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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 17, 2008 20:39:03 GMT
OK by popular demand (you know who you are & let's face it so does everyone else) here's the JLP guide to Harry E Turner's 'Banquet of scalp-raising horror and rollicking black comedy' The contents: Introduction by Herbert van Thal Hell's Bells The Twins Shwartz Fingers The Stripper The Tunisian Talking Ferret The Egg Skin Deep The Sultan The Hypnotist The Man who Could Hear Fishes Scream Belvedere's Bride It's Hungry Black Comedy According to the bio Harry E Turner 'enjoys skiing, riding, and Havana cigars. A native Londoner, he regularly visits Paris & New York on business and once, during a particularly bad period in his life, he spent the night in Oldham'. There are lot of familiar stories here to Pan enthusiasts, and goodness me here we have the first appearance of 'The Egg' : (remember that from his Venetian Chair collection, Harry fans? ) For those who have yet to sample its delights (you lucky things you), or have just plain forgotten it (utterly impossible unless your excuse is that you're dead) this is the one about the grossly oversexed Dr Cyril Snockers trying to find the missing link between man and chicken. The man whose 'collection of bottled foetuses is the envy of Croydon' still manages to find time in between his insane experiments to endure regular bouts of 'medicinal flogging' and 'gymnastic lechery' courtesy of the extraordinarily supple Gloria. Attempts to convince Sir Godfrey Lunge, the deputy curator of the Natural History museum and 'a balloon of a man' who gets his surgical corset adjusted by a 'sensuous trollop from the typing pool' are unsuccessful and it all ends with our intrepid hero in Sir Godfrey's Rolls Royce taking a trip described as 'uneventful save for us clipping a nun as she stepped recklessly onto a zebra crossing'. Utter class. For those unfamiliar with his Pan contributions: Hell's Bells: Septimus Throgmorton-Duff, who with a name like that has fallen out of an early (circa The Unbidden) R Chetwynd-Hayes story dies and ends up in his own personal hell, which seems to consist of nothing to read but 'Readers Digest', nothing to listen to but The Sound of Music or 'the wit of Tony Blackburn'. May well have been original in its day (in fact as a big RCH fan I loved this when I first read it in Pan 11) but now more of a curiosity piece. The Twins: From Pan 13. Harry's circus freak tale has twins Hans and Carl van Droog, a gorgeous gypsy girl with whom they become enamoured, the lover who fathers the child they think is theirs (yes theirs) and the old squishy Halloween party trick played for real. This one still works. Shwartz: A comedy cracker from Pan 14. Not at all horrific but terrifically good fun as the 'most sophisticated computer in the history of the world' goes nuts on account of being lonely, then being in love. But why are knitting machines being instructed to make thousands of tiny bootees? Military operations are led by 2nd Lieutenant Nigel Loosely-Bravington, whose interests are 'riding and camembert cheese'. Lovely. |
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Post by dem on Sept 17, 2008 22:02:08 GMT
Brilliant stuff, John. Thanks ever so for posting this. The Egg sounds as must-have as Eat Them Alive.
The more I read of Harry E., the more i'm convinced that he was a big fan of the more ludicrous Not At Night/ early Weird Tales stories and set about rewriting his own, contemporary versions with a huge emphasis on the black comedy aspect of it all. If they're parodies, they're clearly very affectionate ones. I read Fingers from Pan 15 yesterday and Lonsdale Prince's dramatic pronouncement - "What I am about to tell you is considerably unpleasant. Indeed, I would go so far as to say it is a tale of exceptional hideousness" - could have slithered straight off the lips of Oscar Cook's wonderful Warwick. I'd love to read your take on The Tunisian Talking Ferret!
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Post by allthingshorror on Sept 18, 2008 6:56:49 GMT
I'm getting a real soft spot for Harry E Turner - and I'm finding the lack of that book to buy anywhere very frustrating indeed. Grrrr. A picture of Van Thal was easier to find than this.....  Lovely looking book though John - any chance of typing up the Van Thal introduction? |
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Post by dem on Sept 30, 2008 5:28:32 GMT
"What I am about to tell you is considerably unpleasant. Indeed, I would go so far as to say it is a tale of exceptional hideousness."
The Man Who Could Hear The Fishes Scream: "Village idiot, thought Stewart, quickly. Local screwball in dirty mac, every village has one." Stewart MacAlpine is indulging his passion for angling when he's approached by the aforementioned "looney". To his surprise, said stranger speaks in the most cultured tones hinting at a public school education, though the guy is clearly not the full ticket. For a start, he claims to own a pet trout named Kenneth, "sixty pounds and still growing", which Stewart can see for himself if he'll only follow him to his home in the woods. Against his better judgement, Stewart takes him up on his offer. Turns out the fellow really does own a most remarkable indoor maritime museum, and if Stewart will only climb the ladder and peek down into that huge tank he'll meet Kenneth and friend ....
The Twins: The van Droog brothers, Carl and Hans, two hideous, hunchbacked dwarfs who nevertheless find fame and fortune with their travelling fair. They're also a pair of vicious murderers. They take a shine to a gypsy girl who dances for a rival, downmarket concern but her negro owner won't let her go and calls them names. A knife in the throat does for him and the girl is soon sharing top billing with the ugly pair who dote and lavish huge luxuries upon her. Finally, she allows them both a bunk up. A child is born and they proudly share daddy duties. But ...
"Those two repulsive swine. How I despise them"
"My pretty one" he said, "how long before we take flight and leave these gargoyles for ever? I can't bear the thought of them drooling over you!"
So! She's been leading them on! And as they listen unobserved, the revelations get worse!
Well, they've just added a 'House of Horrors' to the fair and now's as good a time as any to add a new exhibit ...
The Tunisian Talking Ferret:Set in a grim bazaar in the Casbah, this has everything that is good about a pulp horror story - an evil dwarf-cum-mad surgeon, scientifically dubious brain transplants (Roger is so right about this being "Bassett Morgan territory") and several murders. The real horror is in Turner's graphic depiction of the squalor and abject hopelessness of the beggars locked into the ungovernable few miles of fetid, sweltering slum. "Nearby a donkey hee-hawed and emptied its bowels into the street"
Fingers: Lonsdale Prince, another of Turner's beloved globetrotting adventurers and raconteurs, invites journalist Joan Hope to his lavish Yorkshire mansion, Caspar Hall, on the promise of giving her a major scoop. His tale concerns the cycloptic Oguka, powerful witchdoctor of the Namba tribe of Malekula in the New Hebrides, who performed a miracle for his people when all the women were made infertile by a plague: nonchalantly cutting off his finger, he pointed the severed digit at the womenfolk who fell instantly pregnant. Charles Taylor, scoundrel, blackguard, journalist scumbag, steals the mummified relic, convinced that this will cure his wife's inability to bear children, but cuts loose and runs off with a gold-digging younger model (and his wife's substantial fortune) when she gives birth to a monster child and is committed to a mental asylum through the shock of the experience. To learn the final chapter of Lonsdale's macabre story, and where he fits in, Turner requests Ms. Hope accompany him downstairs where all will be made clear ...
The Hypnotist: The under-rated Turner continues his tradition of reworking unpretentious twenties and thirties horror plots as ace reporter Stew McAlpine travels to Montreaux to interview master mesmerist Count Vladimir Von Beck. "All poppycock" reckons McAlpine until he meets with the happy clappy zombies on whom the Count conducts his experiments and, finally, experiences the man's uncanny abilities for himself. Plenty of gory surgical moments and much nastiness down in the cellar.
Hell's Bells: As FM and John have both mentioned, this one is festooned with pop culture references. British Rail, Tesco's, W. H. Smiths, Readers Digest, a camp Devil who says "Ducky" etc. Quite sobering to learn that as early as 1970 Tony Blackburn was already a standing joke. Personally, I always had Hell down as attending a Christopher Lee signing in a Dracula AD 1972 shirt while a Chas N' Dave album loops for all eternity ....
It's Hungry: Ever since he returned from Borneo, Salaman has eaten compulsively - but he never puts on any weight. Between them, Doctors Turner and Fabrizzi solve the riddle of his condition. Can they save him?
Love Bites: Captain 'Mad Jack' McAlpine, playboy and fully paid up member of the Travellers Club, leaves his country estate Hestercombe Towers for the Amazon jungle on a mission to locate a lost tribe of superwomen, although he doesn't believe for one moment that any such community exists. Mad Jack only volunteered for the job to evade the clutches of Lady Fiona Selston-Bunter, but after being taken prisoner by the sex-crazed native beauties, he suddenly comes to view his intended in a far more favourable light. Can he escape back to Surrey or will he be staked out and ravished to death by the girls?
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 30, 2008 12:15:49 GMT
Well done Dem! I'm not getting to the board anywhere near as much as I'd like. Have you managed to find a copy then?
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Post by dem on Sept 30, 2008 20:06:53 GMT
Hi John. Unfortunately not. I've just gathered the Pan stuff and whatever else I could find. He's incredibly under-rated, isn't he? Reminds me in that respect of the tribe Mary Danby got together for her Frighteners books although his style is very much his own.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 1, 2008 13:18:57 GMT
I certainly think he's under-rated, and my apologies for not bloody getting on with my comments on this volume. Here are a few more:
The Tunisian Talking Ferret: My God this is excellent. Reads like a lot of those 'dastardly dealings in North Africa' stories of the time for most of its length, right up to the last page when suddenly it goes so brilliantly berserkily mental that I absolutely love it. The mad dwarf's rant about why he was deported from the US for doing illegal brain transplants without the appropriate qualifications and the subsequent procedure he makes Benson witness is sheer unparalleled pulp brilliance. They should use this one for teaching purposes in Trash Fiction Training College (& I can think of a few people who would benefit from it).
The Stripper: Yes it's the tale of Bubbles Le Fontanbleu and her amazingly tight cosmetically enhanced form that goes to pieces at the crucial moment as she attempts to cure the UK's impotence crisis, brought on by a wave of radical feminism that has turned men off for good. This one got reprinted in The Venetian Chair. Very politically incorrect, a bit dodgy with some of its targets for humour, and still very very funny on a second reading.
Fingers: Another Harry classic (as you can tell I'm becoming a bit of a fan). Lonsdale Price (great name) "world traveller and distinguished raconteur" (a JLP role model if there ever was one) invites nasty Joan Hope over to his palatial mansion in Yorkshire, tells her nasty story, reveals he knows her nasty secret, and leave her to the mercy of the very nasty thing living in his cellar. One of the most merciless last lines I've ever read makes this a classic:
"As he turned and walked away he heard her screams pile-driving out of the darkness and then the awful sounds of rending flesh and splintering bone"
Oh yes this is what we want! Proper horror! Thank you Mr Turner.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 5, 2008 16:26:02 GMT
Right! Here's the final installment of my thoughts on this lovely little book:
Skin Deep: Not just beauty but everything else too is skin deep in this ludicrous story of the unfortunately named J Orpington-Thrush and his sexual adventures with a young lady who turns out to be more (or is that less? or is that more? or is that less?) than she seems
The Sultan: Harry's version of an Arabian Nights fantasy, complete with obese, moustache twirling villain who has the nasty habit of chopping off the hands of any who cross him. Raping his Grand Vizier's daughter is going a bit far though and as the old man dies he curses the sultan who heads off into the desert only to die all fingers and thumbs.
The Hypnotist: Another tale of the rakish McAlpine family. This time it's the turn of Stewart the globetrotting reporter who's just finished his article on the 'Frenzied Sex-Practices of Lithuanian Goat-Herds' and is off to discredit world-famous hypnotist Count Vladmir Von Beck. Unfortunately his interviewee turnd out to be rather a good hypnotist, so good in fact that poor Stew's story may never get to see the printed page...
The Man Who Could Hear Fishes Scream: Fisherman Stewart McAlpine (presumably no relation) is interrupted on his quiet trip by who he assumes to be the local village idiot. Certainly the man turns out to be mad as he gives out Stew a guided tour of his rambling home, although instead of having something nasty in the woodshed this chap has something quite outrageously fishy living in a 7 foot high galvanised tank upstairs, before things heat up (sorry) for the finale.
Belvedere's Bride: From Pan 18 where it was published under the 'Jane Gregory' byline. Slight tale of monstrous love in Cornwall (where else?)
It's Hungry: A classic, based on the old wives' tale of how to get rid of a tapeworm. What really works here is the champagne lifestyle that Turner must have been so well acquainted with to be able to write about it like this. Either that or he must have watched Jason King and Return of the Saint over and over again.
Black Comedy: And My God it is. It's 2028 and in a bleak future Britain two cinema owners are competing for customers with films like 'I Was Dracula's Transvestite Masseur' and 'I Was A Sex Mad Teenage Vampire Dolly Bird from Outer Space'. What the audiences really want, they discover, is death, disease, rape and murder. Not on the screen but in the cinema itself. Laugh out loud heavy handed satire as only Mr Turner can do so well, it's a fitting end to the volume.
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Post by allthingshorror on Oct 5, 2008 17:15:40 GMT
Black Comedy: And My God it is. It's 2028 and in a bleak future Britain two cinema owners are competing for customers with films like 'I Was Dracula's Transvestite Masseur' and 'I Was A Sex Mad Teenage Vampire Dolly Bird from Outer Space'. What the audiences really want, they discover, is death, disease, rape and murder. Not on the screen but in the cinema itself. Laugh out loud heavy handed satire as only Mr Turner can do so well, it's a fitting end to the volume. This was also called Now Showing at the Roxy in the 10th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories. Genius story, was reading it to the missus last night - she guffawed, which believe me is a funny sight in itself... |
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Post by dem on Oct 6, 2008 10:00:08 GMT
There so should have been a Pan or even Fontana edition of this book it's painful! Just from your commentary i'm convinced this is one of the great 'lost' horror classics! Maybe he just wasn't prolific enough, but Harry should be at least as well known as RCH. BTW, i'm coming to the end of Coffin Nails now (there have been a lot of distractions!) and I reckon you're flying the flag for both of them! If Nefarious Assortment is the best Harry E. Turner story by someone other than Harry E. Turner, then Size Matters from Black Book Of Horror certainly is. Good on yer, Lord P! |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 6, 2008 11:27:47 GMT
Reading this book it's scary how much he's influenced me. In fact I often have to play down the Harry elements in my stories to stop them becoming silly.
And thanks for starting a thread on Coffin Nails! Now I'm an official Vault Author I really can die a happy man.
And then come back....
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Post by allthingshorror on Oct 6, 2008 12:39:20 GMT
Been talking to Mary (Danby) and she gave me a sliver of info on Harry - so after wedging that informational crack open with my infamous research-crowbar - I now have an address for one Harry E Turner!! Also have a telephone number - but for some reason, if I talk to him and find out it aint the real Harry - I would be really gutted! So letter it is!
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Post by dem on Oct 6, 2008 13:01:06 GMT
And thanks for starting a thread on Coffin Nails! Now I'm an official Vault Author I really can die a happy man. And then come back.... It's an easy distinction to make: "Official Vault author": One who enthuses about the work of others as much as they do their own. Haven't Cracked It Yet: One who refers to "My Book! My Book! Me! Buy My Book!" every time. For "Book" read also site/ blog/ forum, etc. Rarely seen after initial post until new product available, whereupon cycle begins anew. I'm horrible, aren't i? Look, no smiley or anything! |
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Post by allthingshorror on Oct 7, 2008 10:09:12 GMT
Here is Harry's latest collection of short stories: i194.photobucket.com/albums/z272/johnnyelvis/harryturner.jpgISBN: 1 85756 651 3 A blend of fact and fiction, Urban Legends is a collection of stories that demonstrate the brevity and variety of the genre – ranging from the sublime to the outrageous. Influenced as a young man by the works of Chekov, De Maupassant, Irwin Shaw, Saki and Roald Dahl, Turner has been described by the late Herbert Van Thal as a “master of the short story.” The author takes us through myriad emotions. Some stories leave the reader with more questions raised than answers given; some are particularly satisfying in the way they draw the threads of the plotline together to a conclusion; others produce a wry smile and a knowing nod to the way life goes. All, however, are stimulating, making it difficult to put the book down – at least until each tale is finished. Turner’s earlier works include “Growing up in Fulham” and three books of historical poetry, “Against All Hazards”, “Poems of Nelson’s Navy” and “Wrapped in Whirlwinds” with Spellmount Limited. HARRY WATCHPhoned the numbers I had for Harry last night - wasn't for him - and John Probert and I have started our own detective agency - definately found Harry - and a letter has been sent off to Harry this morning from his publishers asking him to get in touch with me. I am officially a happy bunny and will review Urban Legends when I get my copy through the door. |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 7, 2008 11:19:40 GMT
And I must be horrible too because that made me chuckle in an undoubtedly Harry Turneresque way.
Christ there's no stopping us now!
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