Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 9 - 1975

Bear with me. It's going to be quite a time-twisting, decades-hopping path before we get to the memory in question this time...

1975:

The trivia:

• On the 18th July of 1975, seventeen year-old Erskine Ebbin from Hamilton, Bermuda was hit by a taxi and killed whilst riding his moped. It was almost exactly one year after his brother Neville was also killed - riding the same moped, on the same road, by the same taxi driver, Willard Manders. Astonishingly, according to the boys’ father, even the passenger carried in the taxi was the same in both instances. It sounds almost too co-incidental to be true…

• The classic BBC TV show “The Goodies” featuring Grahame Garden, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor was known for its episodes of surreal comedy. During an episode called "Kung Fu Kapers", transmitted on 24th March 1975, Bill reveals he is a master of the secret Lancastrian martial art known as “Ecky Thump” - which usually entails wearing a giant flat cap and braces and wielding a black pudding as a weapon. Viewer Alex Mitchell of King’s Lynn, Norfolk laughed so much that he fainted, started to breathe unusually and then died of what was suspected as a heart attack. The story made news around the world. It wasn’t until 2012 when his grand-daughter had a similar near fatal cardiac arrest, that doctors realised that it was actually a rare condition known as Long QT Syndrome.

• On the 6th August 1975 the New York Times featured a front-page obituary for renowned fictional detective Hercule Poirot. The story gave a brief history of his career and detailed how Poirot had died at Styles Court, his Essex nursing home - along with fact that he had taken to wearing a wig and false moustache “to disguise the signs of age that offended his vanity”. It also carried a notice from Agatha Christie’s publisher that the final Poirot novel, "Curtain", was to be published on 15th October.

The memory:

Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze

Legendary pulp hero Doc Savage first appeared in his own magazine in March 1933, following on from the success of "The Shadow".  Although often classed as the world's first superhero, he actually had no powers. Instead Clark Savage Jnr had been trained almost from birth by a team of scientists assembled by his father. This punishing regime honed his mind and body, giving him huge strength, agility and fighting skills, a photographic memory and a vast knowledge of science. Main writer Lester Dent envisioned him as a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan, coupled with an innate sense of goodness.

Headquartered on the 86th floor of Manhattan's tallest skyscraper (implied to be the Empire State Building), Doc also possessed a large array of vehicles, futuristic gadgets and weaponry, including the "mercy bullet" which only put its victim to sleep. His fortune came from a hidden South American gold mine that was bequeathed to him after his very first adventure. Lastly he had a secret retreat in the Arctic wastelands known as the 'Fortress of Solitude' (Superman stole that idea) where he could carry out experiments, meditate and get away from the stresses of everyday life.

Possessed of distinctive bronze skin and hair and golden eyes (traits shared by his cousin Patricia) and accompanied by his five friends - Ham, Monk, Renny, Long Tom and Johnny - who were all experts in their chosen fields, Doc punished evildoers and solved mysteries across 181 'super-sagas'  - all the way thorough to 1949. Controversially, Doc also sometimes operated on the brains of the criminals he subdued, curing them of their evil ways.

I first came across Doc and his friends in my mid-teens via some very battered Bantam paperbacks that my friend Matt showed me at a London comic-mart. Bantam had been reprinting the stories since the 1960s, many featuring the now classic James Bama image of a titan of a man with a sharp widows peak hairline and a tattered shirt, showing off his huge muscles. The artwork on the front was certainly intriguing enough but at the time I was more interested in comics and modern science fiction and fantasy novels than pulp stories from the 1930s, so I dismissed them as a relic of the a bygone era...

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Back in the days before it was a countrywide chain of hugely successful multi media pop culture stores, there were two shops called "Forbidden Planet", both in London. In St Giles High Street you had "FP2", which was the film and television hub. This was less than two minutes walk from the flagship store in Denmark Street - and in the 1980s that was the absolute mecca for fans of science fiction, fantasy and comic books.

(From the comics in the window this picture was taken in mid-1987...)

I absolutely *loved* Forbidden Planet. Even now, decades after they have moved premises, I just have to walk past the old shop front and the memories come flooding back from the myriad times I visited over the years, from around 1980 onward. I even went weekly when I started working in the big city. There was no CCTV back then, so after spending five minutes gawping at the current weeks comics displayed in the window, any bags you had were handed in to the guy sat on the stairs as you walked in through the narrow doorway off the street. In return he would hand you half a playing card and clip the other half to your possessions with a clothes peg. Thus crudely identified and secure, you were then allowed through the door on the left into the shop itself.

It was a long narrow space with dozens of  low shelves of novels at the front and racks of comics at the back - with everything else crammed in between. Back issues, posters, artwork, models - it was an absolute cornucopia of stuff, suffused with that old comic book smell which you just don't get in today's pristine mega-stores.  I still have a T-shirt with one of the Brian Bolland promotional images on it (although I'm far too large to fit into it now). I attended signings, made new friends and purchased hundreds of new comics and novels - all thanks to this magical place.

This is all very interesting you might think, but how does this relate to the "Man of Bronze"? Well, Forbidden Planet was where I rediscovered this classic Golden Age character...

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On one of my regular visits to the shop in the summer of 1988, I was doing my usual trawl through the bookshelves in search of something new to read when I came across a deep blue cover showing the figure of a burly man in a ripped shirt in front of a bolt of lightning. "Doc Savage Omnibus  #5" it proclaimed "Five Doc adventure classics in one giant volume!". Vaguely remembering a similar image from many years before, I took a look at the back cover and inside blurb. Hmmm... these stories sounding quite interesting.

You see, in the intervening years I'd learned a new appreciation for the characters from prior decades and those that had been the antecedents of the superheroes that I loved. There was a vast wealth of history out there, both prose and pictorial and now being in my early twenties  - and only very recently having read the bombastic update of "The Shadow" by Howard Chaykin, I was just in the right frame of mind to explore the world of the pulp heroes of the past. Forgoing my usual insistence to only buy a new book series from the first volume (#1-4 not being present on the shelves at the time), I took the omnibus to the friendly guy behind the counter and paid my £5.99.

It's worth mentioning here that it wasn't until much, much later that I discovered that not only was this not the first omnibus in the series, but the stories collected in each book were not even necessarily in chronological order. As I mentioned earlier, Bantam had been reprinting Doc Savage since 1964, but as the tales got shorter they combined them first into double novels and then these multi-story omnibuses. Volume five reprinted "super-saga's" 170-174, but such a sequence was unusual and other books had adventures seemingly at random from across the decades.

At the time though I didn't known any of this, so as I worked my way through "No Light To Die By" and the subsequent stories, I lost myself in a world of 1930s mystery and intrigue with ex-Nazi's, a rented gorilla suit, a female poisoner and a sunken ship. Sure the plots were a bit creaky and obviously of their time, but I found them very enjoyable. This first quintet only featured, Doc, Ham, Monk and a guest appearance from cousin Pat, but mentioned other characters that were "off on their own adventures" or "busy". I wanted to know more, so a few weeks later I went back to Forbidden Planet and found Omnibus # 6. That was it - I was hooked...

Over the coming months and years I would buy all of the Omnibuses and through second hand book-shops and similar places also purchase quite a few of the older Bantam reprints. I never did amass a complete collection of all 181 stories in paperback (I have since through the wonders of e-books), but that was okay. 

Then in 1991 Bantam began printing *new* Doc Savage novels, beginning with "Escape From Loki" by long-time Savage aficionado Philip Jose Farmer (remember him from back in 1971?) and I got all those too, right through until 1993 when the series was first cancelled.

A couple of asides at this point (in a post full of asides). Farmer also wrote a 1973 biography of  Doc Savage from the viewpoint that he was a real person and that "Kenneth Robeson" was just recording fictionalised versions of the Savage memoirs. He also linked Savage to dozens of other fictional characters in his "Wold Newton Universe". I mentioned this briefly before, in my 1969 piece when I wrote about "A Feast Unknown". It's a fascinating idea that blurs the line between fiction and reality. Alan Moore has commented that this concept was a significant influence on his work on the "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" comic book and its various sequels. 

So, we have established that I developed a love of the Doc Savage stories from the 1930s, which I rediscovered in the 1980s and that I read the books well into the 1990s - so how does all this fit into a memory of something released in 1975 ? The answer involves Farmer's other favourite character, Tarzan...

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When I was much younger I loved the "Tarzan" TV series. Although it was originally transmitted between 1966 and 1968, the British TV channel "ITV" showed the series on what seemed like a continuous loop on Saturday mornings in the 1970s. Like the Adam West "Batman" show, it became imprinted on the memories of most children of that decade. I was already familiar with the character from the black and white Johnny Weissmuller movies that my dad liked to watch, but this was a more educated ape-man, returning to the jungle after becoming tired of living amongst "civilised" men. With high production values, action packed storylines and filming in real jungles (admittedly Brazil rather than deepest Africa) it was a technicolour feast for the eyes. Accompanies by local boy Jai and ever-present chimpanzee Cheetah, Tarzan was one of my favourite TV heroes.

The real reason for the show's success was of course the amazing Ron Ely in the title role. An impressive well-built figure who could act, swim, fight and interact with animals - and do all his own stunts - he had a real screen presence and embodied the the role of the Lord of The Apes for a generation.  I've never forgotten him.

Which brings us, at last, to the point of this long rambling piece. One Saturday somewhere around 1989, I was flicking through the TV channels and paused to watch the end of a TV show (the name of which I can't remember). After the credits rolled, there was an announcement of the following programme, something along the lines of "Up next it's the afternoon film. Ron Ely is Doc Savage - The Man Of Bronze".

What !?  WHAT !? There was a Doc Savage movie? How had I missed this? Somehow in the year since I'd started reading the books I'd not come across this fact. Quickly I took a look on the "Teletext" pages for the channel (this is pre-internet remember. Oh and if you don't know when Teletext is, I recommend you look at the pages here. Hours of fun.) Ah, this film was made in 1975 -  that might explain why I had missed it. That plus it probably wasn't shown that often. Or when it was shown the name didn't ring any bells. Who knows. The point was it was on now! This was too good an opportunity to miss. Quickly I grabbed a blank videocassette, put it in my machine and pressed record just as the sonorous voice over and the patriotic strains of John Philip Sousa's "The Thunderer" march began...

Adapting the basic plot of the first novel, "Doc Savage: Man Of Bronze" sees our fearless hero investigating the death of his father. Vowing to solve the murder, Doc and the "Fabulous Five" attempt to travel to the republic of Hidalgo, but are opposed at every turn by a stream of tribal natives, relentless assassins and supernatural creatures - plus the ruthless and maniacal Captain Seas - who wants the riches of Hidalgo for himself.

Many of the core elements of the character are present - the 1930s setting, the 86th floor headquarters, Doc's daily exercise regime, the Fortress of Solitude, the strange "trilling noise" that Doc makes during times of mental stress or excitement and the various eccentricities or habits exhibited by his faithful companions. Even Monk's pet pig Habeus Corpus gets a look in. There are also plenty of bronze coloured retro gadgets and vehicles.

 But if you are expecting a straight-laced action / adventure story in the mold of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", which faithfully adapts the usual serious tone of the novels, well this is not the film for you. If however you enjoy the tongue in cheek, camp, self-aware, winking at the audience kind of thing that the "Batman" TV series did so well, and can go with the flow then you will "get" it. It's very, very silly in places  - for example the cartoonish villain's henchman sleeps in a giant baby crib - and the final fight sequence (with subtitles) has to be seen to be believed, The production values are great but there is some cheap looking animation and the acting is sometimes so far over the top, it comes back down the other side. But the truth is that all of that can be forgiven because it's just so much damn fun and outrageously entertaining - I adored the film that first time I watched it and I still do. This is the kind of film that the words "cult classic" were invented for.

Ron Ely was perfectly cast as Doc. Benevolent, intelligent, always three steps ahead of the bad guys, he exuded charisma and inhabits the role as if it was made for him. Like Adam West before him, Ely plays it absolutely straight even in the oddest of situations. Likewise the look of Johnny, Long Tom, Ham, Monk and Renny may not be exactly true to the books, but they are close enough that you can recognise the characters that Lester Dent created.

Apparently not everyone could see the fun side of having a humourous Doc Savage movie. "Purists" absolutely hated it. I can sort of see their point. They had probably been waiting years for a faithful adaptation of their favourite pulp franchise - and this certainly was not it. Maybe because I had come late to reading the books and only discovered the film fourteen years after its initial release, I was able to enjoy it more on it's own merits rather than weighing it down with decades of expectation. It seems that the musical choices (the Sousa marches, etc,) came in for particular scorn. If you want that all removed and some of the effects updated, there is a fan-edited "Detarnished Edition" out there on the interweb. I do have a copy and while it turns the film into something more akin to a colour version of the old Republic cliffhanger serials, it also loses some of the charm.

There's one other thing that I want to mention about "Man of Bronze" and that's Doc Savage's car. It's a now extremely rare bronze Cord Model 810 convertible with modified running boards (for Clark Savage Jnr to stand on) and it is just absolutely stunning. I have always appreciated cars from the early decades of the 20th century and for me this one is just at the top of the pile. I. Want. That. Car. Sadly unless I win the lottery and can have one custom adapted to look just like that picture below I think I'm out of luck..

In conclusion - more than thirty-five years after reading my first Savage story I still enjoy Doc's adventures in novel and comic book form. There have been multiple suggestions over the decades that a new film version will be made, with everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Dwayne Johnson up for the role. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t. Until then I have the 1975 version of the Man of Bronze and I know I may be in the minority here, but despite its flaws the film always makes me smile. It's not a guilty pleasure at all.

Time for some music...

Honourable mentions:

• Jaws - There are movies you watch - and then there are movies that become part of your DNA. For me, "Jaws" is the latter. It's probably my favourite film of all time and certainly the one I have purchased in more different formats than any other (yes, even the disc for the Phillips LaserVision). It's astonishing that a film made under such difficult conditions ended up being just about perfect. John Williams' iconic score. The superb performances - especially from the magnetic Robert Shaw. The way that being forced to keep the shark mostly unseen actually makes the film better. Fifty years later it's as powerful and scary and dramatic as ever. I've watched it more times than I can count and I love every single frame. It's not just nostalgia. "Jaws" was the first film where I wanted to know how it was made - that got me interested in the art of film-making. The first film where I knew the name of the director and followed his career. The first film I could quote lines from. I may never need a bigger boat - but I'll always need "Jaws".

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show - There was a time in my late teens / early 20s when "Rocky Horror" wasn't just a movie - it was a lifestyle. I must have been watching it on a weekly basis. Richard O'Brien was my idol. I went to every live stage show and film screening I could find. I dressed up as Brad in his lab coat and white underwear. I shouted out talk-back lines, threw rice, toast and toilet paper with gusto. I bought every LP going. In short, I was addicted. There's something about "Rocky Horror" that just spoke to me. It wasn't just Tim Curry strutting his stuff in fishnets and a basque. It wasn't just the marvelous songs where I knew every lyric. For someone that didn't have a lot of friends (especially after leaving school) it gave me a sense of belonging. And although the decades have passed and I fell in love with other things, I only have to hear the opening notes of "Science Fiction, Double Feature" to be back in that time.

• Space:1999 - In my humble opinion this is Gerry Anderson's finest live action series (although I do have a lot of affection for "UFO"). It helps that it has one of the best theme's in the history of SF television. Barry Gray's thunderous orchestral blast, the whining electric guitar riffs accompanied by glimpses of what was in the episode this week. It's simply glorious. The show has an absurd premise really - a nuclear explosion blows the moon out of orbit, where it travels across interstellar space in mere months. But this wasn't "Star Trek". It was more philosophical. More eerie. Yes, there were monsters (none more horrifying that the tentacled horror from "Dragon's Domain"), but there was time to ponder the meaning of life. Martin Landau was never less than brooding magnificence and Barbara Bain was worthy if a little dull. My favourite though was the wonderful Barry Morse as Professor Victor Bergman. He wasn't the flashy science guy - he was warm, grounded and had a kind of quiet sadness about him. A shame he only lasted the one series. The second not only dropped him (and the fabulous Main Mission set), but also the theme and the more serious elements - going for a "creature of the week" vibe that never quite worked. At least we still had the Eagles and the Com-Locks and the Stun Guns. Those are technical elements that still stand up today. Oh and yes, like every school boy, I did have a massive crush on Catherine Schell as Maya...