#Philip Wylie

[surfingkaliyuga]

“The End of the Dream” Ron Walotsky 1972 Cover illustration for a novel by Philip Wylie.

[misforgotten2]

A book you very likely don’t have on your shelf #444

1956

[sesiondemadrugada]

Murders in the Zoo (A. Edward Sutherland, 1933).

[mariocki]

Murders in the Zoo (1933)

"Mr. Yates, never be afraid of a wild animal. Let it alone and it will leave you alone. That's more than you can say of most humans."

"You don't mean to say you really like these beasts?"

"I love them. Their honesty, their simplicity, their primitive emotions: they love, they hate, they kill."

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/5/2022: THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932)

Rewatching this movie had me looking up the history of mules. I guess we've been making them since before 1,000 BC, out of usually a female horse and a male donkey. (This is apparently easier than the other way around for some reason that I'm too lazy to sort out) We like them because, as George Washington put it, "more docile than donkeys and cheap to maintain"—that is, it's easier for them to get and keep a job. You may have guessed already that I'm siphoning all this off of Wikipedia, so I'll add without further worry of sounding especially educated that Charles Darwin wrote: "The mule always appears to me a most surprising animal. That a hybrid should possess more reason, memory, obstinacy, social affection, powers of muscular endurance, and length of life, than either of its parents, seems to indicate that art has here outdone nature". The thing about the mule, though, as with many interspecies hybrids, is that you usually have to make them from scratch because of an imbalance of partnerable chromosomes. Not much has changed in this regard since the time of Darwin, but we still consider the mule to be worth the effort.

Why the hell was I talking about this? …Oh, it was because of the difference between H.G. Wells' 1896 novel The Isle of Doctor Moreau, and its most successful adaptation, Erle Kenton's ISLAND OF LOST SOULS. Despite the 1932 film being pre-code, it is inevitably less aggressive about torture than its literary predecessor, which was in part inspired by the contemporary anti-vivisection movement of the latter 1800s. There is only so much Kenton (a former animal exhibitor, whatever that's worth to you!) could show, or maybe that he was willing to describe, in terms of what happens in rogue vivisectionist Dr. Moreau's dreadful "House of Pain". The book is focused on Moreau's idea that being motivated by pain is a primitive characteristic, and that his homemade humans can be perfected through exposure therapy. He laments the inevitable return of the bestial characteristics in his test subjects, but believes that his necessarily agonizing creation process will ultimately bring the results he craves: "Each time I dip a living creature into the burning bath of pain, I say, this time I will burn out all the animal, this time I will make a rational creature of my own."

As a refresher, the exiled Moreau (played in the film by Charles Laughton, who of course is EVERYTHING in this movie) is trying to make a his own humans from the raw material of various living animals. Protagonist Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) is appalled by this discovery when misadventure delivers him to the titular island, but he is still slow to pick up on the fact that the alluring Lota (Kathleen Burke, who also joined co-writer Philip Wylie on MURDERS IN THE ZOO) may be a product of Moreau's process, despite the doctor's suspiciously aggressive attempts to hook them up. With his fiancee Ruth (Leila Hyams) still over the sea, Edward is happy to sample the wares until he discovers Lota's feline claws. It seems that he was able to preserve his naivete because of Moreau's promise that Lota is "pure Polynesian", which to him justifies the fact that she has little more intelligence than a house cat; I'm sure there is abundant scholarship on themes of racism and miscegenation in ISLAND, but since I'm not in the know, I'll just leave that there for someone else to pick up. What Moreau seems mostly concerned about is the fertility of his creations (specifically, whether they can produce new humans), and when it becomes clear that Edward isn't going to consummate with his catwoman, the doctor is disappointed—until Ruth arrives to rescue her man, attracting the attention of lonely Beast Men. For better or worse, we don't get to find out whether that would make for a fruitful union, because of the inevitable uprising of the creatures (led by Bela Lugosi) against their monstrous creator.

ISLAND OF LOST SOULS remains effectively disturbing after almost a century, but it's interesting to observe how it was censored. Themes of rape and forced parenthood were either a little too subtle to punish, or just not perceived as that big of a deal in the face of actual blasphemy. Sure, the vivisection element was problematic, but what really bothered censors was Moreau playing God. The British Board of Film Censors found the idea of humans controlling evolution "repulsive" and "unnatural", and in America the Production Code Administration insisted on the removal of any implication that Moreau had created the Beast Men himself. The film was also banned in multiple states just for its frank acceptance of the theory of evolution.

It's interesting how graphic sadism and sleaze can be upstaged so dramatically by ideological problems—although today we see a similar moral outrage on the part of audiences who demonstrate an increasing fervor for purely aspirational content. One hopes that people who condemn the ethical content of movies are paying equal attention to the new resurgence of book banning by authorities with whom young progressives would surely not wish to be identified. To my mind, it's perfectly natural to be offended by media, but the experience should be taken as more of an opportunity to explore your own feelings and context, than as grounds for wholesale rejection of the work in question.

Meanwhile, if you find yourself a little disappointed by the generically hairy dog- or ape-like appearance of the filmic Beast Men, versus their many and varied appearances in the novel, check this shit out!

[comicbookfanzevad]

IT CAME FROM AMAZON!!!

Paramount Presents: A George Pal Double Feature:

The War Of The Worlds And When Worlds Collide

[allurlsaregone-blog]

FANNY NICOLE BRODAR (Norwegian/ American b. 1971 Oslo, Norway)

Painter

Fanny Brodar: Pineapple tango

Photo: Juan David Cortes

Brodar is influenced by the playful works of Japanese art, as well as the works of artists like Rose Wylie and the simplistic yet expressive characters of artists like Philip Guston. She loves improvisational theatre, and the way she paints is similar; spontaneously from a thought rather than pre-sketching.

This allows the viewer to see hints of her process through exposed pencil marks, paint drips, and deliberate unpainted areas. Fanny starts her paintings by working flat on the floor, layering paint, and then drawing and doodling directly on the canvas turning it upright on stretcher bars or the wall. This also allows her to use her whole body when making the initial gestures.

She was born in 1971 in Oslo, Norway, grew up in New York, and currently lives and works in Maine.  (Text by Carver Hill Gallery)

[70sscifiart]

Podium II’s cover art detail for the 1973 edition of Philip Wylie's The End of the Dream (1972), via @SFRuminations

[mostsanescarletspiderfan]

The starman legacy is gigantic.

I always knew that the starman legacy was big but never really sat down to just count it you know? So today I did and holy shit it's fucking infinite, like it's not just a bunch of dudes going by starman and associates.

It's more like starman + phantom lady + star-spangled kid + girl of 1000 gimmicks/gimmic girl/gimmix?? + Manhuter + martian manhunter + brainwave + mist.

Here's the list of superheroes and btw this is by legacy and not family ties:

1) Ted knight - starman I

2) Sylvester Pemberton - star-spangled kid I, skyman I

3) Sandra Knight - phantom lady I

4) Dan Richards - manhunter I

5) Paul Kirk - manhuter II

6) Roh Kar - martian manhunter I

7) Arnold Munro - iron Munro I, gladiator one

8) Pat Dugan - Stripesy I , S.T.R.I.P.E I

9) Merry Pemberton - girl of 1000 gimmicks I

10) Doris Lee - starman II

11) The starman of 1951 - starman III

12) Mikaal Tomas - starman IV

13) Prince Gavyn - starman V

14) Henry King Jr - brainwave jr, brainwave II

15) Mark Shaw - manhuter III

16) Will Payton - starman VI

17) David knight - starman VII

18) Dee Tyler - phantom lady II

19) Jack Knight - starman VIII

20) Chase Lawer - manhunter VI

21) J'onn j'onzz - martian manhunter II

22) Courtney Whitemore - star-spangled kid II, star girl I, starwoman I (IX)

23) Stormy Knight - Phantom lady III

24) Jacqueline Pemberton - Gimmic girl, gimmix

25) Jennifer knight - phantom lady IV

26) Kirk DePaul - manhuter V

27) Kate Spencer - manhuter VI

28) M'gann M'orzz - miss martian, martian manhunter III

29) Jacob Colby - skyman II

30) Mike Dugan - Stripesy II, S.T.R.I.P.E II

31) Sophia Becker - Phantom lady V

32) Patricia Dugan - starwoman II (X)

33) Ramsey Robinson - manhuter VII

34) Kyle knight - mist III

35) Thom Kallor - Starboy - starman XI

36) Farris Knight - starman XII

12 starmans, 7 manhunters, 5 phantom ladies, 3 martian manhunters, 2 gimmic girls, 2 S.T.R.I.P.ES, 2 skymans, 2 star-spangled kids, 1 brainwave, 1 iron Munro and 1 mist.

I say only superheroes because a lot of these people have supervillain relatives, it's also interesting to note that this the oldest super powered lineage in DC because Ramsey Robinson is the great-great-grandson of Hugo Munro the protagonist of the 1930 novel called Gladiator (one of the inspirations for superman) by Philip Wylie.

[darchildre]

In which modern life has made me terribly spoiled:

When I was a kid, I would read about obscure horror titles and think, "Well, I'll almost certainly never be able to read that, but I'll keep the title in my head and maybe someday I'll find it in a used bookstore." And then I'd be really excited if I did.

Today, after that last post, I thought, "Maybe I should actually read Philip Wylie's The Murderer Invisible," so I went to look for it. And I am now so accustomed to being able to get whatever weird obscure horror title I want from one of my libraries, or at least as a free/very cheap ebook that I was actually shocked and dismayed to find that this one wanted me to pay full price for it.

And now I have to decide if I want to pay ten whole dollars for a book I almost certainly only want to read once.

[thewarmestplacetohide]

Dread by the Decade: Island of Lost Souls

👻 You can support me on Ko-fi ❤️

★★★★

Plot: A sailor finds himself on an island where a mad doctor is blurring the lines between man and beast.

Review: Provocative and strange, Island of Lost Souls raises ethical questions, before providing its own deeply unsettling answers.

Source Material: The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells Year: 1932 Genre: Sci-Fi Horror, Creature Feature Country: United States Language: English Runtime: 1 hour 10 minutes

Director: Erle C. Kenton Writers: Waldemar Young, Philip Wylie Cinematographer: Karl Struss Cast: Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Arthur Hohl, Kathleen Burke, Leila Hyams, Stanley Fields

------

Story: 4/5 - An intriguing exploration of unethical science hampered some by the reductive portrayal of the islands' occupants.

Performances: 4/5 - Laughton is a delightful mix of campy and sinister, balanced well by Hohl's somberness. The rest of the cast is sympathetic, with Fields' arc being my favorite.

Cinematography: 4.5/5 - Gorgeous use of shadows.

Editing: 4/5

Effects: 4/5 - Well employed fog and fire.

Sets: 5/5 - Good mix of real locations and sets that reflects Moreau's melding of nature and science.

Costumes, Hair, & Make-Up: 5/5 - The creature makeup for this film is very innovative. The hoofed man was especially great.

Trigger Warnings:

Moderate violence (mostly off-screen)

Misogyny (uncritical)

Disturbing themes of animal and human experimentation

Body horror

Torture and medical abuse (largely off-screen)

A character wants a woman to be raped

[gameraboy2]

Witchcraft Is Hurting You by Philip Wylie Redbook, August 1956 Illustration by Fred Siebel

[misforgotten2]

The novel that supposedly inspired the creation of Superman.

A book you very likely don’t have on your shelf #363

1949

[pandoramsbox]

Sci-Fi Saturday: Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe

Week 19:

Film(s): Buck Rogers (Dir. Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkin, 1939, USA); Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (Dir. Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor, 1940, USA)

Viewing Format: DVD and Streaming

Date Watched: 2021-10-08, 2021-10-22, and 2021-10-29

Rationale for Inclusion:

So far we have covered adaptations of some of the foundational literary works of science fiction, but this week we move onto two influential franchises that originated in the funny papers: Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.

To some degree, I know that I am doing both characters a disservice by lumping the two together, as the general public tends to view them interchangeably, but the motion picture serials featuring the characters were both produced by Universal Studios and shared actors, behind the camera talent, and props. In fact, Buster Crabbe stars as the title character in both Buck Rogers (Dir. Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkin, 1939, USA) and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (Dir. Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor, 1940, USA).

The Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D. comic strip was first published in 1929. Modern day former aviator Buck Rogers ends up getting trapped in a cave while carrying out a surveying job, where a strange gas renders him unconscious and keeps him in suspended animation until he awakens 500 years later in 2429. In the future that Buck awakens in, the Mongol Reds have conquered the United States forcing Americans into rebel organizations to fight back to retake their country. Buck is supported in this strange new world by love interest Wilma Deering, plucky boy sidekick Buddy Deering, and scientist Dr. Huer. Together they fight forces led by Killer Kane and his lady Ardala.

Flash Gordon was created in 1934 in response to the popularity and commercial success of the Buck Rogers strip, and with an initial plot lifted from the 1933 Edwin Balmer & Philip Wylie novel When Worlds Collide, which itself would be adapted into a motion picture in 1951. During the present day, polo player and Yale graduate Flash Gordon, his love interest Dale Arden and scientist friend Dr. Hans Zarkov use Zarkov's newly invented rocketship to prevent planet Mongo from colliding with the earth. In the process, they run afoul of Mongo's malevolent ruler Ming the Merciless. Their adventures later include various kingdoms on planet Mongo and later planets.

Despite being created second, Flash Gordon was adapted into a motion picture serial first in 1936. Motion picture serials, or chapter plays, had existed since the silent era and made the transition to sound. The two-reelers, 15-20 minute episodes, were screened along with newsreels, cartoons and stand-alone shorts as part of a motion picture theatrical presentation culminating in the screening of a feature film. Audiences had to return to the theater each week for the next installment, with serials lasting 12 to 15 chapters. The format ceased to be by the mid-1950s due to television becoming the preferred mode of distribution of episodic moving image entertainment. The serials did, however, become known to new audiences when they too ended up broadcast on television in subsequent years.

Since Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon were both action oriented, episodic comic strip narratives, they were perfect candidates for serial adaptation. In addition to Flash Gordon (Dir. Frederick Stephani, 1936, USA), Flash and friends appeared in the serial Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (Dir. Ford Beebe, Robert F. Hill, and Frederick Stephani, 1938, USA) before the serial we watched for this survey, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. The reason for the selection of this Flash Gordon serial was ease of access as well as having the comparison of an already established hero in a serial versus one that required an origin story, as was the case with Buck Rogers.

It was always a given that one or both serials would have been featured on this survey, as these space operas have influenced, and been parodied and homaged by, subsequent sci-fi films and television shows from their creation to the present day.

Reactions:

My partner either did not know or had forgotten that the vertical title, chapter and prologue scroll frequently associated with Star Wars (Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope, Dir. George Lucas, 1977, USA) had originated with these sci-fi serials. His reaction of "that's where that comes from!" was fantastic to witness.

I, meanwhile, was amused to note that amongst the production elements that both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe share are excerpts from Franz Waxman's score for Bride of Frankenstein (Dir. James Whale, 1935, USA). Perhaps Universal Studios took a comment made by the reviewer for the Winnipeg Free Press to heart when they noted that the laboratory equipment in Bride of Frankenstein would have been more appropriate in Buck Rogers? More than likely the score was used for the same reason preexisting sets, props and stock footage were used in both of the Universal Studios produced serials: to save money.

In fact, props and costumes used in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars were used in Buck Rogers, and then the "chamber of death dust experiments" from Buck Rogers was used in Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe.

The saminess between the serials resulted in us only watching half of each one. Not even the daring cliffhangers could bring us back after a certain point. Buster Crabbe plays Buck and Flash as essentially the same character despite the differences in their back stories and skill sets. The recaps at the top of each episode also made the serials hard to watch in rapid succession. Since the serials were created based on the understanding that people would wait a week between episodes, and may not have seen the proceeding episode or episodes, content overlaps quite a bit between installments. In their original edits, serials were not meant to be watched in one sitting.

Another grating aspect for modern audiences is the Yellow Peril influence on the way the villains are named and portrayed in the serials, especially in Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. Befitting of a sci-fi narrative that heavily borrowed from preexisting content, Flash Gordon's arch enemy Ming the Merciless (Charles Middleton) is based on the supervillain Dr. Fu Manchu. Like his inspiration, in the moving image adaptation Ming is portrayed by a white actor in yellowface. This insensitive tradition would continue in future adaptations well into the 1980s. 

Those criticisms aside, after having seen Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon parodied in everything from a Daffy Duck cartoon to Star Trek: Voyager, we expected the serial episodes to be a lot more cheesy and kitschy than they were in and of themselves, and in the context of the survey. The plots, settings and costumes are certainly ripe for the exaggeration that followed, but the originals aren't as over the top as the popular imagination would have you expect.

Buck and Flash will return to the survey in their own feature films in 1979 and 1980 respectively, thanks to the success of Star Wars making retro, space opera cool again in 1977.

[garadinervi]

Roberto Bolaño, April 28, 1953 / 2023

(image: Postcard from Bolaño to Enrique Lihn, 1983. © Robert Bolaño / The Wylie Agency, London, and the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA) 

Readings: Philip K. Dick, Dickens, Cervantes, Delicado Weather condition: Beautiful fog, stoles of cold

Sex: Soft toboggan Food: Pasta veronese, Mexican pizza Adventures: I am Lemmy Caution Writing: I am Horselover Fat Music: Jon Hassel Science Fiction: ¡The Wub!

Paintings: George Henry Durrie Heroines: Women on bridges

Vesture: Torn pants and three sweaters

Vision: Sunglasses at 5 in the morning Animals: Everywhere their muzzles tepid or cold like knives Fantasies: To kiss Sidney Carton in the gallows

Fantasies: To live in a movie theater Fantasies: To see Dumbo like a ray in the sky of Gerona

– Translation by Annette Leddy, in One Classic, One Modern: The Brief Correspondence of Roberto Bolaño and Enrique Lihn, «East of Borneo», April 18, 2011

[nature-played-a-trick-on-me]

Watching outlander and I choked when I saw Philip wylie oh my god I'm in tears this episode will be fun