4PM FRIDAY AFTERNOON - A PINBALL ZINE

 

Hello! I've created a pinball zine! It's free to download here! I know there are a few typos on the PRESS START intro page, I'd compiled the unedited file into the mass pdf, but if you can look past that, you might find something to enjoy within. 

Working on a second zine now, waiting for inspiration to strike to finish. It will not be pinball related.

Hammerlocks Will Never Hold Me

 

 

"Hammerlocks Will Never Hold Me!" gouache on paper 8.5" x 5" $30.

The Fresh Lobster 1928

Here is an odd little cinematic short from 1928, titled The Fresh Lobster. It's an insane little celluloid nightmare in the vein of Winsor McCay's absurd cartoon strip Dreams Of The Rarebit Fiend. Only in this novel little short, the trigger for the hallucinatory adventure isn't a dinner of melted cheese on bread, but the late night snack of a plate of lobster and a pickle.

The film was supposedly released in theaters in 1928, then re-released twenty years later in 1948, this time with sound. All sources seem to agree that there isn't much known about the production of this oddity, nor the impetus for its creation; perhaps it was McCay's popular newspaper strip. The cinematographer is listed as Harry Forbes, who has camera credits for a number of shorts between 1915 and 1931, and quickie b-westerns and adventure films in the 1930s, before his passing in 1939. The producers credited in the title card are Harvey Pergament and Max Alexander. Pergament seems to have had a limited career in the industry, if his IMDB credits are indicative of his involvement, as he's only listed with one other producer credit, and that's co-producer of a 1954 UK title about South Africa titled Flame Of Africa. Max Alexander has quite the list of production credits to his name, largely b-grade crime and western pictures throughout the 1930s and 40s. 

The star of this piece is Billie Bletcher, who started in vaudeville and worked his way steadily from 1914 through the early 1970s in silent films, shorts, voicing characters in Disney and Looney Tunes cartoons, 1960s television appearances in shows like Get Smart and Dennis The Menace, and even had a bit part in the 1940 Boris Karloff thriller The Ape.

Enjoy!

Kashchey The Immortal (1945)

Here's an interesting Russian fantasy film from 1945. The version uploaded to Youtube here has the native Russian language audio track, with kindly provided English subtitles. It's based on a Russian folktale about Koschei (which I've seen spelled a half dozen different ways in the same paragraph in some sources), an evil sorcerer who has attained immortality through black magic, and can only be killed when his soul is captured. The twist is that in the various tales about Koschei, he's hidden his soul in various things that are nearly impossible to reach or catch, such as in a needle lodged in the center of an egg held by a duck that flies away when approached, or, in the case of this film, his heart (maybe changed in the translation?) is in the center of a black apple that grows on a black tree, which stands on a black hill. If one approaches the black tree, a single leaf will grow out of the branch, and a flower will appear, which will in turn produce the apple. Of course anyone who splits the apple to get at the heart will be turned to stone and frozen forever.

Georgy Millyar as Kashchey, The Immortal

The film is glaringly nationalistic, almost to a comical degree near the end when the hero's faith and love of his Mother Russia produces a literal army out of thin air. Our protagonist carries a bandana full of his native soil that he kisses and asks to protect him. At the moment in question, he tosses it to the ground and a phalanx of troops appears. Visually stunning, dramatically captivating and definitely worth the 63 minute running time. Starring actor Georgy Millyar as the titular Kashchey, a character actor who seemed to make a living out of playing grotesque creatures, sometimes with a comic bent to them, as in the popularly MST3K'd film Jack Frost (Морозко, Morozko, 1964).

The Ultimate Poker Face

Poster for the Sam Katzman produced
The Man Who Turned To Stone, 1957.

Monster movies have always needed new fields to farm regarding the menace of their product. Once you've exhausted all of the most prominent literary ghouls and goblins, stretched their source material threadbare with almost-unrelated sequels and spin-offs; once invaders from beyond the stars or beneath the waves lose their impact; once the vengeful spirits of slain lovers no longer successfully haunt the halls of the local theaters, nor the sound of voodoo drums is able to conjure the beat of feet to the cinema, it's time to look for other sources of box office bank. 

There is plenty of folklore to glean (or culturally appropriate, depending on whom you talk to) in regards to the animation of inanimate objects via possession by wayward souls or demons, or other supernatural means. Cultures the world over have various poppets, dolls and fetish figures, like the Kongolese nkisi figures, that are allegedly vessels–or prisons, depending on the context–for spirits. We've seen these ideas repurposed into everything from the killer Zuni fetish doll from the 1975 television movie Trilogy Of Terror, to the seemingly endless list of possessed doll/mannequin/ventriloquist dummy films from 1945's Dead Of Night, to the bread and butter of Charles Band's Full Moon Features company with their Puppet Master and Demonic Toys franchises. There is also the Golem. Fairly prominent in the pop cultural zeitgeist, Golem is a word that roughly translates from Hebrew to mean "shapeless mass", and in Jewish folklore, has a plethora of permutations based on the context of the usage; but the one we're interested in here is the one regarding a clay figure brought to life via supernatural means to serve its master. Sort of an earthen zombie if you will. 

Paul Wegener as Der Golem.

The concept of the Golem itself was adapted early to the silver screen by director/actor Paul Wegener in 1915 with Der Golem, the first of a trilogy of silent films, followed by Der Golem und die Tänzerin (The Golem and the Dancing Girl) (1917) and, Die Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (The Golem: How He Came Into The World) (1920), of which the final film is the only known to exist in a complete and intact version (see it here). The Golem mythos was revisited in 1937's Le Golem directed by Julien Duvivier, and in a French telefilm in 1967; and in between when the American b-movie boom of the mid-1950s came a-calling, it was looked to again for inspiration.

In 1958, Edward L. Cahn (Sam Katzman perennial who directed Creature With The Atom Brain and Zombies of Mora Tau, as well as classics like Invasion Of The Saucer Men and The Four Skulls Of Jonathan Drake) directed Richard Anderson in Curse Of The Faceless Man, (trailer here) about a calcified Pompeiian warrior who comes back to life to reclaim to current reincarnation of his ancient love. More or less a version of Universal's The Mummy (1932), but with the rock-coated corpse of a dead slave in place of a revived Egyptian. A year prior, we had the Sam Katzman-produced The Man Who Turned To Stone (trailer here) about a group of devious doctors who've found a way to prolong their own existence for centuries by draining the vitality out of other humans, which they currently (in regards to the plot) are doing to girls at a reform school. Without rejuvenation, the docs start to petrify and take on a decidedly Zacherley-esque appearance. That same year, moviegoers were also threatened by The Monolith Monsters, (trailer here) a Universal b-picture starring Grant Williams and Lola Albright, in which a small southern California desert town is menaced by water-thirsty space crystals that petrify (literally) anyone who touches them in contact with water.  In 1967 a very Norman Bates-ish Roddy McDowall helped reawaken the Golem mythos with It!, also known as Anger Of The Golem or Curse Of The Golem, in which he awakens The Golem of Prague to do his bidding (trailer here).

The peplum films of the early-to-mid 60s feature plenty of rock men for our oiled up muscle men to battle, like in 1964's Hercules Against The Moon Men and the Mario Bava directed 1961 feature Hercules In The Haunted World.

I suppose the allure of these stone monsters is that they seem invincible, and we the audience are supposed to sit, anxiously watching, wondering how our protagonists are going to defeat something that is impervious to temperature, bullets, fire, wooden stakes, etcetera. When the villain is unfeeling, in every sense of the word, it's akin to trying to defeat Superman; alas, each of the aforementioned creeps have their own Kryptonite which the heroes successfully find, or accidentally stumble into, before the running time is up. 

Nkisi Nkondi (Power Figure), from the collection
of the Brooklyn Museum

The list of similar films is far too long to try and collate a comprehensive list of, and ultimately a pointless task. If you're looking for a good monster made of rock movie, the ones listed above should be a good start. If you're more into possessed killer trees, might I recommend From Hell It Came or the infamous Evil Dead.

If anyone has any favorites of the so-called sub genre, I'd be glad to hear about them.

Even Supes had to deal with malevolent minerals. From The Adventures of
Superman #470, Sept. 1990.

Chilling Cheesecake

Here are some suitably spooky pinups from yesteryear.

The Return Of Dr. Tongue

It's a painting in progress.