Peter Saxon - Scream And Scream Again

[dem]

Peter Saxon - Scream And Scream Again (Paperback Library, Dec. 1967. Previously known as The Disorientated Man)

Cover illustration: Victor Kalin

I couldn't make sense of the film on one viewing and I also struggled with the novel first time around, so lets see if I'm any the wiser after a rematch.

London. Detective Chief-Super Dale Keene is investigating a series of gruesome murders. The victims are young women whose throats have been slashed and all the blood drained from their bodies. On the wrists of the deceased, twin puncture marks which suggest that the killer is a vampire. One of the girls was employed as a maid by mild-mannered Dr. Browning, so he's obviously our number one suspect. A plan to capture the murderer using P.C. Helen Bradford as bait backfires when the bloodsucker kills her on Tooting Common and effortlessly toughs up her colleagues when they race to her rescue after hearing sucking noises over their tracking device.

Elsewhere Ken Spartan, Olympic athlete, collapses while out jogging. He wakes up in hospital with a silent nurse feeding him something through a straw. His arms and legs are systematically amputated over a period of .... days? months? Spartan has no way of knowing as he's kept permanently stoned.

Meanwhile in East Germany, the sadist Konrath has risen through the ranks of the Secret Police, disposing of any immediate superiors with the patented Vulcan death grip whenever they question his methods of obtaining information.

That brings us up to the halfway mark. Seems to me as though 70 pages is not gonna be enough to bring all these strands together satisfactorily which is maybe what baffled me last time. And the back cover blurb promises Black Magic - we've not had a hint of any of that yet.

******

I've not made any progress on the novel, but I forgot something dead important: in the short prequel "something larger than a house" appears on a recreation ground, glows red for a moment and then a ghostly blue. Evidently it came from outer space. Anyway, a Thing emerged from it. We've not heard any more about this Thing yet, but I can guarantee we will. Because I've seen the film.

******

Plenty going on. The killer is poleaxed by a well aimed rock and Keene has his men handcuff him to the bumper of a car. No problem: he just tears himself free and runs off, leaving behind his arm. The cops pursue him until he reaches a manhole, lifts the cover and drops in with a splash. A cop reaches in to retrieve him then draws his hand away in agony. Acid!

With the murderer dissolved, the only clue the law have to go on is the name he gave their late colleague when he was chatting her up, 'Kenneth Sanders'. Why, that sounds as if he might be related to nice Doctor Sanders! Also, the manhole cover and acid tank are on the grounds of Dr. Sanders' mansion, so there's definitely some connection.

Where will it all end, eh?

******

Mad scientists and Secret Service agents who are really superior beings from another world with suitably sci-fi names; seeming humans who are actually robots; a bodged brain-transplant in the course of which a vampire bat's grey matter is mistaken for that of a man - it's funny how this book could have got me so confused before.

Given the multiple strands to his story, this version of Saxon ties everything up better than can be expected and there's a great climactic acid bath grapple between Konratz and the villainous vivisectionist Dr. Browning. Vicky Betling, the trad damsel in distress, has little to do beyond being caught trespassing, stripped by the bionic nurse and strapped down on the operating table providing the hero, young Dr. Pine, the opportunity to perform that all-important dramatic rescue. Dr. Browning's lab is impressive, stuffed to the rafters with pilfered limbs, brains and torsos, the perfect setting for the fireworks at the end.

File under 'should have been a Nel'

[Johnlprobert]

I liked this a lot more than the film version, even though the fractured nature of the narrative leant itself to screenwriter Christopher Wicking's rather obtuse style. The thing the book has going for it is a sense of out-and-out pulp adventure whereas the film tries to be a bit more profound. Oh, and it absolutely wastes the leads

[pulphack]

i think that's true. the novel has a relentless momentum, which i guess is less horror than lessons learned by Steve Francis writing Hank Jansen thrillers.

perhaps it's a trivial matter, but the movie also wastes the Amen Corner, who appear at the beginning, but playing an instrumental interlude, with none of Andy Fairwetaher-Lowe's great voice.

But it does have Alfred Marks, whos was too tall to play Lionel Marks in any Guardians movies (if only) but had the right mix of beef and wit.

Odd thing is that although in some ways it's the best Saxon, it's also the least typical of the books produced under that name to my mind.

[Johnlprobert]

In the nightclub sequence the Amen Corner do a number entitled 'Scream & Scream Again' with vocals, but it all depends on which version you watch. For a long time the film was on video with a different music score because of rights difficulties, and this is the one that tended to be on UK TV. The new music was written by Kendall Schmidt. The Region One DVD has the original David Whitaker jazz score and the Amen Corner track. What's interesting in this case is just how effective Schmidt's new music is.

[pulphack]

ah, i've only ever seen the tv print, so thanks for that, john. must get that dvd, i think.

the whole business of tv prints can be a nightmare. 'incense for the damned' (aka 'bloodsuckers') being a case in point. i've seen it at 55 minutes and incomprehensible, and at at 90 minutes and great. yet when i picked up a dvd of it last year, it was 85 minutes, with the missing scene included as an extra (a psychedelic orgy scene with a stoned-looking patrick mower, as it happens). at least it was there, i suppose...

[Johnlprobert]

Weirdly enough the version the BBC has of Incense for the Damned is intact.

I see the Horror Channel is showing Scream & Scream Again. They might have the original soundtrack as there was a similar problem with The Abominable Dr Phibes and that was on last night with the correct Basil Kirchin score.

[allthingshorror]

Five Star (This edition MCMLXXll)



SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN

Something blood-red glows in the darkness...
Something hideous and inhuman...
Something more horrible than death itself...

At first the police thought that the girl had been hacked to pieces by a maniac. But soon their investigation revealed more - much more.

The terror they were hunting was something less than human - more monster than man...It was in an ordinary suburban playground that 2the thing2 firat made its presence known. A murdering creature of Satan, it was strange, terrifying - and beyond human comprehension. It destroyed its victims limb by limb, arm by arm, organ by organ...

And there was no power on Eartht that could stop it.

[severance]

Peter Saxon - The Disorientated Man - Mayflower Dell, September 1966

A boy runs screaming through the night.

He has stumbled on the body of a girl, terribly mutilated. It looks like the work of a prowling sex-maniac, but police investigations reveal much more. The terror they are hunting is more than human; the search they have started will uncover a terrifying mixture of rape, blood lust, murder, scientific diabolism and ruthless human vivisection, backed by a deadly political force.

In an ordinary suburban recreation-ground The Thing first makes its presence known. A presence more savage than savagery itself...more terrifying than terror. As much beyond human comprehension as it is beyond human decency and human laws...

[dem]

Much as i like the others (including this one from Popular Library, first posted by killercrab), i'd say the Mayflower is the definitive Scream & Scream Again cover. have you shown Curt yet? i know he was after it for Groovy Age.

[doomovertheworld]

i recently finished this. it was the first peter saxon paperback that i have read. i thought that it was fun, but very incoherent. i felt that the author had been given a check list of things, for example, mad scientists, aliens etc etc that had to be in the book and a dead line of c.160 pages to fit everything in. in spite of the incoherence i did rather like what happened to ken spartan the Olympic athlete is very memorable

is the movie worth checking out?

[killercrab]

Love the movie not read the book but the flick is pretty exploitive and crazy , so ...

[franklinmarsh]

Jun 4, 2011 23:25:25 GMT killercrab said:

Love the movie not read the book but the flick is pretty exploitive and crazy , so ...

Just rereading the book (with the cover wot Jonny posted above - except with a 'king great crease across it) as a prelude to rewatching the film, and I'm quite stunned by how close the film was to the book. Great stuff!

[Johnlprobert]

I had no idea this book had had so many covers! The one I own is that blue-ish Five Star version with the big face. The one I first read was the Mayflower edition (in hardback!) from Abergavenny town library. But my favourite is that one right up at the top there, because I'm a sucker for a naked pretty girl held in a big hand.

[sadako]

Mar 24, 2013 11:37:12 GMT Johnlprobert said:

I had no idea this book had had so many covers! The one I own is that blue-ish Five Star version with the big face. The one I first read was the Mayflower edition (in hardback!) from Abergavenny town library. But my favourite is that one right up at the top there, because I'm a sucker for a naked pretty girl held in a big hand.

This one?

[Johnlprobert]

That's the one! It's still here, somewhere.