor of English, University of California, Davis
Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Writer, Arvada, Colorado; Endowed Chair in Creative Writing, Texas State University
James Hannaham, Writer, Brooklyn, New York; Professor, Writing Department, Pratt Institute
Jac Jemc, Writer, San Diego, California; Associate Teaching Professor, University of California, San Diego
Don Lee, Writer, Baltimore, Maryland; Professor, Director of MFA Program in Creative Writing, Temple University
Rebecca Lee, Writer, Wilmington, North Carolina; Associate Professor, Department of Creative Writing, University of North Carolina Wilmington
Héctor Tobar, Writer, Los Angeles, California; Professor, University of California, Irvine
(6) RONDO VOTING. Steve Vertlieb reminds us that April 23 is the last day for the public to vote for the Rondo Awards, “fandom’s only classic horror awards”, and he’d be thrilled if you voted for the nominee who interviewed him for the magazine We Belong Dead.
…Also, Cinema Retro contributor Mark Mawston, who recently brought CR readers a rare, exclusive interview with actor John Leyton, has been singled out for a nomination in the category of Best Interview. This time, the subject of his work is the life and career of noted writer, film, and film music historian, Steve Vertlieb, who reflects on his interactions with a “Who’s Who” of film legends from over the decades. The superb 12-page interview appeared in issue #31 of the popular British horror magazine “We Belong Dead”. Mark is known professionally as “The Rock and Roll Photographer To The Stars” (having photographed such music luminaries at Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Eric Clapton, Yoko Ono, and Brian Wilson)….
Click here for the ballot and instructions on how to send in your vote.
(7) BOOK REVIEW. I am the Law: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future launched a few weeks ago. Jonathan Cowie has a review in the forthcoming seasonal edition of SF2 Concatenation and tweeted an advance post.
Even if you do not know of Judge Dredd but have an interest in policing and legality, then this is a fascinating introduction into twentieth and early twenty-first century trends, that, if they continue, lead to a worrying future…
For SF fans, this book is an exemplar of science fiction’s value to society and how the genre can, on occasion, seem to predict the future. In this case the seeming predictions – note the plural, for there are many – are unnervingly spot on and so if Judge Dredd is some sort of quasi-reflection of our future, then it is an unsettling one, and one at which we should rail against
Judge Dredd should come with a health warning when given to kids.
If perchance you have never heard of Judge Dredd (is there anyone in the western world under the age of 50 who hasn’t?), then he is a comic-strip character from the British weekly 2000AD as well as, now, the titular character of the monthly Judge Dredd Megazine. He is a 22nd century law enforcer of Mega-City 1: Mega-City 1 being effectively the amalgamation of former 20th century cities along the US’s eastern seaboard. Life in Mega-City-1, though futuristic, is harsh. Only a few Mega-Cities survived the early 21st century nuclear war and much of the middle of America (less protected by anti-missile shields) became a wasteland called the ‘Cursed Earth’. Meanwhile, the ocean off the city is now the polluted Black Atlantic.
Life in Mega-City 1 is also harsh for its citizens because the high automated future and advanced robotics have made many redundant and the majority are simply unemployed living on ‘welf’ (welfare benefits). Crime is rife as is the discontent and those who regret the loss of democracy. And then there are the threats from the technology used itself as well as external ones from other Mega-Cities both from within the former continental N. America and beyond.
So, to keep law and order, policemen are now both police, jury and judge who enforce the law and decide on guilt and punishment. These enforcers are the Judges.
This book is jam-packed with so many instances of where the strip has seemingly predicted the future that this review can but give you the barest of tasters….
A work of Keith Laumer’s that I think doesn’t get as much appreciation as it deserves is where the Beginning comes from for the tonight’s Scroll.
Worlds of The Imperium is the novel in question.It first appeared in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination in the February, March and April 1961 issues. The following year it was published by Ace Books as an Ace Double with Seven from the Stars by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Five years later, Dennis Dobson publishers would give it a handsome hardcover edition.
I don’t consider it giving to be give y’all spoilers to note that Laumer wrote three sequels to this novel —The Other Side of Time, Assignment in Nowhere and Zone Yellow.
I consider it one of the better cross-time novels that I’ve read and I’ve read a lot of them in over the last fifty years. The antagonist is interesting, the worlds thought out to be more than the cookie cutter alternative ones we so often get and the story here moves along at a rather admirable pace. With ale too.
So here’s our Beginning…
I STOPPED in front of a shop with a small wooden sign which hung from a wrought-iron spear projecting from the weathered stone wall. On it the word Antikvariat was lettered in spidery gold against dull black, and it creaked as it swung in the night wind. Below it a metal grating covered a dusty window with a display of yellowed etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs, and a faded mezzotint. Some of the buildings in the pictures looked familiar, but here they stood in open fields, or perched on hills overlooking a harbor crowded with sails. The ladies in the pictures wore great bell-like skirts and bonnets with ribbons, and carried tiny parasols, while dainty-footed horses pranced before carriages in the background.
It wasn’t the prints that interested me though, or even the heavy gilt
frame embracing a tarnished mirror at one side; it was the man whose reflection I studied in the yellowed glass, a dark man wearing a tightly-belted grey trench-coat that was six inches too long. He stood with his hands thrust deep in his pockets and stared into a darkened window fifty feet from me.
He had been following me all day.
At first I thought it was coincidence when I noticed the man on the bus from Bromma, then studying theatre announcements in the hotel lobby while I registered, and half an hour later sitting three tables away sipping coffee while I ate a hearty dinner.
I had discarded that theory a long time ago. Five hours had passed and he was still with me as I walked through the Old Town, medieval Stockholm still preserved on an island in the middle of the city. I had walked past shabby windows crammed with copper pots, ornate silver, dueling pistols, and worn cavalry sabres; very quaint in the afternoon sun, but grim reminders of a ruder day of violence after midnight. Over the echo of my footsteps in the silent narrow streets the other steps came quietly behind, hurrying when I hurried, stopping when I stopped. Now the man stared into the dark window and waited, the next move was up to me. I was lost. Twenty years is a long time to remember the tortuous turnings of the streets of the Old Town. I took my guide book from my pocket and turned to the map in the back. My fingers were clumsy.
I craned my neck up at the stone tablet set in the corner of the building; it was barely legible: Master-Samuelsgatan. I found the name on the folding map and saw that it ran for three short blocks, ending at Gamla Storgatan; a dead end. In the dim light it was difficult to see the fine detail on the map; I twisted the book around and got a clearer view; there appeared to be another tiny street, marked with crosslines, and labeled Guldsmedstrappan. I tried to remember my Swedish; trappan meant stair. The Goldsmith’s Stairs, running from Master Samuelsgatan to Hundgatan, another tiny street. It seemed to lead to the lighted area near the palace; it looked like my only route out. I dropped the book back into my pocket and moved off casually toward the stairs of the Goldsmith. I hoped there was no gate across the entrance.
My shadow waited a moment, then followed. Slowly as I was ambling, I gained a little on him. He seemed in no hurry at all. I passed more tiny shops, with ironbound doors and worn stone sills, and then saw that the next doorway was an open arch with littered granite steps ascending abruptly. I paused idly, then turned in. Once past the portal, I bounded up the steps at top speed. Six leaps, eight, and I was at the top and darting to the left toward a deep doorway. There was just a chance I’d cleared the top of the stair before the dark man had reached the bottom. I stood and listened. I heard the scrape of shoes, then heavy breathing from the direction of the stairs a few feet away. I waited, breathing with my mouth wide open, trying not to pant audibly. After a moment the steps moved away. The proper move for my silent companion would be to cast about quickly for my hiding place, on the assumption that I had concealed myself close by. He would be back this way soon.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 11, 1867 — William Wallace Cook. Newspaper reporter and pulp writer who wrote four novels (The Fiction Factory, A Round Trip to the Year 2000, or A Flight Through Time, Cast Away at the Pole and Adrift in the Unknown, or Adventures in a Queer Realm) which were serialized in Argosy in the early part of the last century. Clute at EoSF says he was “was a crude writer, but is of interest for his attempts to combine adventure plots and Satire.” (Died 1933.)
Born April 11, 1892 — William M. Timlin. Author of The Ship that Sailed to Mars, a remarkable work that has 48 pages of text and 48 color plates. It has become a classic of fantasy literature. You can view the book here. (Died 1943.)
Born April 11, 1920 — Peter O’Donnell. Best remembered as the creator of Modesty Blaise of which EoSF says that her “agility and supple strength are sufficiently exceptional for her to be understood as a Superhero”. He also wrote the screenplay of The Vengeance of She based on H. Rider Haggard’s Ayesha: The Return of She novel. (Died 2010.)
Born April 11, 1941 — Gene Szafran. He did cover art for genre books published by Bantam and Ballantine during the Sixties to the Eighties, including a series of Signet paperbacks of Robert A. Heinlein’s work including Farnham’s Freehold, The Green Hills of Earth, and Methusaleh’s Children. His art would garner him a 1972 Locus Award. (Died 2011.)
Born April 11, 1949 — Melanie Tem. She was the wife of genre author Steve Rasnic Tem. A prolific writer of both novels and short stories, she considered herself a dark fantasy writer, not a horror writer. Bryant, King and Simmonds all praised her writing. If I had to make a recommendation, I’d say start with Blood Moon, Witch-Light (co-written with Nancy Holder) and Daughters done with her husband. ”The Man on the Ceiling” won her a World Fantasy Award. She died of cancer which recurred after she’d been in remission. (Died 2015.)
Born April 11, 1955 — Julie Czerneda, 68. She won the Prix Aurora Award for her Company of Others novel. She’d also receive one for Short Form in English for her “Left Foot on A Blind Man” Story, both of these early in her career. She has a long running series, The Clan Chronicles which is as sprawling as anything Martin conceived.
Born April 11, 1963 — Gregory Keyes, 60. Best known for The Age of Unreason tetralogy, a steampunk and magical affair featuring Benjamin Franklin and Isaac Newton. He also wrote The Psi Corps Trilogy and has done a lot of other media tie-in fiction including Pacific Rim, Star Wars, Planet of The Apes, Independence Day and Pacific Rim.
The Far Side shows the cow’s real motivation for jumping the moon.
The Far Side wonders, “What did people use for fuel before the dinosaurs died?”
(11) GRAPHIC NOVELS MARKET ANALYZED. [Item by Dann.] In “Tilting at Windmills #295: Looking at NPD BookScan 2022” at ComicsBeat, Brian Hibbs does an annual assessment of graphic novels sold via bookstores. His data does not include direct market sales nor does it include digital sales; only physical books sold via a bookstore (including Amazon). The quick takes from his 2022 report that I found:
Scholastic is the king of physical book sales via bookstores with 40% of sales by western* publishers. (* Publishers from western nations – not publishers of western-themed graphic novels, natch)
The largest bookstore market is middle school/junior high-aged kids. Dav Pilkey rules the roost with 8 of the top 20 titles.
Manga is the next largest sub-market with Viz Media being the most significant publisher at 60% of all manga sales.
Of the traditional “superhero” publishers, DC does a good job at #6 among western publishers with 20 titles in the top 750 and Marvel is struggling with only one title in the top 750. DC’s success seems to be largely driven by what is being adapted for TV plus their youth-oriented titles. Scholastic’s licenses of Marvel properties beat all of the Marvel-published titles. Together, Marvel and DC comprise 10% of the market sold via bookstores.
Though Hibbs says, “But this seems paltry when you see that at least four other publishers licensed to publish Marvel characters … beat every single comic Marvel itself published, except for one: ‘Moon Knight by Lemire & Smallwood’, with 17k.”
The data is based on NPD BookScan and does not include sales via/to libraries, schools, specialty stores (like comic book stores), book clubs, and fairs. There are other data issues arising from how publishers apply BISAC codes to their products. For example, the novel Bloody Crown of Conan appeared on the list for many years while Dork Diaries comes and goes. Brian has to get the data for The Complete Persepolis and Maus manually pulled for inclusion in his dataset. He makes it clear that there are known unknowns with respect to his dataset.
(12) CELEBRATING ADDITIONS TO THE COLLECTION. For sff scholars at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY, “Pandemic Donations Moving Day” arrived at the end of February. The Science Fiction at City Tech blog has the story.
During the pandemic, we received a lot of new material for the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, including magazines, novels, collections, academic journals, and monographs. These materials were donated by Charlie Seelig (~20 boxes of EVERYTHING), Analog Science Fiction and Fact(~4 boxes of magazines from their old office space), City Tech Professor Lucas Bernard (2 boxes of material that belonged to his father Kenneth Bernard, the experimental playwright and English professor), and Emeritus Professor of English at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and former president of the Science Fiction Research Association David Mead (1 box of Jack Vance materials), The Special Collections and Archives in the City Tech Library unfortunately were unable to open enough shelf space for these materials, so Wanett and Jason stored everything in their offices–with most of it being in Jason’s office (see below)…..
(13) FINISHED PROJECT. EV Grieve, in “This is the way”, has a photo of the completed Mandalorian-themed art on a building in New York’s East Village. See it at the link.
Here’s a follow-up to last week’s post and a look at the final “Mandalorian“-related mural by local artist-illustrator Rich Miller on the NE corner of Seventh Street and Avenue C.
(14) THE MARVELS TRAILER. Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel and Monica Rambeau return in Marvel Studios’ The Marvels, only in theaters November 10.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Susan de Guardiola, Steve Vertlieb, Lise Andreasen, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
By Steve Vertlieb: Ray Harryhausen remains one of the most revered figures in fantasy/sci-fi motion picture history. Born June 29, 1920, Ray was not only a childhood hero, but became a dear and cherished friend of nearly fifty years duration. On June 29, 2020 his genius, as well as the joyous centennial of his birth, was commemorated with numerous remembrances, events, and exhibitions in celebration of his 100th birthday throughout the world.
Steve and Ray HarryhausenRay & Diana Harryhausen, and Steve Vertlieb
His work in films inspired and influenced generations of film makers, and garnered him a special Academy Award, presented by Tom Hanks, for a lifetime of cinematic achievement. Steven Spielberg joyously proclaimed that his own inspiration for directing Jurassic Park was the pioneering special effects work of Harryhausen.
Published by The Thunderchild shortly after his death on May 7, 2013, nominated by the annual Rondo Awards for Best Article of the Year in Spring, 2014, and published once more for what would have been his 100th birthday by Hugo Award winning web magazine File 770, this remains a celebration and loving remembrance of the life and work of cinematic master, and special effects genius, Ray Harryhausen. It is also the tender story of a very special man, as well as an often remarkable personal friendship. I love you, Ray. You filled my dreams, my life, and my world with your wondrous creatures.
In remembrance of this wonderful soul, here is my affectionate tribute to my friend of forty-eight years, and boyhood hero of interminable recollection and duration…the incomparable Stop Motion genius, and Oscar honored special effects pioneer, Ray Harryhausen.
Journey with me now to a “Land Beyond Beyond” where dreams were born, cyclopean creatures thundered across a primeval landscape, mythological dragons roared in awe struck wonder, and magical stallions ascended above the clouds…Once Upon A Time. “From the Land Beyond Beyond: An Intimate Personal Remembrance of Ray Harryhausen” at The Thunderchild.
By Steve Vertlieb: Following the end of the Second World War, America was consumed by a sense of re-birth, combined with an urgent longing for renewal. An air of exhilaration and breathless optimism filled the minds and hearts of a country weary of war, yearning to find new beginnings. The ceiling seemed virtually unlimited, as new housing, new jobs and careers, and new technological wonders replaced the science fiction of old with the astonishing reality of the present. As a new decade began, a small box began to appear in living rooms throughout the United States, providing a startling gateway …a wondrous “yellow brick road” … to a magical, unparalleled new world of adventure, music, and information. The box was called … Television.
William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy
The comparative innocence of the early 1950’s in America gave birth to a special world of children’s television, happily inhabited by science fiction and western tv heroes created entirely for a robust, imaginative generation of “baby boomers, hungry for programming expressly invented for, and inviting to, them. Walt Disney began his long television career during the early to mid-fifties, while William Boyd as Clarence Mulford’s “Hopalong Cassidy,” as well as Roy Rogers, and Gene Autry, were virtually re-born, finding an entirely new audience of kids, becoming the first television superstars whose national popularity would endure for decades. Bill Boyd, particularly, having played the silver haired cowboy, known quite simply as “Hoppy,” in countless Paramount Pictures in the thirties and, largely as an independent producer in the 1940’s, was easily the savior of the fledgling medium, producing a whole new series of half hour Hopalong Cassidy episodes for his own early western series while becoming, perhaps, the most beloved star in television.
Created by Mike Moser, Space Patrol began its run on ABC Television locally in Los Angeles on March 9, 1950 in a fifteen-minute format, expanding to thirty minutes nationally on Saturday, December 30, 1950. Airing on the network until February 26,1955, the beloved series was later re-born in syndication as Satellite Police. With Ed Kemmer as Commander Buzz Corry, Lyn Osborn as Cadet Happy, Ken Mayer as Major Robbie Robertson, Bela Kovacs as Prince Baccarratti, Virginia Hewitt as Carol Carlisle and Nina Bara, as Tonga, Commander Corry and youthful Cadet Happy roamed the 30th-century universe in their space cruiser, “Terra,” fighting super-villains such as Mr. Proteus, Prince Baccarratti, and other “spacial” villains, including actor Marvin Miller, the voice of science fiction’s most illustrious mechanical being, “Robby The Robot,” in MGM’s 1956 science fiction movie milestone, Forbidden Planet (as well as the star of the popular CBS series, The Millionaire,” as Michael Anthony, the courier of certified checks in the amount of one million dollars for his employer, John Beresford Tipton, played off camera by Paul Frees.
Moser hoped to inspire, in a new generation of boys and girls, the thrills and wonders of the original Universal Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers serials starring Larry “Buster” Crabbe, that he’d grown up with in the mid 1930’s. Ace flyer, war hero, and German prison camp survivor, Edward Kemmer was chosen by Moser to play the lead in the new series. Surviving “baby boomers” might also recall Kemmer’s co-starring role with William Shatner, as the “Captain” of the nightmarish airplane, enduring Richard Matheson’s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” on Rod Serling’s provocative, groundbreaking sci-fi/fantasy series, The Twilight Zone on CBS.
Steve Vertlieb, Buster Crabbe, and Erwin Vertlieb in the Catskills.Steve Vertlieb and Buster Crabbe in Philadelphia.
Space Patrol was consistently among the highest rated series televised on the infant medium. With high profile sponsorship across the country by Ralston Purina Company, makers of Rice Chex and Wheat Chex, the weekly series was so popular that the network had a specially engineered, life-sized replica of the space cruiser “Terra” built, which toured the country to the utter delight of thousands, perhaps millions, of young space cadets longing to visit with, and board her.
The surprise popularity of Space Patrol did not go unnoticed in Hollywood, for it has long been rumored to have been not only the inspiration for MGM’s monumental science fiction hit, Forbidden Planet, in 1956, but an early influence, as well, on the development and production of Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek series, starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and De Forrest Kelly, for NBC Television in September, 1966. I’d interviewed Bill Shatner at Philadelphia’s “Playhouse in the Park,” where he was performing in a stage adaptation of “There’s A Girl In My Soup” with Jill Hayworth in 1969, for the British sci-fi film magazine, L’Incroyable Cinema. It was also my good fortune to both meet and befriend another boyhood hero, Buster Crabbe, during that same torrid, event-filled summer. However, I’d longed for decades to meet my last surviving cinematic hero, Edward Kemmer, feeling acutely the encroaching burden of melancholy and resignation as the years passed by, with seemingly little hope for success.
Steve Vertlieb, William Shatner and Erwin Vertlieb at the “Playhouse in the Park”
The fates are occasionally kind for, many years later, as a fully grown fan, I’d begun to hear rumors from friends across the country that Ed was starting to make personal appearances at science fiction and nostalgia conventions. Fortune smiled upon me at last when I learned that Ed was scheduled to appear at the annual “Fanex” film convention in Baltimore, Maryland, hosted by Gary and Susan Svehla, publishers of Midnight Marquee Magazine. Driving from Philly to Baltimore, my heart raced wildly as the realization of my childhood dreams was about to come miraculously to life and sweet reality. Arriving nervously at the convention, I visited Ed’s table in the huckster room, but Ed was nowhere to be found. As evening approached, I dressed appropriately for the official welcoming festivities, and waited patiently for a glimpse of my hero.
Suddenly, there he was … older … grayer … yet immediately recognizable as Commander Buzz Corry of the Space Patrol. I walked up to him, breathless with boyish enthusiasm and excitement, and told him that I’d loved him for fifty years. Smiling broadly, with a just a bit of feigned shock and delight, he said “You couldn’t possibly be that old.” I quickly assured him that I could, and that I was. I was shaking, and filled with trepidation, as the years mercifully melted away, providing me with a joyous time capsule, a loving portal back to a simpler reality when I was just five years old, and the brand new 1950 RCA television that my dad had purchased had sweetly returned to life.
Ed Kemmer and Steve Vertlieb
On Saturday afternoon, as Ed spoke on stage before an adoring audience of maturing “children” and aspiring “space cadets,” he remembered with amusement, and a degree of cherished annoyance, that his co-star, Lyn Osborn, would often forget his lines, turning frantically to his superior officer for a “cue,” asking “What do you think, Commander.”
After that, Ed and I became good friends and correspondents, until his inevitable passing on November 9, 2004, at age 83. He loved Sinatra, and I used to compile selections by the singer on audio tape, and mail them to his New York apartment. He recalled visiting the set of The Rosemary Clooney TV show, which was produced by his old Space Patrol director, Dick Darley. Nelson Riddle was her musical director, and they often talked of their mutual love and respect for “Ol’ Blue Eyes.”
I couldn’t believe that I’d actually befriended one of my earliest boyhood heroes … Commander Buzz Corry of the Space Patrol. It was a relationship that I shall cherish until I, myself, pass into the stratosphere, serving courageously alongside “Buzz Corry,” aboard the space cruiser “Terra,” soaring happily into the Heavens, while returning to “those thrilling days of yesteryear.”
By Steve Vertlieb: When I was just eleven years old in 1957, Walt Disney announced on The Mickey Mouse Club that a brand new Zorro television series would be airing each week on Thursday evenings over the ABC Television Network.
My heart raced … my pulse quickened … while my jaw dropped in utter paralysis and awe at the premiere opening titles of this beloved children’s TV series.
There had been the popular novel, The Curse of Capistrano, by writer Johnston McCulley in 1919. Then came the classic silent film based upon McCulley’s novel starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in the title role in the silent version of The Mark of Zorro. Reed Hadley wore the mask and handsome black costume, daringly astride his courageous white stallion, in the greatest film serial of them all, Republic Pictures’ 1939 serial adventure, Zorro’s Fighting Legion. Tyrone Power essayed the part for 20th Century Fox in Darryl F. Zanuck’s production of The Mark of Zorro in 1940.
However, it was Guy Williams as Don Diego De La Vega, the foppish nobleman who rode the hills of Spanish California, when the blackness of night consumed the danger filled countryside, as “El Zorro … “The Fox” … in the classic television series, who thrilled my soul with wonder, and set my young heart, and the fertile imaginations of America’s children ablaze as Walt Disney’s Zorro.
Featuring the magical title theme music by song writers Norman Foster and George Bruns, with background scoring by composer William Lava, who had also written the thunderous motion picture score for Zorro’s Fighting Legion, the Zorro theme song became an overnight sensation.
My dreams come alive once more even now as “Out of the night … When the full moon is bright … Comes the horseman known as … ZORRO.”
By Steve Vertlieb: King Kong premiered ninety years ago on March 2, 1933, opening simultaneously at both the Radio City Music Hall and Roxy Theaters in New York City, followed by an “official” March 23,1933, opening at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. I guess that I first saw the film as a ten year old, somewhere around 1956, on WCAU TV, Channel 10 in Philadelphia. I’d grown up hearing stories from my mom about being a young woman in the early 1930’s, and seeing a wonder-filled motion picture concerning a giant prehistoric ape in a lost world, escaping from captivity and carrying a woman to the top of the Empire State Building. I was so entranced by her stories that I often dreamt of Kong searching for me in the sometimes nightmarish realm of slumber, an enormous phantom stalking the streets of the city, peering through bedroom windows in menacing search of its prey. While I’d awaken from these dark fantasies screaming in the night, the imagery of the great gorilla both thrilled and mesmerized me, enticing this small impressionable boy into a surreal nether world of “beauties and beasts.”
I can remember my excitement when it was finally announced that “Kong” would make his long awaited debut on local television over WCAU TV, the then CBS affiliate. My mom had punished me for something that I either did or didn’t do, refusing to allow me to watch the film on our living room television set. I ran out the door in a panic, longing for an opportunity to finally see the movie that had tormented and tantalized my fertile imagination for so many desolate childhood years. I was swept from household to neighborhood household, visiting with each childhood friend until their moms summoned them to the kitchen table for dinner. I saw only scraps and isolated fragments of the film during that troubled afternoon but what I saw thrilled my thoughts and dreams beyond imagining.
The following Saturday afternoon I went innocently to The Benner Theater near my house to once more attend my fabled ritual of the weekly Saturday matinee. As the trailers to coming attractions unspooled, I suddenly felt a bolt of electricity surge through my little body, for there upon the magical movie screen came the black and white imagery of giant native doors slowly opening while a giant presence pushed his way to freedom on Skull Island. It was fate giving me a second chance, another opportunity to see King Kong at last, in the way that it was meant to be seen, upon the seemingly huge motion picture screen. I waited breathlessly for the days to expire and then, magically, it was Saturday once more. The majestic three notes that began and accompanied Max Steiner’s triumphant musical score filled my ears, and I was transported to another world … a land of strange, forbidding islands, dangerous coral reefs, and a majestic gate jealously guarding and concealing the wonder and power of the mighty KONG.
I’ve probably seen King Kong over three hundred times. I’ve never tired of the exhilaration and wonder that I felt when I first fell in love with the greatest, most revered “monster” movie ever conceived. As I approach relative maturity, I reached out to Bantam Books who had recently published a paperback version of the original novelization of the picture by Delos W. Lovelace. The editors of the publishing company were kind enough to provide me with a post office box by which I might contact the original creator of the story and subsequent motion picture, Merian C. Cooper. Although I never had an opportunity to meet this legendary adventurer and film maker, we conducted an intense correspondence over the last eight years of his life from 1965 until 1973. During those years there was rarely a week that went by when my mailbox wasn’t deluged with letters and special packages sent to me from this giant of the film industry, lovingly addressed to his youthful admirer and fan. Through mail, he introduced me to beloved animation genius Ray Harryhausen whose friendship, both through correspondence, telephone calls, and personal gatherings, endured for nearly fifty years. It was also through Merian Cooper’s posthumous introduction that I found an eagerly anticipated opportunity to meet and develop a relationship with his star, Fay Wray, at her apartment dwelling in Century City, California in 1980.
Acclaimed cinema journalist, and primary historian for American Cinematographer Magazine, George Turner, was scheduled to appear as a guest speaker at the official Sixtieth Anniversary King Kong birthday celebration at the historic Gateway Theater in Chicago during the Winter of 1993.
Optical Effects pioneer Linwood Dunn was booked with him as a guest speaker for the event. At the last moment, Dunn was unexpectedly called away for another important assignment, leaving the festival without one of its two special guests. Scott Holton with Varese Sarabande Records suggested that the vacancy should be filled by a little-known writer who had known Merian C. Cooper through intense correspondence, and who had written a series of articles about the making of King Kong for the premiere issues of The Monster Times (January 1972), as well as the lead chapter for Avon Books’ The Girl In The Hairy Paw in 1976.
Consequently, I was flown into Chicago and booked at the Chicago Hilton Hotel (several days following the departure of Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, and the cast and production crew for The Fugitive) and, along with George Turner, appeared on stage before an audience of 500 fans to talk about the making and production of the beloved fantasy film classic. It was an experience that I shall forever remember as a spectacular highlight of my own life and career.
Willis O’Brien creating Kong’s climbKong atop the Empire State Building
In the years since 1968 when my own byline first appeared in a published magazine, I began my own writing career, sweetly encompassing over half a century of essays, articles, and commentaries in genre related books and magazines, concerning the immortal films and film makers whose works and creations continue to inspire my dreams. What follows is a visual remembrance of just a few of the memories, publications, individually inscribed photographs, and personal communications that have elevated my dreams and remembrances to gratifying reality.
The premiere issue of America’s one and only bi-weekly monster tabloid, The Monster Times, published by Larry Brill and Les Waldstein from their corporate offices in New York City in 1972. The spectacular first issue, edited by the late Chuck McNaughton, featured my earliest professional gig as a published writer, offering my original series of articles on the making and production of Merian C. Cooper’s classic 1933 “King Kong.”
My work was later re-written, and re-structured, becoming the lead chapter for Avon Books’ legendary tribute to Kong…The Girl In The Hairy Paw, compiled and edited by Ronald Gottesman and Harry M. Geduld four years later in 1976.
My series of essays on the making and production of the original 1933 production of the greatest “Monster” movie of all time appeared initially in the 1972 premier issue of The Monster Times. Editors Ronald Gottesman and Harry M. Geduld approached me about using my articles as the lead, or opening chapter, of their forthcoming book about the film, The Girl In The Hairy Paw.
Scheduled to be published by Prentice Hall the following year, a change in management at the prestigious book company cancelled production, causing a delay of several more years. Avon Books in New York finally agreed to publish what would have become the very first volume ever printed about the iconic gorilla.
The Girl In The Hairy Paw became a long awaited, and eagerly anticipated reality in the Spring of 1976 and did, indeed, feature my revised and revisited look at the production and reception of the classic King Kong as its opening chapter. Its wonderful cover art by Dave Willardson is reproduced here on the 90th anniversary of the film’s “official world premiere” in Los Angeles on March 23rd, 1933.
In subsequent years my involvement and participation in the enduring legend of “King Kong” has continued to evolve. In 1981 I was invited by popular Philadelphia television host Gene London to appear with him on stage before a live audience at the city’s prestigious cultural institution, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, speaking for one hour on the cultural and historical significance of the original 1933 “King Kong.”
On August 11th, 1990, Gary and Sue Svehla’s popular “Fanex” Convention played host to Ray Harryhausen’s first major personal appearance in Baltimore, Maryland, and I was asked to host the well remembered event. Ray and I sat down on stage together for a two and a half hour discussion, before some five hundred fans and admirers, during which I interviewed him not only about his own fabulous film career, but about his love for 1933’s “King Kong,” and how it had inspired and influenced his own substantial stop-motion animation motion picture legacy.
Together with stop-motion pioneering genius Ray Harryhausen at the “Fanex” Convention in Baltimore, during late Summer 1990, following our in-person, on stage interview.
I had an opportunity in the Fall of 2021 to sit down with Host, Actor, Comedian, and Writer Ron MacCloskey for his Emmy Award Winning Public Television Series, “Classic Movies with Ron MacCloskey.”
Ron is the writer and producer of the new feature length documentary motion picture, Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster, now playing in theaters all across the globe.
For this Halloween themed episode of the popular program, however, we explored the cultural significance, history, and legacy of the most famous “Monster” of them all … King Kong … and his ninety year influence on gorilla films of all shapes and sizes, as well as his career defining impact on the lives and reign of Stop Motion Animation legends, Willis H. O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen.
In 2022 I was invited by British producer/director Tom Grove to appear on camera for a thirty minute interview concerning my own lifelong involvement with Merian C. Cooper’s creation for the three part documentary motion picture, The Legend of King Kong, currently in release, featuring interviews with actor Jack O’Halloran, special effects pioneer Jack Polito, and myself among many others.
These personal involvements over a lifetime of adoration for the most enduring fantasy film in motion picture history, as well as the beloved collection of memories and mementos that follow, have enriched my life experience more than mere words can ever adequately define or express.
A rare, commissioned “King Kong” sculpture designed and built by the late Stop Motion animator, David Allen, sitting proudly in my “dining room.”
An impossibly precious, rare surviving “fin” from the back of the Stegosaurus model built for the original 1933 King Kong by Marcel Delgado that sits prominently in my home apartment.
A re-production of the original Grauman’s Theater premiere program, designed especially for the official opening of King Kong in Hollywood, with handwritten notes and observations by Merian C. Cooper, the co-director and creator of this motion picture fantasy masterpiece, and a variety of autographed stills signed by both General Cooper, and his exquisite heroine, the lovely Fay Wray.
The outer lobby of a movie theater in Australia, heralding the premiere of the now legendary RKO fantasy masterpiece.
Two photos of American Cinematographer Magazine featured journalist and special effects film scholar George Turner and I in the lobby of The Gateway Theater in Chicago, posing for publicity pictures, at the official sixtieth anniversary celebration and screening of King Kong.
The cover of Black Oracle magazine by artist Tim Johnson, published in the mid-Seventies, and highlighted by my review of the unfortunate remake of the early film, produced by Dino De Laurentis. Appropriately, echoing Robert Armstrong’s final line as Carl Denham in the 1933 motion picture … “Oh no … it wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast,” I titled my critique “Twas Dino Killed The Beast.”
An original 22 x 28 poster from the 1956 theatrical reissue of the original King Kong, hanging, proudly framed, upon my bedroom wall.
This special birthday cake, patterned from The Girl In The Hairy Paw cover art by Dave Willardson, was presented to me in Baltimore some years ago by friends Bruce and Ann Gearhart for my 70th birthday.
By Steve Vertlieb: Born February 20th, 1926, Richard Matheson was one of a small handful of science fiction/fantasy writers whose profound, subtle prose elevated the genre to sublime eloquence. He was one of my very favorite writers from childhood until the present. Along with Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont, Ray Russell and, more recently, James Herbert, these imaginative authors influenced my life more significantly than I will ever be able to adequately impart.
Among the most prolific, creative and celebrated writers of the original Twilight Zone television series, he was a poet who was blessed with the gift of imagination. I had the honor of meeting him once very briefly in Crystal City, Virginia, at Forry Ackerman’s 1993 Famous Monsters convention. We both shared a long friendship with Robert Bloch.
One of my proudest possessions is a photograph taken of the three of us at that wonderful convention. His sensitivity and grace dwelt in the ethereal, as evidenced by the haunting vocal soliloquy voiced by Robert Scott Carey during the unforgettable final moments of The Incredible Shrinking Man…
Steve Vertlieb, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch
“I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God’s silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. That existence begins and ends is man’s conception, not nature’s. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away, and in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And, then, I meant something too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist.”
In your vast majesty of creation, Mr. Matheson, you still exist. Your words shall continue to breathe life into this often drab, mortal plane of creative thought and energy for as long as meaning and beauty endure. To God, there is no zero. You shall ever continue to create…in our hearts, and in our thoughts. Rest well, for true existence has only just begun…Somewhere In Time
By Steve Vertlieb: This is one of my proudest, most cherished possessions. Having written and published a multitude of poetry for decades, it was suggested by a variety of friends, following the nightmarish and utterly monstrous attack on The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, that I compose a work of prose commemorating the lost lives and nobility of our countrymen and women whose lives were lost during that devastating assault on America.
I resisted the suggestion for days, feeling overwhelmed by the incomprehensible tragedy confronting our nation. How could I attempt a work of such shattering magnitude without sounding both impossibly pompous, and embarrassingly incompetent?
As the weight of individual responsibility consumed my thoughts and senses, over the days that followed the emotional and physical devastation of the heinous attack upon our people and culture, I began composing a work which I titled “For The Fallen.”
To my astonishment and surprise, my work seemed well received as a humbly poetic tribute to, and solemn remembrance of, those Americans whose lives had been so unforgivably slaughtered on that terrible day.
FOR THE FALLEN
From the ashes of catastrophe the smoldering spirit of freedom rose like a phoenix in the mist
The cruel sword of oppression flailing at the fabric of humanity wielding devastation and horror blinded by intolerance pierced the proud heart of a nation
Great birds of prey cowardly vultures screamed in the morning sky shattering the towers of civilization plummeting the earth into a swirling sea of depravity
The dark ages beckoned barbaric hordes ravaged the land yet the unspeakable atrocities could not dim the light of righteousness burning brightly through the ruin a glorious inferno ablaze with human dignity
Reason and goodness ascended from the darkness purifying the air cleansing winds proclaimed the rights of man and the enduring reign of God as civility and kindness shone once more upon the earth
Arrogance and cruelty fled, frightened retreating into the darkness that spawned them
Men and women embraced walking victoriously into the radiant light of truth pulling the crippled and wounded from the rubble lifting them upon their shoulders climbing proudly out of the shadows and into the sunlight
The flag waved nobly on the horizon and they smiled cradled by its warmth a sacred name upon their lips
Exultant, the word spoken reverently until the black heel of oppression had been eradicated and the virtuous reigned once more joyously triumphant in God’s protection their sweet nobility uplifting the tired and poor
Her name was sung a cherished prayer a shining beacon of hope and courage whispered softly across the earth…..America…..America
…………….STEVE VERTLIEB 9/20/2001
In the months and years that followed, I’d been asked on several occasions to read my work with orchestral accompaniment at a variety of churches in the area. Each performance became an emotionally draining experience, and I found myself drowning in the symbolism and profoundly disturbing significance of my own words. Consequently, these “performances” became entirely too painful to “enact.”
I wanted to continue sharing these written images and thoughts with others, however, and so I sent a copy of my poetry to former President of The United States, William Jefferson Clinton. Not long after I posted this heartfelt commemoration of our fallen neighbors, I received this profoundly moving letter from Mr. Clinton’s office. It remains, for me, a precious memento of a timeless, historic, and unspeakable tragedy.
