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Post by pulphack on Oct 21, 2020 10:15:23 GMT
Proper chip off the old block... With an axe presumably...
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Post by pulphack on Sept 1, 2020 15:49:23 GMT
(rofl)How perfectly put, Dr S. I've bored on about it before - and oh look I'm doing it again - but anyone who thinks they are living in an era when we have reached the peak of human understanding so that we can look down on the past and doesn't realise that their own views may look equally as 'wrong' in fifty years time is a bloody fool. Equally, in an unforgiving mood, I do wonder if anyone who doesn't have the ability to take any views or language used in old books or films in context is actually smart enough to be reading or watching.
Having said that, I do think the caveat is worth using. My reasoning being that by so doing, you are cutting off the prime complaint of idiots that they weren't expecting such material. It also saves endless explaining about why you might be issuing it, which if I was a publisher I would want to avoid like the plague when I could be doing something far more productive with my time.
Discovering stuff that you disagree with, and honing your arguments why, is part of the kind of analytical thought that seems to be disappearing fast in an age where if you can't write it on a placard or put it in a tweet then it's just too difficult to consider.
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Post by pulphack on Aug 25, 2020 10:07:13 GMT
I was more of a Sexton Blake man, James. I liked Jack Trevor Story, and in 1991 I found a pile of Sexton Blake Mayflower paperbacks at 50p each. One of which was a Jack Trevor Story. I vaguely remembered Blake on TV, so bought the Story and one other. Then returned and bought the lot. And then started to hunt down the fifth series and go further back. I held the LOBBC Sexton Blake library for ten years, which had Union Jacks, SBL's, Thrillers, and assorted other old story papers and books with Blake in them. I dabble in Magnet and Gem - my mum grew up on her older brother's Magnets, and I remember getting an early Howard Baker reprint volume from the school library and learning about Greyfriars via those and the Armada paperbacks around when I was a kid. I can't read too much of it before needing a long break, but in small doses and the right mood I still like them. Always preferred St Jims to Greyfriars, though. I came to the LOBBC because I sent Nikki Sudden some tapes and used some photocopies of SBL covers I had left from 'an art project' to pad the envelope. Nikki didn't know I liked Blake, and sent me the phone number for the then chairman of the LOBBC - the next meeting was only down the road, and there you go...
But enough aimless reminisences - Andy, the thing about the schoolboys is that there is a long tradition of school stories in the UK, set in boarding schools mostly (perfect really - no adults except at a distance to get in the way of the kids adventures). Charles Hamilton aka Frank Richards, Martin Clifford et al, spent thirty years writing most of the Magnet and Gem for Amalgamated, in which the boys of two schools were the heroes. There were lavish lines drawings, and these lads on the cover are the more cartoonish later representations of Billy Bunter and the chaps from the Remove at Greyfriars. The LOBBC covered most boys fiction, but centred on Blake and the schools (including St Franks, with schoolmaster detective Nelson Lee!)as well as their distaff side at Moorcove and Cliff House (who had their own papers).
But yes, it does look a little odd out of context!
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Post by pulphack on Aug 25, 2020 5:31:05 GMT
Collectors Digest finally folded about ten years back. It was edited for the last few years by Mary Cadogan, and in the end there sinmply weren't enough subscribers to cover all the costs. It was closely allied to the London Old Boys Book Club, and frankly that wasn't too chipper either. I'd joined in 1998, and by the time I left around 2010 most of the people who were really active had either passed away or had left because of some of the new members, who were rather 'difficult'. That was also my reason. When I joined a lot of the membership was comprised of people who had been in it for decades, and it was really welcoming. By the time I left the numbers had dwindled because of age, and the newcomers were of that cliquey and geeky type that just changed the family feel of the club. I actually discovered the LOBBC through Nikki Sudden, who was also a member (as had been George Sewell, Mike Moorcock and David Baddiel when he was a kid).
To answer James' question - Guy Smith did collect those old papers, as well as trade in them. That was how he met Laurence James, well before he tried his hand at a horror paperback. LJ was a collector of DC Thompson papers and comics and he used to buy off Guy. Apparently, when he discovered that Guy harboured writing ambitions and had already had some pieces published (he wrote some Dixon Hawke stories for DCT, which is how the subject arose), he encouraged him to look at what NEL were doing and come up with something. The rest, as they say...
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Post by pulphack on Aug 20, 2020 5:36:46 GMT
That'll be Clive Revill, Steve - a cracking actor who apparently is still going at 90, and even up to few years ago was doing voiceover work for cartoons (I googled). He was in Fathom, Bunny Lake Is Missing and Modesty Blaise in the 60's, but my favourite is Nobody Runs Forever which is a Rod Taylor movie where he's an Aussie copper sent to recover the High Comissioner in London (Christopher Plummer), wanted for the murder of his first wife. Great climax at Wimbledon, and although Clive is, as ever, a supporting actor, he more than makes his mark.
And he's actually from New Zealand, which I didn't know and which surprised me as (like most people apparently) I'd always thought of him as a completely British actor!
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Post by pulphack on Aug 20, 2020 5:23:11 GMT
Ah, whoever Fiona's ghost was - Ken someone, I think, I did find that out at one time - he was pretty good at the Carry On soft porn comedy. Is that the one where the space ship lands near Loch McCock, or something similar? I bought mine at Milan's old shop, to the shock and awe of Dem as I recall...
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Post by pulphack on Aug 12, 2020 9:11:39 GMT
Morning Dem. Of course I was referring to the royal/satanic/parliamentary crap as being all balls. My God, it even made me feel sorry for Harvey Procter, and that took some doing!
As far as abuse allegations generally, they should always be taken seriously and investigated until proven or otherwise.
However, whereas the default in the past was that all accusers were liars, it has swung the other way* so that the accused are automatically made guilty before any investigation, which is equally absurd. The sane approach is to the accusation seriously, investigate, but for the investigating team not to make allegations; but rather gather fact, evidence and information before charging, or not. Which didn't happen in the case of Carl Beech, as we know... Coppers in pursuit of promotion ran to the press, or so it seemed (and did well from it).
(* this is a generalisation, I know, as there are still pockets of the old attitudes extant, but no real balance or reason. Human beings, eh?)
Now then, now than, as for JS - yes, there are so many unexplained things about the kinds of access and protection he had. Money and friends account for part of it, but I wonder if there were just a few people who he roped into his excesses (understatement)who were then blackmailed into influencing otherwise unaware parties. It wouldn't take more than a few people for the malign influence to spread without those further down the chain having no idea what they were actually condoning. Just a supposition, but that could account for the general 'untouchable' aura without all of those acting that way being completely culpable (rather than purely by default).
JS was - I hope - an anomaly of evil (now there's a title!)rather than the norm.
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Post by pulphack on Aug 11, 2020 19:30:26 GMT
Ah Steve, don't confuse the Satanic child abuse crap with Saville (easy to do when it's another country). I kn ew someone who had a breakdown on the early 90's and was convinced they had been abused and wondered why they hadn't remembered... until they started digging aftre a little prompting from a Fortean Times article. There was a lot of crap said by therapists who were making a lot of money from it...
As for Saville - my first wife was in Stoke Mandeville hospital in the 70's as a kid when Saville was always on TV there doing his 'good works'. The patients would mostly run a mile from him, nd the rumours about necrophilia started there as he did have access to the morgue via a porter who seemed to have similar interests. Before meeting her, I was at a party in the early 80's where I met a cameraman at the BBC who said they had a little saying - 'if it's under five, Jim'll fuck it'. As in Jim'll Fix It, his hit TV show. There were always stories, and people ask why no-one said anything. Well, because the victims weren't listened to, those who knew something was going on did not have concrete proof (these days he'd be outed by smart phone in an instant) and he also had powerful friends. He once said he spent Xmas at No10 wiht the Thatchers and was laughed at - when the cabinet papers were released thrity years later, turns out he was telling the truth. He made a lot of money for good causes, and this gave him power and access. He was a sly one.
Most abuse stuff - like the Carl Beech stuff - is delusional crap. But Saville was unfortunately the real deal.
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Post by pulphack on Apr 3, 2020 11:52:06 GMT
Oh it's not trouble - I may have been a bit sharp, which was unnecessary, but I do hate when it turns out that the story you've been thinking true and repeating in good faith turns out to be a bit of a crock. Those Wallace fans who used to give him full credit and dismiss anyone else were equally as irritating in this respect.
Ultimately, Cooper was an old fashioned Huckster, not unlike the movie maker in the film...
I will argue your point about novelisers getting first credit, though - my reasoning is this: a noveliser doesn't really do the legwork as such; the scenario and structure, and much of the dialogue, is given to them by the script they are working from. As a writer it gives them a chance to get something on the CV, get paid, and have fun doing it. A good noveliser can make a shite script good. However, ultimately it is the property that most people are buying when they pick up the book. Very few of us will look for the writer (guilty, come on down John Burke!). In truth, in the case of Kong the credit order should really have had Cooper first, then Lovelace, then the scriptwriters, for as much as I think he's a shyster, Cooper was the man who owned and originated the project, and without him there is no film and no book. In the same way, with all those paperback franchises from the earliest days of Nick Carter and Sexton Blake onwards, there may have been fan favourite writers, but for most readers it was the character they looked for on the bookstalls.
I see why you think Lovelace deserves first billing, and on artistic merit I can agree with the reasoning, but he was ultimately a guy who took his job seriously in wanting to do it well who got handed a decent assignment.
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Post by pulphack on Apr 2, 2020 19:27:12 GMT
Christ I wish you'd stop Edgar Wallace bashing about Kong. I know you have a book that trashes him, and goes entirely with Merian Cooper's version of events, but it's not the whole truth and I do get fed up with you pushing that line.
Wallace wrote a first script that was rejected in need of wholesale rewriting as Cooper's ideas were off in another direction. In the Cooper version, this is where Wallace exits the story.
Not quite. Wallace died in Hollywood working on another version of the script. This included much that was used in the final version. Cooper denied this as it gave him a reason not to settle up on the lucrative contract he had with Wallace.
The final version of the script used a lot of the structure and ideas that went into the final shooting script. You can dismiss me on this, but Wallace had a copy of the script in his effects, and decades later his daughter Penny sold it at auction. This is documented. More, I can vouch for this as I knew Penny Wallace in the late 80's/early 90's.
So the truth is that Wallace was more than a 'gall bladder' (charming). He did contribute a script that constituted a large part of the film as we know it, though he did not produce the final draft and shooting script. However, Cooper was not honest with Wallace's family or with his own subsequent biographers.
You can call me a liar if you like, but I know Penny Wallace was not lying.
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Post by pulphack on Apr 2, 2020 19:15:42 GMT
Blimey - Polly 'Guardian and Radio Times' Toynbee?? I went through a period in the early nineties of picking up middlebrow modern fiction of this era in Panther paperback, and never saw this. I bet its dystopian and socialist and a bloody good read. Disagree with her a lot, but she can write. Can't wait to hear more!
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Post by pulphack on Mar 7, 2020 10:20:33 GMT
I've just read The Exterminator and Storm Over Rockall again for the first time in years. I have no idea why, but just felt seized by the desire to revisit. Both are prime Baker - good meat and potatoes thriller writing, spare and driving. I preferred ...Rockall as there is some good sixties London feel to it, and one of Baker's patented 'look at this dodgy hipster nightclub' scenes, albeit not one recycled from another book (as far as I know!), and Exterminator has a bit too much Scilian travelogue for my taste, and with the 'surprise' denouement comes on like an episode of US TV spy show rather than the quintessentially British John Drake. I can imagine McGoohan in ...Rockall a lot more easily (and I like the Eskimo factotum-cum-sparring-partner). Solid unpretentious enjoyment that is missing from thrillers these days*, that have to be hyped up by the writer at publisher demand (or is that just me being cynical) - but then I guess sales dictate how that goes. If you have them (I'm looking at you, Ripper!) and haven't revisited, I'd recommend.
(*that's probably why I tend to read new writing that isn't genre shelved, perhaps)
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Post by pulphack on Jan 19, 2020 18:39:35 GMT
I know what you mean, Andy, but I have to say that love Dracula AD 1972 as its a wonderful example of middle-aged men trying to get their heads around the changes in popular culture as counter-culture stuff enters the mainstream. Pete'n'Chris wander amongst the hippes looking vaguely bemused (Pete) or stiff-upper-lip outraged (Chris - a Dracula bemused by the kind of outre sexuality he - CDracula - was a metaphor for (!!) a century earlier). And it has Stoneground, who were bloody awful and as Yanks must have wondered how their agent got them the gig. This and Satanic Rites Of Dracula are probably the worst Hammer Draculas in many ways, but they have their charms - Satanic Rites is more Persuaders/Department S than Hammer, which is why I like it and why it also doesn't really work.
The UK, which had started the Euro horror boom in many ways, did not adjust like the Italians or Spanish to a more (superficially) permissive society.
This echoes something I said about the charm of Biull Baker's Press Ed set-up somewhere else on here years ago, and which I was reminded of by the books I recently re-read and posted on. I find the defraction of swinging counter-culture by the mores of the men who attempted to cash in on it absolutely fascinating.
See, I still don't have a life nearly 15 years later!
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Post by pulphack on Jan 19, 2020 18:28:09 GMT
11 years later... Having spent time this week sitting around hospitals for other people I've re-read this and also Baker's Scandal Street, which was never mentioned here. The Cellar Boys is very fast and superficial, and Sexton Blake becomes Ricki Costain, ex-PI and jazz musician. It's a lovely little read. Scandal Street is an oddity which I think is mentioned somewhere else in another thread as it was an SBL Fourth series title that was substituted at the last moment and never appeared as a Blake. Allegedly pulled for the excessive violence, I find this hard to believe as it has little more than other comparable SBL titles in this period (Cellar Boys/Espresso Jungle for instance has a nasty acid attack on a teenage girl which is far worse than anything here). I have always wondered if the fact that it features an unpleasant portrait of a press baron which was perhaps too close to home for the Associated top brass was the reason. No matter. Scandal Street is a little gen, narrated in the first person by Splash Kirby who is directed by the aforesaid Baron to investigate an incarcerated criminal and link his discredited alibi to an illict affair with the fourth wife the Baron is looking to divorce. What transpires is a romp involving the Baron's daughter, a robbery, and a metal alloy that several foreign powers and Special Branch are looking for...
It has great colour, and is a snapshot of Fleet Street, the newspaper life, and parties in a London on the cusp of swinging. I've read it a couple of times, over twenty years back (as with The Cellar Boys), and reading them back to back I noticed one wonderfully economical piece of writing: there are two pages at the start of one chapter in each that describes a London club that the main villain in Cellar Boys or Kirby in Scandal Steet are about to enter detailing how the club was started and evolved. These two pages are exactly the same, except that one sentence in changed at the end of the second page to explain why the pages are seen from the eyes of a 'Big Man' (villain of the former, someone Kirby spies in the latter).
Word for word. Splendid. Hurrah for Bill Baker, master of recycling!
Both books are none the worse for it; in fact, it adds a little to the charm!
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Post by pulphack on Jan 19, 2020 18:13:46 GMT
Reading this for the first time in (ulp) 30 years... Yes, the Bester influenced experiments are also very reminiscent of what he was doing at the same time in A Cure For Cancer, and a lot of the content reminds me of JG Ballard (he even mentions Shepperton). I like it, and found I hadn't remembered an awful lot of it. What strikes me most is that Moorcock at this time was writing so much that was in a pulp vein that when he tried to write seriously there was a superficial edge that didn't suit the intent here, whereas this paradoxically served the deeper intent of the Cornelius books very well (presumably because JC is a reflection of a shallow and disintegrating age at this point, whereas the Dickensian hues of The Condition Of Muzak reflect a greater depth in both prose style and intent). He achieved a greater depth and meaning to his 'serious' work such as Mother London, the Pyatt books, King Of the City and The Gathering Swarm simply by having more words - keeping the narrative to a short pulp length seems to suit his superficial style, but he actually needs a greater length to get into his subjects and unravel more of the story. I suspect that for a pulp writer of note in that period, he was actually suited to being more long-winded when he had something he needed to say. The narrative is actually too lean for his intent.
Having said that, I've enjoyed it immensely.
And the narrative voice in my head is Bob Calvert...
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