Michael May's Blog, page 176
October 4, 2013
Tarzan 101 | Tarzan of the World Wide Web
Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.
Griffin's chapter on Tarzan's Internet fandom includes information on the founders of important sites, especially Bill Hillman of the massive (and massively useful) ERBzine, but it's probably most useful for me to just give links and send you to Griffin's book if you're curious about background. There's plenty to explore.
Official Sites
Official Edgar Rice Burroughs site
Tarzan.com
Tarzan.org
Burroughs Family
John Coleman Burroughs
Danton Burroughs
Fandom
ERBzine
Burroughs Bibliophiles
Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship Listserver
ERBmania!
Movies
Tarzan Movie Guide
Tarzan.cc
Johnny Weissmuller
Humor
The Barsoomian Blade: A Tabloid Paper of Mars
31 Werewolves | The Return of the Vampire
Some folks apparently consider 1944's The Return of the Vampire to be an unofficial sequel to Universal's Dracula starring Bela Lugosi in 1931. They argue that Lugosi is playing Dracula again in all but name (his name in Return of the Vampire is Armand Tesla) and that it's only because the movie was produced by Columbia, not Universal, that it's not a legitimate sequel.
But there are several plot differences that keep Return of the Vampire separate from Dracula, in addition to the title character's name. First of all, Tesla's enemies don't have any direct analogues to characters from Dracula. I suppose it's possible to draw comparisons between Dracula's Mina and Ven Helsing and Return's Lady Jane and Professor Saunders, but not without a lot of stretching. And there's no one to represent Jonathan Harker or Dr. Seward.
The difference that's important to this post though is the vampire's servant, a werewolf named Andreas who does Tesla's bidding and protects his coffin. This isn't a serious werewolf movie by any stretch (actor Matt Willis' makeup is more cute than frightening), but it goes to show how big a deal werewolves were beginning to be after the success of The Wolf Man. For another B-movie werewolf story from the same time, check out my review of 1942's The Mad Monster.
October 3, 2013
Tarzan 101 | Fan Conventions
Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.
About half of Griffin's chapter on Tarzan conventions is a lengthy quote from Tarzan of the Apes in which Burroughs describes the Dum-Dum ceremony held by the apes to mark important events. The other half though is full of great information about the real-world legacy of that celebration.
The Burroughs Bibliophiles started their version of the Dum Dum to coincide with the annual World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon). It was at the 18th WorldCon in 1960 that the Bibliophiles held their first meeting and they continued meeting that way for the next 24 years, only meeting at other conventions when WorldCon was held outside the United States.
When Bibliophiles founder Vern Coriell's health became too poor to allow him to continue leading the club in 1984, the Bibliophiles and the Dum Dum went on hiatus, but Burroughs fans didn't give up meeting. British fan (and pen pal of Burroughs) Frank Shonfeld started the Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship, originally a network of letter-writers, and ECOF held its first, formal meeting in Toronto in August 1984.
Though ECOF continues meeting to this day (this year's was in May in Morris, Illinois), when George McWhorter restarted the Burroughs Bibliophiles he also reinstituted the annual Dum Dum, though as a separate event from WorldCon. ERBzine has a wonderful timeline of meeting dates and locations that even includes some short anecdotes from various gatherings. This year's Dum Dum was held in Louisville, Kentucky on August 8-11.
One of the major activities at the Dum Dum each year is bestowing awards. The Golden Lion Award is commonly given to professional creators and actors who've contributed in some way to Burroughs' legacy. The Edgar Rice Burroughs Achievement Award is given to prominent fans for their efforts in keeping alive the author's memory. The Dum Dum has also honored significant contributors to Burroughsdom like Hal Foster, Frank Frazetta, Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Crabbe, Harlan Ellison, and Philip Jose Farmer.
Visitors to the Tapajós hate cephalopods
By Leo Morey [via Pulp Covers].
By the way, I'm never calling anything scifi again. From now on, it's "scientifiction."
31 Werewolves | The Wolf Man
Universal's Werewolf of London didn't do nearly as well as their other monster movies in the early '30s, so they tried again in 1941 with The Wolf Man. Jack Pierce returned to create the werewolf's look and outdid his previous effort by a large margin. The London werewolf was good, but the Wolf Man's was iconic.
Frame for frame, The Wolf Man is simply a better movie than its predecessor. The script is doing something original instead of just tacking in a bunch of tropes from other successful monster movies. Instead of making the lead character yet another mad scientist, The Wolf Man offers Lon Chaney Jr. in the best performance of his career as the tragic and sympathetic Larry Talbot. He may be heir to a powerful English estate, but he's the second son and hasn't been bred to the role. Instead, he's studied engineering in the United States and comes across as a normal working joe who's thrust into an unfamiliar - and ultimately horrifying - situation. That gives the film tons of gravitas to build on, where Werewolf of London was a more simple fantasy.
The Wolf Man is more sophisticated in how it approaches its themes too. Werewolf of London borrowed heavily from Jekyll and Hyde, making its Dr. Glendon a severely repressed man who had to turn into a monster to cut loose and run wild. Larry Talbot isn't like that. He's a relaxed, affable fellow who - if his early interaction with Evelyn Ankers' character is any indication - could do with some additional social graces.
It's that American wildness that gets him into trouble though when he returns home after the death of his older brother. The people in the village never do trust him and even his father (Claude Rains, in my favorite ever role of his) has to make an adjustment. The Wolf Man shows this right away when Sir John tells Larry that he'd like to put away the dishonest formality that's kept them from getting to know each other. Talbot Village is characterized by old world manners and (as Sir John puts it later) black-and-white thinking.
What's strange is that The Wolf Man subtly endorses the villagers' simple-mindedness by making werewolfism a symbol for free-thinking. It's a weird message, but Sir John characterizes the ability to think deeply as a curse. Seeing shades of gray in the world is its own form of wildness and Sir John believes that it may be what's causing his son's mental breakdown. Getting ready to go to church, Sir John goes so far as to characterize faith as a useful defense against overthinking.
This odd theme makes a little more sense remembering that the film was made just before the U.S. entered World War II. Is it possible that the film is saying that the U.S. has been overthinking its role in the world and that sometimes we just have to pick a side and act? It's true that too much freedom - of thought and of action - can be crippling. Faced with too many choices, the chaos becomes overwhelming and we need rules and order to define limits so that we can act. Without that, society doesn't work.
If that's the point that The Wolf Man is making, it's surprisingly complex for a Hollywood monster movie, but that may be why it's such a classic.
October 2, 2013
I'll be at FallCon this weekend!
I'll be at FallCon this weekend at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, so if you're in the area, please come by and say "hi." And meet Mark Waid while you're at it.
I'll have copies of Kill All Monsters as well as the Avenger anthology I contributed to, but even if you don't need those, I hope you'll stop by and chat.
