Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Drew, Bernard A.

Titel

From Pulp to Celluloid

Ist Teil von

• Film comment, 1978-07, Vol.14 (4), p.65-67

Ort / Verlag

New York: Film Society of Lincoln Center

Erscheinungsjahr

1978

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Descending from the nickel weeklies and dime novels of the previous century, the thrillsand-action pulps offered an array of yarns about cowboys, ape men and air aces, hard-boiled detectives, space explorers and fantastic bug-eyed creatures, pretty women and ugly villians-and especially the virile super heroes like The Shadow, Doc Savage, Secret Agent X, Captain Future, and Jim Hatfield Texas Ranger. While it would have been prohibitively expensive for anyone to duplicate, say, the frenzied hordes of panicstricken people, the horrendous destruction, and the swarming murderous armies depicted in some of the more outlandish Operator 15 novels, it should have been relatively easy for Poverty Row to recreate The Shadow's car chases, blazing shootouts, and blood curdling cry. Most notably, The Shadow was Lamont Cranston on radio, while in the pulps he was a mysterious figure who occasionally disguised himself as Cranston; rather than blending into darkness (on the radio it was hard to see the shadows), the aural Shadow acquired the ability to cloud men's minds through hypnotism; and a pulp cast of male helpers was replaced on radio with Margo Lane.