Avon's FLASH GORDON Novels (1974)

In 1974, Avon Books published a half-dozen Flash Gordon novels by "Con Steffanson," a pseudonym of noted science fiction author Ron Goulart. This was part of a publishing program that also included paperback adventure novels chronicling the exploits of King Features' other comic strip heroes, The Phantom and Mandrake The Magician, playing into the wave of nostalgia for Thirties & Forties pop culture that was around at the time.

Unlike the David Hagberg Flash Gordon novels that Tempo Books would publish about a half-decade later, these six volumes followed the continuity and characterizations of the original comic strips fairly closely, with half of the books set on Mongo. The other three, on the other hand, harkened more to the 50s and 60s version of the newspaper strip, with Flash, Dale & Zarkov scooting around to other planets, fighting villains other than Ming and his minions. They're fairly fast reading - obviously aimed at teens - and while they have their moments of Goulart's trademark odd humor, they're also crackin' good space adventure yarns.

I didn't have these books when I was a kid, either*. At ten years-old, I wouldn't have had any idea who Flash Gordon was. If they had seen print just a few years later, around the time of the Filmation cartoon or the Mike Hodges' feature, I'm sure I would have been a lot more interested, especially with those gorgeous cover paintings by veteran paperback and Gold Key Comics artist George Wilson (which explains why it looks a lot like Magnus, Robot Fighter is on cover #2, I guess).

They may not have been on my radar in '74, but their existence does show that even in the years just before the success of Star Wars made Flash (and his comic strip cohort, Buck Rogers) hot cinematic properties again, the iconic interplanetary hero was still a part of the Seventies sci-fi spacescape.

*Instead, I found a copy of #3, The Space Circus, in a used bookstore in Tampa, Florida back around '99, and have been since picking up the other ones online whenever I find affordable copies available. All I need now is #6....

August's Space Babe: Lea Brodie

 

Beautiful brunette Lea Brodie as Delphine, in the John Dark/Kevin Connor production of Warlords Of Atlantis (1977). This month's Space Babe comes from inner space in the fine form of an Atlantean slave girl who comes to the aid of stranded 19th Century mariners led by stalwart Doug McClure (The Land That Time Forgot, At The Earth's Core) in this fun, Saturday matinee lost world adventure.

I admit it - Lea was not my original choice for August, but I just received and watched my new imported-from-the-UK Warlords Of Atlantis DVD and was struck by the beauty of the young actress, whom I immediately recognized from her role in the Roger Moore film, ffolkes. And since this is my blog, she gets this month's nod for Space Babe!

The lovely Lea (also known as Lea Dregorn) had a very brief acting career in the Seventies, appearing on British television programs (including a first year episode of Space: 1999, "Force of Life"), stage, and in a handful of feature films. She retired from acting in the 80s, and is now a spiritual and holistic healer.

Her website.

SPACE: 1999 (1975) U.K. Annuals

 Here are five (I'm not sure how many there were, in all, though I'm sure one of our UK Star Kids could tell me) British childrens' Annuals for Gerry Anderson's Space: 1999. Growing up in the United States, I never saw any of these hardcover publications until I was in my twenties and going to comics and science fiction conventions, so I have a bit of a fascination with them. It seems like almost every genre show, no matter how short-lived, had at least one tie-in Annual published, including Man From Atlantis, Logan's Run and Star Maidens!

Someday it would be nice to collect these....

UPDATED: A loyal Space: 1970 fan over on Facebook kindly provided the fifth cover above. It actually may be my favorite. I kinda like those Year Two monsters... I just wish we hadn't seen them re-used on the show so damned much!

Just Another Martian Monday

You know, if I had more on the ball, I would have recognized today's Mars Curiosity Rover landing with a full review of the 1980 television miniseries, The Martian Chronicles, based on the book by Ray Bradbury, with a screenplay by Richard Matheson, directed by Logan's Run's Michael Anderson. But I was, frankly, clueless as usual.

Instead - here are links to the two previous posts I've done on the telefilm (which I actually like a great deal, by the way), and will try to to re-watch the DVD (pictured above) and get a review posted here soon.

The Martian Chronicles (1980) Posters

The Martian Chronicles (1980) TV Guide Ads

You can buy the DVD here (cheap!):  The Martian Chronicles

THE CRATER LAKE MONSTER (1977) Theatrical Poster

Pretty much the only good thing about Crown International Pictures' 1977 drive-in fodder, The Crater Lake Monster, is the evocative theatrical one-sheet pictured here. (I'm sure someone out there knows who the artist is.) Unfortunately, the movie itself is an ultra-cheapo bore with a no-star cast that only sparks to life during the all-too-brief instances where the titular monster is on screen.

Of course, the film's creature looks nothing like the Tyrannosaur-like beastie on the poster, instead resembling some sort of mutant plesiosaur/salamander hybrid. To be fair, the stop-motion animation in the movie, executed by David Allen, is actually pretty good - there's just not enough of it.

Surprisingly, The Crater Lake Monster is actually available on Blu-ray disc, paired up with Crown International's space spoof Galaxina. And... yeah, I own it.

Captain's bLog: 0803.12

•  July was the biggest month ever here at Space: 1970, both in number of items posted and in traffic/pageviews. Somehow, after the relative blogging drought earlier this year, I managed to somehow come up with 49 posts in July - a personal best. Don't expect me to keep it up, though; I've got a big writing project on my desk this month (my first pulp novel) that will undoubtedly cut into my blogging activities. Still, I'll do my best not to neglect this site too much.

Over on Facebook, the Space: 1970 fan page surpassed 1,000 "Likes," while the blog itself garnered over 42,000 pageviews in July. Another milestone this month was the most generous Paypal contribution from a Space: 1970 reader yet - it allowed me to buy the second season of The Six Million Dollar Man far sooner than I'd anticipated, and made it possible for me to order the new Warlords Of Atlantis DVD from the UK. Look for reviews of both items here on the site soon. (BTW, if you'd like to contribute to the site, the "Tip" button is in the sidebar to the right, just beneath Princess Ardala - an enviable position, to be sure.)

I also want to thank every person who has used the Amazon links on this site to make purchases of vintage sci-fi on DVD/Blu-ray. Getting that little kickback from Amazon every month helps me rationalize all the time and effort I put into this otherwise non-paying endeavor. It really helps and is greatly appreciated.

•  Speaking of DVD reviews, I finally got my Invisible Man review up a few days ago. I'm about halfway through the Star Maidens DVDs that I ordered from England, so I should get a review of that series posted sometime this month. It's an "interesting" show, and I'm glad I picked it up.

•  Finally, the usual Blatant Cross-Promotion: Anyone who enjoys my writing and reviews on this blog  should check out my DVD Late Show site, where I have been reviewing B-movies, cult films and genre television shows on DVD and Blu-ray disc since 2005. Among the over 700 reviews are plenty of Space: 1970-era favorites, like Battle Beyond The Stars, Damnation Alley, Starcrash, The Starlost, the Space: 1999 Blu-rays, and many more.

Rant: Wilma Deering, From Colonel To Carhop

While I don't hate (too strong a word to describe my disappointment) the second season of Buck Rogers In the 25th Century, I do despise what the producers and writers did to Erin Gray's character of Wilma Deering. In the first season, she was a military professional, portrayed as competent, courageous, and compassionate, with a charmingly sly sense of humor. Her form-fitting uniforms accentuated her sexuality, absolutely, but they also seemed somehow more empowering than exploitative. (Especially since most of the men dressed the same way.)

In the second season, her character became considerably less interesting. Whereas in the first year, she had been one of the top-ranking officers (if not the top-ranking one) of Earth's Defense Force, year two had her assigned to the crew of the Searcher starship, where her duties were ill-defined, but usually involved opening hailing frequencies, looking worried, or sweating a lot while she waited for the men to save the ship from the peril of the week. We rarely saw her on missions, and I don't think she even piloted a fighter once in the whole second year. Her uniform - complete with skirt - made her look like a drive-in carhop.

Erin Gray is an icon of the Space: 1970 era, not just because she looked stunning in spandex, but because her Wilma Deering, while not always served well by the scripts, was still a memorably strong character. Over the 21 episodes of Buck's first season the actress managed to convincingly portray a genuine evolution from cold, remote military automaton to a warm, humorous, full-blooded woman, equal to the series' male lead in every way. Hell, the best-written moment of the season's last episode had Gray's character come right out and acknowledge that evolution... and Gray nails the scene.

That sort of character work was especially rare in network television of the era.

Too bad that when the re-tooled series came back for its second year, Wilma's character regressed to the stereotypes of 50s and 60s sci-fi, narratively subservient to the male characters, dressed in outfits that emphasized the sterotypes of her gender, virtually reduced to window dressing in the background.

I mean, there are a lot of problems with Buck's sophomore season, but it's the treatment of Gray's character that irritates me the most.

And... this has been your aging fanboy rant for the week. Funny, I started out just wanting to post a couple of publicity shots of the lovely Ms. Gray (because, let's face it - that's what most people come here for in the first place), but the differences between the outfits (and character attitude) in the two stills just started to get under my skin....