Massacre Time

Massacre Time is a 1966 spaghetti western that stars Franco Nero and George Hilton, veterans of the genre, as brothers Tom and Jeff Corbett, respectively. The plot is simple in this one: revenge.

Tom Corbett hadn’t been home in many years. An urgent message reaches him to return home at once, no explanation given. When he arrives in Laramie Town, New Mexico, he finds the old home ranch abandoned, falling apart, with another brand on the property. Warned that Mr. Scott owns it, he’d best move along. The Scott brand is on almost every business in town.

He finds his brother is the town drunk.

When he tries to see his friend, gunmen wipe the man and his whole family. Tom is left alone though.

There’s a terrible secret here that Tom seems to be the only one not in on. In a saloon fight, he watches his drunk brother holding his own against a half dozen men, only stepping in when Jeff is finally overwhelmed and being beaten. Again, when someone goes to shoot him, he’s stopped and the gang leaves.

Tom decides he needs to see Scott. No one will tell him where the ranch is located, though, until his brother finally accompanies him. Jeff seems to function quite well for a drunk. The earlier fight, then riding hanging off his horse and shooting nine Scott men in two incidents easily. He turns back, though, once they reach the Scott property.

At the ranch is where Tom meets up with Junior, Scott’s sadistic son, an expert with a bullwhip, who beats him with it nearly to death, again being stopped. Tom is allowed to leave.

Back at his brother’s shack, he finally learns from his sibling what is going on after Mercedes, the old woman who looks after Jeff, is murdered(we won’t give this away; watch the movie)

As usual in this type of film, there is an ultimate showdown, a lot of violence and shooting, with the two brothers making an assault on the Scott stronghold.

I quite enjoyed this one directed by Lucio Fulci. I don’t believe I’ve seen any others from him though.

Here’s the trailer:

Four of The Apocalypse

Four of The Apocalypse is a 1975 spaghetti western based loosely, very loosely, on two Bret Harte stories, The Luck of Roaring Camp and The Outcasts of Poker Flat. It starred Fabio Testi as Stubby Preston, Lynn Frederick as Bunny O’Neill, Harry Baird as Bud, and Michael J. Pollard as Clem.

This is one of those films restored by Blue Underground with scenes never used in English language releases, thus never dubbed. Therefor those scenes are in Italian with English subtitles.

Gambler Stubby Preston,looking for a game, arrives in Salt Flat at just the wrong time. He’s promptly arrested and thrown into a jail cell with Clem, the town drunk, Bunny a pregnant prostitute, and Bud, a black man who sees ghosts.

Jail turns out to be the best place for them as a vigilante group cleans the criminal element up that night, shooting or hanging most of them while the sheriff eats his supper.

The next morning the sheriff puts them on a wagon, after “accepting” Stubby’s $1,000, and sends them out of town. They decide to head for the next town two hundred miles away.

Along the way, they pass a group of “Bible” people, exchanging pleasantries, and soon encounter the bandit Chaco(Tomas Milian). At first things seem fine as he hunts meat for them. Then when they are attacked, another side shows.

Shooting their attackers, Chaco finds one still alive and tortures him, slicing strips of skin off until the man dies. That should have been a warning as the bandit turns on them after feeding them peyote buttons and alcohol.

Tying them up, raping the pregnant Bunny, shooting Clem in the leg, he leaves them to die and takes everything, laughing.

Milian was unlike any other character I’d seen him play before. Granted, I’ve not seen a lot yet(I have a couple more I haven’t watched yet), but all those I have seen, he usually played a slightly comedic character. Here he has long hair and beard and is especially sadistic. He wipes out the”Bible” people, men, women, and children.

As our four “heroes” make their way on foot, Stubby and Bud toting Clem on a makeshift stretcher. The four begin to die off, culminating in the birth of a boy in a mining camp full of men, Bunny dying, the miners adopting “Lucky” as their own, and Stubby silently vowing revenge on the monster responsible for it all.

The movie is relentlessly violent in a bleak landscape and Chaco is a particularly reprehensible bandit deserving of what’s coming his way.

I’d not seen a movie like this before, not in this genre anyway, despite the spaghetti western’s propensity for violence and blood. There are other things happening I’d never seen in a western, though I know that sort of thing did happen. Of course there are many more out there that might ramp up the gore. I don’t know. I’ve still got five new acquisitions to go.

Forgotten Friday Books: A Case of Conscience – James Blish

These days, James Blish, if he’s known at all by younger readers, it’s as a Star Trek writer(and no, there’s nothing wrong with that: there are some fine writers doing work in this area). While he did a yeoman job of turning the scripts of TOS into short stories(with an able assist of his wife, J. A. Lawrence after his death), as well as one novel, Spock Must Die!, he was so much more than that. Writer, critic, editor.

A Case of Conscience is one of his better known works(along with Cities In Flight), the first book of the After Such Knowledge trilogy, one of the earliest science fiction tales with religious themes. It won a Hugo Award in 1959 and the original novella was given a retrospective Hugo in 2004.

The story concerns a Jesuit priest investigating an alien race with no religion, no concept of God, sin, or an afterlife. There was a novella published in 1953 and later expanded into a novel with the novella as part one.

Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez is part of a team sent to a planet to see if can be opened to human contact. Sanchez is also a biologist, a biochemist, and the ship doctor.

The dominant species, the Lithians, is intelligent, bipedal, and reptilian and as mentioned have no concept of any God. At an invitation, Ruiz-Sanchez moves in with one and begins a study of them. They are a society without crime, ignorance, or want. It seems ideal.

When the expedition meets to compare notes of their study, most everybody agrees that the Lithians are ready for contact. And exploitation of course. Lithium, a rare element on Earth is in abundance on the planet.

Ruiz-Sanchez surprises everyone by saying the planet should be quarantined. His study shows a number of points where the Lithians’ society violates the tenets of Catholicism and he’s come to believe, though he likes these beings, that the planet is a construction of Satan. His logic: peace, love, and understanding without religion is just the Devil’s way to attack religion.

Part one ends with nothing resolved, the expedition returning to Earth. Ruiz-Sanchez knows his warning will be ignored in favor of commerce. Just before they leave, he is given a sealed bottle containing an egg, the host’s son, to be raised on Earth and learn the ways of humans.

Part two involves, the Lithian growing and becoming an irritant on Earth. Ruiz-Sanchez is a heretic for believing Satan has the power to create a planet. Other members of the original crew begin setting up reactors of Lithia to begin cultivating the planet’s resources.

Without giving anymore away, I’ll just say this novel brings into question a lot of thoughts on religion. At least for me. I originally read it when I was very young and could only wonder, then, what drove religious people to some of the fervors I see all the time.

Another Fine Example of Some of The Loons That Inhabit Fox News

Here’s why no sane thinking human takes Fox News seriously. I do give credit to the other two for having the decency to look shocked.

HERE

Watch the clip.

Brother Ted

After my previous post, I decided it was time to do one on The Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent. I absolutely loved his music in my younger days. I remember first becoming aware of him in the sixties with a band, the Amboy Dukes, that had one hit song, Journey To The Center of The Mind, which, if you had any sense at all back then, you knew was drug related(Ted always denied that, saying he wrote the music, the singer the lyrics)

I managed to see him live five times and missed him a couple of others by unforseen circumstances. His politics were always conservative despite his long hair, always antidrug, antialcohol. But from things I’ve seen lately, he seems to have moved heartily into the wingnut camp.

My favorite album of his is still Cat Scratch Fever, though some of his earlier songs I particularly like as well. I haven’t really listened to him much in years.

Here’s a couple of clips:

The Wingnuts Are In Full Control of The GOP

Apparently in Duval County in Florida, the wingnuts are in full control. At a recent “tea party” which was attended by elected officials(GOP) and advertised heavily on their website, there were allusions with Obama as a Nazi, posters of him in full Nazi regalia, one of him with full Adolph haircut and moustache.

Do these folks not know history? Are they that ignorant? If this were Nazi Germany, what they did would have them in prison at best. The only conclusion I can come to is that, as I said earlier, the wingnuts are in full control.

The Republican party chairman even broadcast live from the event on the Party’s weekly radio broadcast.

Now they are doing some backpedaling, saying they didn’t plan the event. But they broadcast from it and advertised it on their website. That implies tacit approval.

Is there anybody in the GOP with sense anymore? They only back off when controversy arises. Is there no one there with the balls to say to the planners “This is not a good idea!”

These wingnuts make the party look bad. And let me make it clear. I’m a registered Republican and have been for forty-one years. Things have gotten so bad, though, that I’ve voted Democratic in all the elections since 1990. Lord knows why I haven’t just changed my affiliation to Democrat.

What passes for party policy these days makes me ashamed to be a Republican. As bad as things got, even Nixon didn’t cause that.

Someone needs to take back control from the wingnuts. Either that or shut it down as a major party and get out of the way for some other, more intelligent group. There are a few out there that could present a more coherent platform.

Star Trek: Troublesome Minds – Dave Galanter

I’m one of those original Star Trek fans. I was there on the night of September 8, 1966, a Thursday, when that episode, the first, aired. It was The Man Trap(though I prefer James Blish’s title, The Unreal McCoy, that he changed it to for the short story version), that tale of the shape-changing, salt vampire. I was there at the beginning and been a fan ever since. Though it’s been many years, I do think I can be positive in saying I didn’t see all the episodes first run(this was in the days of three commercial networks and PBS, no machines to tape or record them when you couldn’t be there; you know, prehistoric days).

I’ve seen them since then more times than I can remember. I enjoyed The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, but the quality(i.e. originality) started to fall off on Voyager and Enterprise. The original series remains my favorite of all though.

I used to collect all the fiction. At first they published about four books a year, then it got pushed up to one a month, then two a month. I managed to hang with them for a long while. Then it got even crazier. Two paperbacks a month, three or four hardcovers a year, and sometimes more. The quality got spotty.

My interest fell off. Even the original novels began to be less than sensational, let’s just say. They seem to concentrate on the later years after the movies began. Sequels to the movies and after, filling in the years between. Multibook arcs. It all got too much.

I don’t buy much anymore(and I’ve got way too many unread at home now).

Then I spotted this novel. Set during the original five year mission, pretty much a self-contained story in one book, it caught my interest and I picked it up. I’m glad I did. It’s a Star Trek of the old school, which is just fine with me.

The Enterprise is exploring a new arm of space when they answer a general distress call to find a ship sinking into a gas giant. During rescue operations, they are attacked by other ships, demanding they cease. They just manage to transport the three occupants out before the doomed ship breaks up.

The aliens are humanoid, tall and thin, with bone white skin and a kind of peach fuzz instead of hair. Berlis is their leader and is an instantly likable fellow. Everyone gets good vibes from him.

He’s the leader of Colony One, home planet Isitris Zero, and professes to not know why his fellow beings wants him dead. Talking to the representative from the home planet reveals no more. They want to know why Kirk stopped their justice.

When ships from Colony One pick up Berlis, Kirk and company immediately feel a loss that their firend has gone.

When they go to Isitris Zero, Kirk begins to learn exactly what he’s put into motion. The Isitris are a telepathetic race. With other beings, they communicate with arm/hand signs and wear a wrist translator for hearing beings.

Berlis is what they refer to as a “troublesome mind.” His subconscious mind can control any number of beings, up to a whole planetary population. he doesn’t consciously do it, just puts out feelings of warmth to himself, a self-defense mechanism. People want to do things to help him.

The problem is with the neighboring race in a nearby solar system, the Odib. Many times in the past, one of these troubled minds had put the Isitris at war with the Odib, killing billions of people and destroying planetary economies. Only when the troublesome mind is killed or dies of old age do the Isitris regain their own wills to find friends dead, the planet in ruins, many lost years.

They don’t like it and the Odib finally said. “Enough!” A treaty had been signed that the Isitris would always take care of these troublesome minds as soon as they are discovered, usually prenatal, long before they grow strong enough to take over a planet with a thought.

Occasionally one slips through undetected, though, and now Kirk has loosed one on the universe. The Odib are gearing up for war and the Isitris, with the minds of a population linked by one man, are making great leaps in war technology. One, or maybe both, planets will be decimated before it ends.

Kirk must figure out how to stop two races, one under unwilling thrall, from killing each other. And Spock’s help is suspect, As a telepathetic being himself, he destroys a shuttlecraft, and nearly himself, to protect Berlis before anyone realizes he’s been under the control of the Isitris.

Dave Galanter captures each of the Trek characters’ voices very well, especially the big three. I enjoyed this novel more than any I’ve read recently(recently being the last few years. If you are a fan of TOS, highly recommended.

2009 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Championship

Joey Chestnut successfully defended his two time hot dog eating championship this afternoon at the 94th annual competition, defeating former six time champion Takeru Kobayashi by downing a record 68 hot dogs in ten minutes to his rival’s 64 and a half(both eclipsing the world record of 59).

The win kept the coveted Mustard belt in the United States.

Here’s a clip on the champ.

Forgotten Books: The Defenders – Edward S. Aarons

I decided to do another tie-in novel this week for Forgotten Books. THE DEFENDERS by Edward S. Aarons, a writer pretty much unknown by newer readers among us. He wrote the long running Assignment series featuring CIA agent Sam Durell, some forty -two novels before he died in 1975(something I learned in researching this post was that the series was continued by another writer for an additional six). I read a bunch of them in my younger days.

The Defenders was a television series featuring E. G. Marshall and Robert Reed as a father and son law firm, Lawrence and Kenneth Preston. Lawrence had been a lawyer for thirty years and Kenneth was a mid-twenties newly minted attorney. One oddity I learned in researching was that Reginald Rose developed the series from his teleplay for the anthology series Studio One, The Defender, that starred Ralph Bellamy and William Shatner as the father and son team.

In this original novel( a different publisher later did three novels based on teleplays), there are two intertwining cases. Lawrence takes the lead on a case involving a spoiled rich young woman, parents dead, that hit a child with her car, leaving him in critical condition. She doesn’t see that she did anything wrong. “It was an accident. OK, I had a few drinks, I missed a red light, I was speeding a little bit, but it was an accident.”

Another complication is the boy’s parents. His spleen is ruptured and needs to be removed, he’s lost a lot of blood, but the parents refuse to allow surgery. Their religious beliefs don’t allow it or accepting blood from someone else.

It’s Saturday and there’s a long delay in finding a judge to sign off on assuming custody of the boy for the surgery. Then, the boy dies anyway. Did the accident solely cause the death? Or did the long delay figure in? That’s what confronts Lawrence in court.

On that same Saturday, Kenneth meets a couple, friends of his girl friend, that are having problems. The man is a reporter and confides to Ken that while investigating a story, threats have come his way. They make arrangements to meet Monday and discuss it.

That same night he’s murdered and the police say his wife did it. She claims she was out walking the dog and found him dead, shot with his own gun, when she returns. Panicked, she runs, witnesses seeing her stuffing the gun into her purse. She admits that part and can’t explain why, other than panic. Also, her husband’s best friend says he called him and, with his dying breath, says his wife shot him.

These are the cases confronting the two lawyers.

I liked this novel, the first I’d read by Aarons in many years.

The Kinks and Van Halen

After a recent post on the new supergroup Chickenfoot(I agree with Charles, bad name), I got to thinking about my younger days(bad sign I guess, been doing that a lot lately). My admiration for Van Halen’s first album notwithstanding(one of the GREAT rock albums of all time), as soon as I heard their first single, I said, “Hey, that’s an old Kinks song!”

I had to explain to some younger fans that You Really Got Me was a fifteen year old song. Naturally, they didn’t believe me(the young have a propensity to believe they discovered everything and, yes, I was guilty of such when I was young as well). I finally pulled out the old vinyl and played it for them.

Only then did they believe(I had this same conversation some years later over The Scorpions(that probably will be a later post).

Here’s clips of both versions of the song:

I couldn’t find a really good clip of an early performance by Van Halen. The is more recent after David Lee Roth rejoined the band and Eddie’s son, Wolfgang, now playing bass. Not bad.