Marvel Zombies-review

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17785970-marvel-zombies" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Marvel Zombies: The Complete Collection Volume 1" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1384736825m/17785970.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17785970-marvel-zombies">Marvel Zombies: The Complete Collection Volume 1</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12736.Mark_Millar">Mark Millar</a><br/>
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The only reaction one can have when reading this is "WHAT THE F---?" Who would possess anyone to do something like this? Through a twisted warped looking glass, indeed. The heroes you all know and love devour the world in the ultimate Zombie Apocalypse scenario. Not surprising perhaps since it sprang from the mind of Robert Kirkman, the same joker who gave us The Walking Dead comic that the TV series is based on. Giant Man himself has gone from a selfless brilliant scientist to a duplicitous back stabbing fiend. And this is only the first series! my favorite part is the panel where Spider-Man finally gets his revenge on J. Jonah Jameson. Just desserts. Surprisingly enjoyable, very warped, very perverse, I leave to the reader whether this is your bag.
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The Challenge of Ideas (1961)

John Wayne actually has only a small part to play in this 30-minute documentary. Host Edward R. Murrow assures us that the threat of Communism is "a conflict unlike any we have ever faced in our history as a nation>" Hmm, that has a familiar ring....These people ought to have realized the American character is too stubborn ie thick to ever willingly put Communists in any position of power in our fair nation. No, we have our own stupid politicians to mislead us.

The Duke joins a short parade of experts designed to sway our opinion about the Communist threat and to remind us of the need for vigilance. Although to suggest as Hanson Baldwin does that we had a "hands-off", benevolent policy towards the uncommitted (or even our committed) countries of the world is disingenious  at best; at worst it's perjury! When it came to thrid-world nations, the Soviet Bloc & us both acted like fish-heads.

Frank McGee narrated the section on Economic 'penetration' by the Communists; & I'm sorry, but just hearing that name reminds me a Jack McGee from the "Incredible Hulk" TV series. To his credit his name-checks the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which will probably be the one & only time where a right-wing documentary portrays anything from the United Nations in a positive light.

Duke shows up five minutes in, and soon offers up what I think may be the best summary of what it means to be an American: "As a people we are often active & noisy...We are industrious, often to the bafflement of ourselves & our friends...We relax as hard as we work. We are proud, we are sentimental. Beauty is of national concern to us. For some of us it's a deadly serious past-time. The rest of us simply enjoy the results." Our greatest value is our freedom,as Duke points out, ;our ability to act as a responsible being; our right to explore the truth & to govern ourselves.

This was beamed into our homes as part of the Big Picture series, & produced by the Department of Defense's Information agency. This doc is no better or worse than other propaganda pieces of the time, or any of the productions the Duke saw fit to shove in our faces during that period.

The Comancheros (1961)

I sincerely hope the Duke had a stunt double for that scene where he & Stuart Whitman were supposed to be hanging by their arms in the desert sun. That'd be a lot to ask of a 54 year old actor. Stuart Whitman & John Wayne made a very odd couple in this flick, but they're an agreeable pairing, given to a lot of verbal sparring. It's a shame they didn't pair up for more films.

It begins with a duel in which Whitman's character Paul Regret wins. Unfortunately he's done so right at the exact tune that dueling became illegal in Louisiana. That puts him in the sights of Texas Ranger Jake Cutter (Duke). I don't know who gave it to him worse on that steamboat; the Duke or Pilar (Ina Balin), the Hispanic lady he tried to hook up with. Sad;y for him, Pilar is a strong-willed woman who regards love as a game of war.

Now the only thing my son Nathan could think of after Regret clocks Cutter with a shovel was that scene from "Blazing Saddles" where Clevon Little does the same to Slim Pickens. Before long Cutter has to recruit his own prisoner Regret in an undercover operation to find the outlaw band of the film title. What they are is a secret society of banditos, a literal army fond of inflicting the cruelest punishments, even on their own members.

Here Regret is reunited with Pilar, the daughter of Graille, the man in charge of this merry band. A frantic wagon chase ensues with both Comancheros and their white bandits brothers in hot pursuit. The Texas Rangers arrive just in time to save our heroes.

It's a bit of a family affair as far as casting went. Duke's son Patrick Wayne makes his third appearance in one of his father's films, this time in a minor role as rookie Ranger Tobe. Although here he was billed as 'Pat' Also on board was his five-year-old daughter Aissa Wayne in an uncredited part as Bessie Marshall. She was his child, ironically enough, by his wife Pilar, and this would be little Aissa's second time in a Duke film, after the previous year's "The Alamo".

Don't miss Lee Marvin's brief part as the drunken ill-tempered gun-runner Crow. His luck to be just a tad slower on the draw than the Duke. The producer by the way was George Sherman, the director of all the Duke's Three Mesquiteer movies in 1938-39. Sherman would return one last time to direct "Big Jake".

Elmer Bernstein delivers a solid soundtrack that keeps the ball rolling. This movie was everything you would expect from a western, and everyone seemed to enjoy being a part of it, judging by the big grin Duke wore throughout the picture. One last footnote: Cutter is referred to as Big Jake in the end, which would be the same of another John Wayne movie in the future.

Arizona (1931)

   Ever see a movie for which you had low expectations but was actually better than you hoped? This old black-&-whitey looked to be another in a long line of college football flicks the Duke played in during his early career. John Wayne gets second-billed under Laura La Plante as Bob Denton, a West Point-bound ball player for whom she's fallen. The scene in the locker room gives us the chance to see the young Duke's slim & powerful pecs.
   I think they may have used actual footage from an Army-Navy game in the opening sequence. Oldie movies in some ways are like a time machine, where you can glimpse the ways people viewed the world in that time. Those turn of the century football uniforms for instance had none of the padding we've grown accustomed to today; and god, the helmets are no protection at all, just skullcaps fitting close over their head and ears.
   La Plante plays Evelyn Palmer, a lady who's the latest in a long line of lady friends for Denton (Duke). She wants marriage but he's not interested; in fact he tells her, "My women understand me--they take one look and know they can expect nothing." So how does she respond to this rebuff? Well, just as Denton's about to be transferred to Arizona, she romances and marries his mentor, Colonel Frank Bonham, who regards Denton almost as a son.
   The pair were bound to meet again, and for him it's a very stiff and awkward moment. The first thing he tells Evelyn once they're alone is, naturally, "what a rotten thing to do." In a way it's his own damn fault, but he finds a more compatible partner in Evelyn's batty sister Bonnie (June Clyde). You may notice if you ever watch this that the players are all talking a bit too loudly. Film hadn't quite broken from the stage traditions, and besides, it's doubtful that in 1931 they had very good microphones to work with. Still, we have an opportunity to hear Duke sing with Bonnie in his own voice, which wasn't so bad after all; better than the dubs they inflicted on him in his later singing cowboy movies.
   Duke & Bonnie marry in secret. Unfortunately he plays Good Samaritan to a drunken Hispanic girl (yep, it begins that early, the drunken Mexican cliche). Evelyn is right behind him in another car and draws all the wrong conclusions. In an act of spite she rips her own dress and practically accuses Duke of rape in front of his Colonel. He's either too stunned or hurt to defend himself and is forced to resign from the Army.
   I've lost all sympathy for Evelyn at this point; bad enough she drags my mother's name through the dirt. But that conniving wench justifies herself on the grounds that she was protecting sister Bonnie from Duke, totally unaware that they're already married. By the time she realizes this and fesses up to Col. Bonham, he doesn't believe her. The tangled web of lies does fall apart in the end,and the Colonel becomes the better man by forgiving both Duke and his errant wife.
   Good use was made of the play by Augustus E. Thomas that this movie was based on. It's also a pretty good example of  one where the Duke doesn't dominate the film with his sheer presence. At times a heartbreaker, it's not easy to sit through at times but it all works out by the end.
   

The Lawless Range (1935)

   Good thing this was John Wayne's final outing as a singing cowboy; they'd been turning into a great source of embarrassment to him every time a child asked him to sing at personal appearances. Sorry, kids, he just didn't have the same golden yodel as Jack Kirk, who voice was dubbed in to substitute for the Duke's on this film.
   This time out John Wayne appears as...well, John Middleton; he was so close to playing himself the other players didn't even have to forget his real name. John Middleton's father has sent him to help his old pal Emmett. By the time he reaches the territory he's been cornered first by rustlers, rescued a girl who trains her gun on him at first, then flees the posse that was sent after the rustlers. Well, the posse in its infinite wisdom feel its their duty to bring 'im back to town where they can hang him properly. Luckily the plucky lass he'd rescued before rides into town just into time to vouch for him.
   I had a feeling that banker Cater was behind the whole plot to drive all the ranchers off their land; score one for me. Not a big surprise that in the depths of the Depression, it was easy for filmmakers to pinpoint money-men and lawyers as easy villain material.
   Republic Pictures commits the sin of dubbing the Duke's singing voice twice, and the first time they simply recycled "A Cowboy's Song of Fate" from his first singing cowboy flick Riders of Destiny. Then they repeat the sin by having him serenade lady love Sheila Bromley (credited as Sheila Mannors) in a porch swing. It was kind of a return appearance for her, as she'd already been his lady sidekick in his previous singing oater, Westward Ho (1935), Republic Pictures first motion picture production. From this point on whenever we hear the Duke sing, it'll be in his own voice, and usually in a scene where he's portraying a drunk.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/michael-robbins/riders-of-destiny-1933/390382704351339

https://www.facebook.com/notes/michael-robbins/the-man-from-utah-1934/390397254349884

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The Three Mesquiteers

   William Colt McDonald's western novels tracked all the way back to 1929. By far his most famous creations were the Three Mesquiteers, three cowpokes who righted wrongs in the Wild West. Basically it was the Three Musketeers on horseback, although technically there were four Musketeers in Alexander Dumas' novels. Hollywood wasted very little time in adapting his 1934 novels Powdersmoke Range & Law of the Forty-Fives into major motion pictures, with Harry Carey Sr. as 'Tuscon' Smith.
   These first Mesquiteers films arrived in 1935, the same year Republic Pictures was born from a merger of Consolidated Film Laboratories, Monogram Pictures, Mascot Pictures and other odds and ends. It should come as no surprise that John Wayne had worked at Monogram and Mascot in the 30's. One of Republic's money-making ideas was to launch a western series based on McDonald's Three Mesquiteers characters.
   Ironically the Duke was on his last days as a B-Western actor when he took the role of Stoney Brooke, alongside Ray 'Crash' Corrigan as Tuscon Smith & Max Terhune as Lullaby Joslin and his dummy Elmer. I remember Corrigan as the dashing Navy man from the Republic serial "Undersea Kingdom"; I watched that as a kid in the third grade--in re-runs--on TV! Nope, no way was I young enough to have seen those in theaters! Thanks to this, 'The Purple Monster Strikes!', 'Captain America' and others, I grew to love them old-time serials from a young age.
   But I'm forgetting the Duke. Between 1936's The Three Mesquiteers to 1943's Riders of the Rio Grande, Republic released 51 pictures in the series, films usually under an hour long which mixed modern settings and traditional cowboy iconography such as cattle drives, gold strikes and horseback rides. Nine teams of actors filled the three main roles over the years. Since it was the 1930's, bankers & lawyers usually stood in for the villians. As Stoney Brooke, Duke had a woman in every ranch.
   Duke's first Mesquiteer outing was 1938's Pales of the Saddle, which opens, oddly enough on a World War One battlefield. The plot involves foreign agents trying to smuggle chemical agent monium to Mexico for use in making poison gas. Stoney stumbles into the murder of a government agent at his hotel, and finds himself accused of the murder by the dead man's partner Ann (Doreen McKay).
   They say Duke was a natural actor and you can see it written all over his face: "Christ, not another movie where I'm the guy falsely accused of a murder I didn't commit an' someone else has to save my bacon!" It's actually not the first time this has happened in his B-westerns. This time it's his pal Lullaby posing as the sheriff who sneaks him out of the hotel.
   Ann forces Stoney (Duke) to go undercover in a dark jacket and three-day-old beard, which kind of suits him. Be on the alert for the cliche spy with the narrow German face and thick eyeglasses. By the time Ann brings back the 81st Cavalry, the Mesquiteers pretty much had things wrapped up.
   The next film, Overland Stage Raiders (also from 1938) involves bandits holding up gold shipments until our heroes decide to ship the gold out by airplane. When the plane goes missing, it's up to the Mesquiteers to track it down. This was a curious creature involving gangsters, posses, buses, train-robbers, and another good-lookin' dame in Louis Brooks--yeh, the famous silent film starlet in her final picture. She'd traded in her page-boy haircut for shoulder length style, and she's still a knock-out.
   This was basically a cookie-cutter series with recyclable plots, backdrops and cardboard characters, which nonetheless made for an exciting ride. In all fairness, these films were very popular in their day, serving as a considerable career boost thanks to the great exposure on the marquee. Duke starred in eight of these films between 1938 to '39, and after this he never had to work in a B-western again.
 
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Red River (1948)

   John Ford was as famous for abusing his actors as much as for his brilliance as a director. So it must have come as quite a compliment when he commented on John  Wayne's performance in 'Red River', "I didn't know the big son of a bitch could act." And to think, the Duke had only been in 10 Ford movies before that...
   This movie was based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Borden Chase, who along with screenwriter Charles Schnee adopted it for the screen. Might explain the diary entries that pop up onscreen at various times as the story progresses. Duke takes a dark turn in his first pairing with director Howard Hawks. His role is Tom Dunson, a stubborn man who won't mind ya for nuthin', not even for the love of his woman. An Indian raid takes her, and all he gets for his troubles as he crosses into Texas is a young boy he finds with a cow. That boy, Matthew Garth, will be like a son to Dunson. Walter Brennan is there as Groot, the first of many old coots to appear alongside the Duke in years to come.
   The pair turn out to be two sides of the same stubborn coin, the main difference being Matt hasn't entirely lost his heart. For Dunson, that's a sign of weakness. 14 years pass and Dunson has the biggest damn ranch in all of Texas, which pretty much counts for squat unless he can get over 900 head of cattle to market in Missouri. The make-up effects on the Duke as he transitions to an older man are extraordinary. His change from a stern taskmaster goes from bad to worse as the cattle drive progresses. Word comes to them of a quicker route to Abilene, but Dunson is too dense to chance it.
   It's a bit like those wildebeest migrations you see on National Geographic, with cattle substituted, jostling across rivers and prairies. The inevitable stampede is brought on by a klutz who's fond of stealing sugar from the grub wagon. At one point Dunson is about to hang two deserters, and that's when Matt is forced to take charge. He leaves Dunson, his mentor and father-figure, with a shot-up hand and Dunson's promise that he's gonna kill him.
   Of course thee's the circle of wagons surrounded by Indians, where Matt meets his lady love Tess Millay after he rides into the wagon train. She's a plucky young lass with a bad shot. She's still joking with him, even after she gets an arrow in the shoulder. Like Dunson before him Matt can't stay, but he leaves her with the bracelet Dunson had given him, the one that had belonged to his dead lover.
   The shadow of Dunson is never far from anyone's mind. In fact he's only ten days behind Matt's drive when he encounters the wagon train. Tess matches wits with Dunson, persuading him to bring her with the gang of desperadoes he's rounded up to deal with Matt.
   After last minute doubts and foreboding, the cattle drive crosses the tracks into Abilene, and boy is that conductor glad to see them, or at least their beef. Western hero Harry Carey Sr. greets them in Abilene as Melville, the man about to buy their cattle. This would be the veteran's fourth and final time to appear alongside the Duke in film.
   The fateful confrontation with Dunson arrives, for which I have only one gripe. We know he's brought about a dozen hired killers with him to Abilene, but--they don't DO anything! They don't even follow Dunson as he tramples into town. They simply disappear, out of sight and mind. It's like he doesn't even need them, which leads to the inevitable question: why the hell did he hired them in the first place?
   Even the cattle know to get out of his way. Now granted John Wayne isn't the best actor in the world, but once he fixes that dark, angry glare on you, even the strongest man wants to run away. He has that scowl on every step he takes toward Matt, firing left and right while Matt never flinches. Just when you think he's gonna beat the crap out of him--WHOMP! Matt comes to life and meets him blow for blow.
   The only thing that stops them is Tess coming in with a few well-placed shots. She then treats both men to the tongue-lashing they've both had coming, verbally unloading on them with both barrels. She leaves them both tongue-tied; I guess it takes a woman all fired up to effect a reconciliation between two such hard nuts.
   Speaking of which, this was Montgomery Clift's film debut, a great source of discomfort for the Duke not only because their political views didn't square, but on account of Cleft's homosexuality. Everyone agreed to put politics aside, which made shooting that much easier, but the OTHER thing...Nobody gives a lick about that nowadays--everybody knows there's a large contingent of gay actors in Hollywood. In 1948, in fact until very recently, nobody talked about it at all. John Ireland (Cherry Valance), another gay co-star, was Clift's emm, buddy at the time, shall we say. Not that there's anything wrong about that...
   Yeh, I've run on and on too much about this film, but that's because it's that good, livid with breath-taking scenery, unconvincing backdrops, a tense drama and one of the darkest performances of Duke's career. Expertly recommended.