THROWBACK THURSDAY: Gil Kane

When you're a very young kid reading comics you don't really pay attention to the credits.

Before I became a serious collector in my late teens/early 20s, I was picking up random issues as and when I could find them - either the original colour American comics or the black and white reprints that came out over here.

But I couldn't tell you who drew them. To be honest, I doubt I could have even told you who had written them!

I'm not sure when it happened, but the first artist whose style I recognised as distinctively different, and actively sought out, was that of Gil Kane. I liked his stark lines.

Then my tastes expanded to being able to pick out the work of Carmine Infantino whose art, to my untrained and uneducated eye, I thought was quite similar to Kane's work.

But it's Kane's illustrations that have always held a particular nostalgia for me, taking me to being a little kid, with my comics spread across the bedroom floor, following the adventures of sundry superheroes around imaginary cities, throughout space, and even into different dimensions.

Monday (April 6) was the 100th anniversary of Kane's birth.

PULP PICTURE OF THE MONTH: Tarzan And The Leopard Woman (1946)

Growing up in the '70s, Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan reruns were a fixture on television's three channels. My favourite was Tarzan And The Leopard Woman.

Sadly, these days, despite the millions of channels we now have on offer, you rarely - if ever - see the old Tarzan movies, so I had to turn to eBay to pick up a bargain DVD box set of half-a-dozen Tarzan tales, including Tarzan And The Leopard Woman.

I hadn't seen this film for decades and had forgotten what it was that had so appealed to me as a youngster. Turns out it was cosplay.

Within moments I was transported back to my childhood; with my parents' old leopard-print car rug thrown over my shoulders and a handful of cutlery I became a leopard god-worshipping cultist again!

The Leopard Men, wearing their parents' old car rugs...

Tarzan And The Leopard Woman is a very simple, but smart, 75-minute tale, about a tribe of leopard god worshippers, who mask their attacks as the work of real leopards, trying to prevent British colonists from forcing 'civilization' on their home land.

The cultists are aided by Ameer Lazar (Edgar Barrier), a Western-educated native doctor who resents the West's domination of the area, but they foolishly think they're smarter than Tarzan.

Tarzan is joined by stalwart companions Jane (Brenda Joyce), Boy (Johnny Sheffield) and Cheeta the chimpanzee.

But trouble starts brewing on the home-front with the arrival of Kimba (Tommy Cook), who claims to be have gotten lost in the jungle, but is actually the younger brother of the Leopard Men's priestess Queen Lea (Acquanetta).

Young Kimba is torn between his boyish crush on Jane and his desire to prove himself as a warrior and return to the Leopard Men with her heart... literally.

Having tricked the colonials into thinking the attacks on caravans were simply the work of hungry leopards, and that they had now wiped them out, the Leopard Men then launch an attack on a caravan bearing four young women from Zambezi, destined to become teachers in the new British colony.

The women, along with Tarzan, Jane and Boy, are kidnapped - to be sacrificed to the Leopard God.

But luckily Cheeta is on hand to save the day!

The truth is, watched with 21st Century eyes, we have to have a certain amount of sympathy for the "bad guys", but - as is often the case - they simply go too far.

Tarzan And The Leopard Woman is a glorious slice of black-and-white pulp adventure, with the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden doubling nicely as the African jungle.

Queen Lea of The Leopard Men (Acquanetta).

PULP PICTURE OF THE MONTH: The Legend Of Tarzan (2016)

To cut a long story short, The Legend Of Tarzan wasn't just the best action movie of the year it was released, but also found a place as one of my all-time favourites.

Director David Yates' period piece is as near perfect a Tarzan tale as I could have hoped for, drawing on Edgar Rice Burroughs' source material (as well as the popular pulp era movies) to serve up a true edge-of-the-seat, straight-forward, non-stop, roller coaster of an old school, ripping yarns adventure.

Simply put, they don't make films like this any more... more's the pity.

It's Africa in the late 19th Century and Belgium emissary Leon Rom (Spectre's Christoph Waltz) is the sole survivor of a diamond-hunting raid on the mythical city of Opar. Captured by Chief Mbonga (Guardians Of The Galaxy's Djimon Hounsou), Rom is offered a deal for access to the city's diamond supply: he must bring the chief's arch-enemy to him. This being Tarzan!

Tarzan aka Lord John Clayton III (True Blood's Alexander Skarsgård) has returned to England and is living the life of a lord with his lovely wife, Jane (Suicide Squad's Margot Robbie).

He receives an invitation from King Leopold of Belgium to visit the Congo and is reluctantly persuaded by American George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) to take up the offer, as George wants to follow up rumours of illegal slavery in the country.

Along with Jane, the two men head to Africa, and the pretence of John Clayton's invitation being a diplomatic issue is quickly torn asunder when Rom and his mercenaries attack the village where our heroes are staying, kidnapping Jane in the process.

The Legend Of Tarzan then becomes a race against time, not only to rescue Jane, but then to prevent Rom getting the diamonds to the coast to pay off a huge mercenary army that will soon be landing to enslave the country's entire native population to work for King Leopold.

As well as drawing on the traditional source material, both Burroughs' novels and the early films (there's a couple of Weissmuller yodels - but given a more bestial remix - as well as visual nods to my favourite Johnny Weissmuller outing as Tarzan: 1946's Tarzan And The Leopard Woman), The Legend Of Tarzan also draws heavily in tone and style from another of my all-time favourite pulp action films: Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

Waltz, while playing a variation of his usual deadpan arrogance, is essentially a different take on Paul Freeman's Belloq. The dinner scene between Rom and Jane is a clear homage - down to the knife-stealing - of the similar scene in Raiders, between Belloq and Marion.

The Raiders' tone is also reflected in the moments of levity that slip seamlessly between the darker, more violent, episodes (I'd cite the fight between Tarzan and a train carriage full of soldiers as a particularly strong example of the balance of action and humour).

The CGI effects are slick, dynamic, and beautiful, sucking you into the film rather than shattering any suspension of belief you may require for Tarzan's magnificent, superhuman, displays of strength, endurance, and agility, or his - and others- interactions with the fearsome wild life of Africa.

Kudos also to scriptwriters Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer for a screenplay that continually escalates to a monumental showdown, while cleverly weaving in Tarzan's origin story - in flashbacks - without reducing The Legend Of Tarzan to being simply yet another retelling of the 'birth' of Tarzan Of The Apes.

If you like old school adventure movies, particularly those that inspired, or were inspired by, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, then this is the film for you. It's exciting, inventive, and thrilling, modern-yet-retro, and a must see for Tarzan fans new and old.

PULP PICTURE OF THE MONTH: Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959)

... Or "The One Where Tarzan Kills James Bond!"

Blacked up to pass as natives, four Western criminals raid an African settlement to steal explosives and supplies, killing a couple of people in the process.

The only lead the authorities and Tarzan (Gordon Scott) have is the name 'Slade', but it's a name Tarzan knows well as he has history with this ruthless, thrill-seeking, big game hunter.

Following Slade's boat upriver, Tarzan rescues gobsmackingly-gorgeous aviatrix Angie (Sara Shane) when her light plane crashes in the jungle (admittedly she was showing off, trying to attract the Ape Man's attention!).

Sara Shane as Angie

Slade (Anthony Quayle) and his compatriots - hard drinking and slightly moronic O'Bannion (Sean Connery); boat-master Dino (Al Mulock); and creepy German Kruger (Niall Macginnis); along with Slade's moll, Toni (Scilla Gabel) - are heading for a secret diamond mine that Slade knows about... so they can pocket the precious stones.

That is, as long as they don't kill each other before they get there.

And as long as they can evade Tarzan!

As well as actually being filmed in Africa (Kenya), Tarzan's Greatest Adventure is quite a grown-up take on the legend of Tarzan, sticking closer to the brutality of Edgar Rice Burroughs' original tales - even if Scott is still quite a well groomed and clean-shaven Lord of the Jungle.

The bulk of the movie focuses on Tarzan's manhunt for the murderous Westerners, as the villainous party is gradually whittled down ahead of the inevitable - but still rather impressive - climactic confrontation between Tarzan and Slade. 

As usual with a Tarzan flick of this era, the film features a fair amount of stock wild animal footage, but the bulk of the film rests on the shoulders of its two male leads - Scott and Quayle - who deliver powerful performances.

Without any reference to Jane in the film, Sara Shane, who has a certain Gillian Anderson quality to her, is not only a beautiful companion for the Lord of the Jungle, but is also - in her last cinematic role - clearly able to hold her own.

However, when - at the denouement, even after some off-screen rumpy pumpy - Tarzan has to choose between the woman and his life in the jungle, guess which he chooses?

Gordon Scott & Sara Shane as Tarzan & Angie in Tarzan's Greatest Adventure

PULP PICTURE OF THE MONTH: Tarzan, The Ape Man (1959)

Billed erroneously on television as the 1932 Johnny Weissmuller original (his first Tarzan flick), Tarzan, The Ape Man turned out to be the 1959 remake starring blonde-haired Denny Miller in his only outing as the Lord of The Jungle.

Rather a mess from start to finish, this low-budget, colour reworking of the original black-and-white movie is padded with jarringly incongruous stock footage and footage re-purposed from the Weissmuller movie (including shots of Weissmuller swinging through the trees), given a slight tint as a cheap stab at making it blend.

There's also a scene of Tarzan wrestling a crocodile randomly thrown in at one point that has been taken from 1934's Tarzan and His Mate.

Even Weissmuller's distinctive Tarzan yodel is lifted from the old films and dubbed into Miller's mouth. 

The story of Tarzan, The Ape Man sees Jane Parker (Joanna Barnes) arriving at a jungle way-station to find out why the money that had been supporting her London socialite lifestyle has dried up. It turns out that her father, Col. James Parker (Robert Douglas), and his caddish business partner Harry Holt (Cesare Danova) have been having financial troubles due to native unrest.

Just as they were all about to pack it in, they get a lead on the mythical elephants' graveyard and Holt convinces them there's a fortune in ivory to made there.

They all head off into the jungle, with a train of native bearers, slaughtering wild animals as they go like a pack of feral dentists.

Along the way, they run into Tarzan (Denny Miller), a westerner living in the jungle like a primitive (although you wouldn't know from his perfectly quaffed hair), who saves Jane from a rogue elephant.

If Tarzan was initially supposed to come across as an innocent, he fails, coming across instead as slightly creepy and rather threatening.

He does, however, remain an enigma throughout the film. His name is never spoken, nor the fact that he was raised by apes ever revealed. In fact, no explanation is ever given for what he is doing in the jungle in the first place.

After their encounter with Tarzan, the hunting party - having lost all their bearers except for their native guide - decide to push on for the elephants' graveyard.

The highlight of the film (and I'm really stretching the definition of that word here) comes when they discover the ruins of a lost city that contains a fantastically weird statue and a not-so-fiendish trap.

The adventurers end up surrounded by hostile pygmies and have to be rescued by Tarzan once more.

The final act of the movie comes with the survivors following the slow, heartbreaking, walk of a wounded elephant through a mountain tunnel system to the elephant graveyard.

Eventually, the very shallow, and financially motivated, Jane finally sees the light, although her emotional arc and sudden decision to stay with Tarzan makes no sense whatsoever.

At the same time, Holt - who started off as a bounder and has stayed one for the duration of the film - is effectively forgotten about, free to return home and bring in a fresh team to loot the graveyard of its ivory!

There's no escaping the feeling that Tarzan, The Ape Man was stitched together with very little consideration for how the story was going to work or if the characters were particularly convincing, instead opting to trade on the names Tarzan and Jane as known quantities.

As well as dodgy character development (or lack thereof) and shifting film stock, the film is rife with continuity errors, such as Jane's instantly drying hair when she's getting soaked by a playful baby elephant outside Tarzan's IKEA tree-house homestead.

Tarzan (Denny Miller) and Jane (Joanna Barnes)

PULP PICTURE OF THE MONTH: Tarzan Triumphs (1943)

The Second World War has come to Tarzan's Africa... and he wants nothing to do with it.

Ever the isolationist, Tarzan just wants to keep Boy safe (Jane is 'away in England' - a plot device to cover Maureen O'Sullivan's absence from the film), even when a detachment of Nazi paratroopers take over the isolated, hidden and resource-rich city-state of Palandrya.

Having advance knowledge of the city's location, the Nazi's parachute in, with the idea of enslaving the locals to make a runway so they can bring aircraft in and use the city as a base for their conquest of Sub Saharan Africa.

Their plan goes slightly awry when their radio operator, Lt. Reinhardt Schmidt (Rex Williams), is separated from the main party, injured and rescued by Tarzan. The Nazi's plane turns to try and rescue him, but is brought down by an unfortunate flamingo-birdstrike!

Schmidt is, of course, totally duplicitous and ends up getting his just desserts, leaving the German's radio at Tarzan's camp.

The gorgeous Zandra (Frances Gifford, from the Edgar Rice Burroughs' Jungle Girl, the Republic serial), a friend of Boy and Tarzan's, escapes from Palandrya to enlist the Jungle Man in her bid to reclaim her city from the Nazi invaders, but - despite her feminine wiles -Tarzan doesn't want anything to do with such foolishness.

Without their radio, the Nazis are trapped in the jungle, so they goose-step over to Tarzan's camp to reclaim it (however, sneaky Cheeta the chimp has swiped an important coil, so it doesn't work anyway) and kidnap Boy instead.

This is the final straw for the Ape Man, who declares: "Now Tarzan make war!"

Tarzan heads off to Palandrya, gets captured - along with Zandra - and has to be rescued (as usual) by Cheeta, before he can lead the repressed natives in a violent uprising to usurp the Nazis.

In a scene presaging Planet Of The Apes, bizarrely Cheeta gets in on the Nazi killing when he grabs a machine gun and mows down the captain.

Possibly the most violent of the old Tarzan films, Tarzan Triumphs even has Boy shooting a Nazi... all in a good cause, of course!

The film wraps up with a scene that makes no sense whatsoever: the radio finally connects to Nazi HQ, but instead of the expedition's leader, Col. Von Reichart (Stanley Ridges), the soldiers in Berlin hear Cheeta chattering away... and believe it is a message from Adolf Hitler!

Totally potty, but no doubt it got a great roar of approval from wartime audiences.

There is no moral ambiguity about Tarzan Triumphs. As explained on Wikipedia this was propaganda, pure and simple:

The U.S. State Department informed Sol Lesser [the producer] that a Tarzan film would be an ideal way to spread the message of democracy's battle against Fascism to the American public. Lesser's first RKO Tarzan film had made the Ape Man a symbol of American isolationism.

The majority of the Nazi forces are out-of-shape and I can't help but wonder if this was a deliberate propaganda jibe as well, or simply a reflection of the availability of extras at this time.

I've also read that by this stage Maureen O'Sullivan had grown tired of playing Jane, but probably the most accurate explanation for her absence was the swift of the Tarzan franchise from MGM to RKO - O'Sullivan was an MGM contract player.

Maybe the lovely Frances Gifford's Zandra was being eyed up as a replacement for Jane, if O'Sullivan wasn't interested, or able, to return to the franchise.

Me Tarzan, Who Jane?

The Northman (2022)

Having witnessed the murder of his father, King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke), by his uncle, Fjölnir (Claes Bang), the young Viking prince, Amleth (Oscar Novak), rows away pledging vengeance.

Years later the princeling has grown up to be a mighty berserker (Alexander Skarsgård) in the Land of The Rus.

After a raid, Amleth is visited by a mysterious seeress (Björk) who reminds him of his Fate to slay his uncle and free his mother, Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), from Fjölnir's clutches.

Amleth learns that Fjölnir has been usurped and now lives as a chieftain in Iceland, so he stows away on a boat of captive slaves, disguising himself as part of the cargo.

On the boat to Iceland he meets and befriends Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy).

Arriving at Fjölnir's homestead, at the foot of a mighty volcano, Amleth passes himself off as 'just another slave', but is soon guided mystically to a cave where he receives another vision.

This one sends him to retrieve the magical Night Blade, which will be the instrument of his vengeance.

Working with Olga, Amleth then begins in earnest his campaign against the man who slew his father.

Inspired by historical Viking sagas, directed by Robert Eggers (of The Witch and The Lighthouse), and with such a phenomenal cast (including my favourite, Anya Taylor-Joy), The Northman should have been a shoo-in to take my "film of the year" crown (as I have seen it declared by several of my geeky peers).

But there's something not quite right about the flow of the core narrative.

Amleth's quest is such a stop-start affair that the choppy pacing at the heart of the film is really jarring.

There's so much to love about this movie - it features an actual magic sword, for crying out loud - that the patchy, and rather bloated, middle third is such a disappointment.

Speaking as an armchair director, I'm pretty sure The Northman would have benefitted from tightening its two hour 17 minute running time by a good 20 minutes.

Conversely, the ending is superb, tackling head-on central themes of many Viking stories (namely, fate and revenge) in a setting more than reminiscent of the climax of Revenge of The Sith.

Eggers, from a script he co-wrote with Icelandic author Sjón, deftly handles the magic-realism of the Nordic acceptance of everyday sorcery as he weaves a tale only slightly more grounded than The Green Knight.

Alexander Skarsgård has already proved himself as a great physical actor in shows like True Blood and movies such as The Legend of Tarzan.

Here he is outstanding as Amleth, a Scandinavian Conan the Barbarian, from moments of brutal aggression to when he's employing his stealth and cunning to get the better of Fjölnir's men, his presence dominates every scene he is in.

The Conan vibe is most front-and-centre in the scene where Amleth obtains the Night Blade, which strongly echoes Conan's retrieval of the Atlantean sword in 1982's Conan The Barbarian.

With its powerful lead and its atmospheric use of the landscape and mise-en-scène, The Northman is this close to brilliance that it's hugely disappointing that the juddering middle act comes dangerously close to derailing the whole thing.

The script reaches a point where it could have gone either way, and Eggers' cannily pulls out a twist that - for me - saved the film and strengthened the theme beautifully.

In the end, I enjoyed The Northman (more than I thought I would when I was about halfway through), but I was expecting better from this cast and crew.