TOONERVILLE TROLLEY IN NEWFOUNDLAND

by BK Munn

During WWII, Newfoundland, and especially the airfields at Gander, was the centre of the universe, and there was a heavy Allied presence in the area. This 1945 article from the Atlantic Guardian details the construction of a railway for moving troops and supplies to Ernest Harmon Air Force Base, a U.S. base that existed from 1941 to 1966 and is now the Stephenville International Airport. Toonerville Trolley was a long-running U.S. comic strip by Fontaine Fox that ran from 1905-1955. Also known as Toonerville Folks, the strip centred on a small-town streetcar operated by the grizzled Skipper who interacted with a cast of eccentric local characters. The popular strip was adapted into silent movies and a series of 1930s animated cartoons produced by The Van Beuren studio. Between 1927 and 1934, a series of short Our Gang-styled comedies set in Toonerville and starring a young Mickey Rooney as the titular Mickey McGuire, a character from the comic strip, were produced in Hollywood. 

COMICS IN FILM: LOLA (1961), DIRECTED BY JACQUES DEMY

Comics in Film: Lola (1961), directed by Jacques Demy.

French schoolgirl Cecile and American sailor Frankie discuss the idea of a “mysterious planet” from Meteor, a monthly science fiction comics magazine that features the long-running bande dessinée “Les Conquérants de l'Espace” by cartoonist Raoul Giordan and writer Robert Lortac. In this scene, Cecile has been sent to get a few groceries by her mother with the incentive of also picking up the latest issue of her favourite comic. Frankie has bought the last copy, but charitably gives it to her, and the two form a brief friendship. Cecile is on the cusp of her 14th birthday and has a teenage crush on Frankie, on leave from his U.S. Navy ship but almost finished his tour of duty and on the verge of returning to his exotic far-away home of Chicago, Illinois. Set in the port city of Nantes, Lola is a beautiful film about arrested adolescence and liminality, with people always on the threshold of departure and change, all wrapped up in myths of romance, escape, travel, coincidence, circularity, movement, ritual, repetition, nostalgia, impermanence, death, rebirth, transformative space, and reinvention. 

 

Comics in Film: Our Man in Havana (1958)

 

Comics in Film: Our Man in Havana (1958).

by BK Munn

Vacuum cleaner salesman James Wormold (Alec Guinness) is inspired by the fictional comic strip "Rock Kent" to claim one of his non-existent agents, a pilot, has been killed. Wormold has been randomly recruited by the British Government to create a spy network in Cuba, but having neither the inclination or imagination for espionage, he simply makes up the network based on items he stumbles across and submits false reports to his superiors. Thus, a list of members at his country club becomes the spy network, the design of a vacuum cleaner becomes the model for a drawing of a secret weapon installation, and this comic strip becomes the explanation for why he can't provide actual photos to London. Unfortunately the plan backfires, and the Cuban police kill a real pilot after intercepting his coded message, dictated here to his secretary Beatrice (Maureen O'Hara). "Rock Kent" is meant to be similar to other Cold War aviation strips of the period like "Buzz Sawyer" and "Steve Canyon." The Havana Post was a real newspaper and you can see the top of Blondie, a real comic, in one of the close-ups. The bar location was real, too: it was actually shot on the streets of Havana right after the Castro Revolution overthrew the corrupt Batista regime, represented in the film by the amorous torturer Captain Segura (Ernie Kovacs), and Castro reportedly visited the set during filming.

Comics in Film: State of the Union

Comics in Film: State of the Union, 1948.

by BK Munn

Van Johnson pulls a copy of Walt Disney Comics & Stories #85, published in 1947, out of his inside jacket pocket. In this scene from Frank Capra's satire of U.S. presidential politics, Johnson plays a cynical journalist-turned-campaign-manager opposite Katharine Hepburn's wife of the presidential candidate Spencer Tracy. Johnson has come to ask Hepburn to welcome her husband's mistress (Angela Lansbury) back into her home for the good of the campaign but the tense scene is interrupted by Tracy and Hepburn's children who are packing aid boxes for European refugees and have run out of comic books and bubble gum. Johnson shows his childlike innocence and working class bona fides by magically producing this Donald Duck comic, an indication that he isn't really a bad guy like the rest of the evil cabal who are slowly corrupting Spencer Tracy for their own special interests. In a later scene, it will be Johnson who urges Hepburn to fight for her husband by giving a radio speech that ultimately derails the campaign and brings Tracy back from the dark side. Comics are again used in that final scene to signify Capra's brand of liberal working class idealism when a lighting gaffer is shown reading a Brick Bradford science fiction comic during Tracy's ultimate speech.

 

Comics in Film: Super Gal in "Ensign Pulver" (1964)

 

Comics in Film: Super Gal nose art in "Ensign Pulver" (1964).

by BK Munn

The character of Supergirl, the cousin of Superman, was first introduced in Action Comics #252 in May, 1959, but it is unknown if this image is intended as a reference to the comic book character or is just an ironic gender flip of Superman typical of the humour exhibited by the artists who painted plane fuselages during World War II. If an intended reference, the image is an anachronism, since Ensign Pulver is set in the 1940s. In the film, a sequel to the 1955 John Ford-directed film Mister Roberts, a planeload of nurses lands on a Pacific atoll and become wound up in the redemption arc of the title character, heroically helping him perform an important operation. (The sequel retains the same characters but replaces all the actors. Jack Lemmon won the Oscar for his portrayal of Ensign Pulver in the original, but he's replaced here by relative unknown Robert Walker Jr.) There was a comic book adaptation of Ensign Pulver, published by Dell in 1964, but I'm unsure if the "Super Gal" art was reproduced there.

SPLIT-FACE vs. TWO-FACE: A TALE OF TWO VILLAINS FROM BATMAN AND DICK TRACY

Just saw the first Dick Tracy movie (1945) on TCM. The villain is Split-Face, played by the great Mike Mazurki. He's a new creation for the movie, not from the comic strip, created by the screenwriter Eric Taylor, author of many B-movie crime pictures. The Batman villain Two-Face debuted in 1942. In a shocking twist, it looks like Dick Tracy is taking a page from Batman. In another shocking twist, Bob Kane is actually credited with his creation (although Bill Finger of course wrote the first appearance in Detective Comics #66). In a twist that will surprise nobody, Kane stole the idea for Two-Face from this poster for the 1941 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Spencer Tracy

THE FIRST COMICS ACADEMIC IN FILM? SORRELL BOOKE IN "BYE BYE BRAVERMAN"

by BK MUNN

Is this the first comics academic in film? Sorrell Booke as Holly Levine in "Bye Bye Braverman" (1968, d. Sidney Lumet). In the film, about four writers trying to find their friend's funeral in Brooklyn, Holly announces that he will soon be teaching a course on pop culture, called "From Little Nemo to L'il Abner". This news invites incredulity from his fellow intellectuals, who proceed to quiz him on his comic strip knowledge, asking trivia questions about Little Annie Rooney, Winnie Winkle, The Gumps, Orphan Annie, and Don Winslow of the Navy. Holly passes with flying colours, only getting hung up on the name of the dunce character in The Rinkydinks gang (Denny Dimwit). The film has many other comics references, including mentions of Dick Tracy, Skeezix, Blondie, and Bringing Up Father. Holly has a pop art painting of The Phantom in his apartment, and a Sunday of Irwin Hasen's Dondi is glimpsed at one point. It's a charming comedy in the form of a Joycean odyssey, based on the book "To An Early Grave" by Wallace Markfield (aka "The James Joyce of Brighton Beach").

In real life, Sorrell Booke (1930-1994) was a multilingual polymath, known for his character roles in hundreds of films and television shows. Ironically, he is best known for playing the villainous Boss Hogg on "The Dukes of Hazzard" tv series from 1979 to 1985.

I can't think of many other comics academics in film. Although the study of comic books is mentioned in the novel White Noise, I don't think this was carried over to the recent adaptation. Are there any others?

Review: The Electrical Life of Louis Wain

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021), directed by Will Sharpe.

An Emotional Portrait of the Superstar Cartoonist

by BK Munn

There aren't many serious films about cartoonists, are there? My wife and I have been lifelong admirers of the delightful cat art of Louis Wain, collecting old postcards and children’s books with his images for decades now, so it was a no-brainer that we would rush to see this film, despite our general antipathy towards biopics in general, and twee British artist biopics in particular. I have to say, though, contrary to our misgivings, the film proved to be a moving chronicle of Wain’s unique hardscrabble life and transformation into the superstar cartoonist of Victorian England, his efforts as the sole supporter of a household of five precocious sisters and their mother, his generally tragic circumstances, and his later descent into a form of madness. We were teary-eyed through much of it. Benedict Cumberbatch continues his streak of portraying lovable British eccentrics and geniuses, but I found I could forget about his fame and get lost in his character here. Claire Foy is also affecting as Wain’s wife Emily. It’s a bit too precious at times for what is essentially a tragedy, but the film’s overarching “life is beautiful and silly” theme is solid and quite in keeping with the nature of Wain’s art.

_____

We saw the film after a day browsing antique shops (we bought an old British children’s annual (the 1923 Pip and Squeak) with some cat cartoons, although none by Wain. The world really could use a collection of Wain's comic strips, like those he did for Hearst's Journal-American and associated papers.

Comics in Film: Robert Crumb's "Despair" in Smithereens

by BK Munn

Comics in Film: Smithereens (1982). 

Billy reads a copy of Robert Crumb's Despair while his romantically-linked bedmates, manic pixie punk girl Wren (Susan Berman) and washed-up rocker Eric (Richard Hell) argue. Even though the girls are crazy for him, Eric is so broke he has to live in a shitty apartment with Billy, a dumb loser who no girl is dumb enough to hook up with. Billy is so dumb he reads only comic books, like this classic existential Underground Comic from 1969, one of many cultural signifiers in the film, set in the blighted NYC of the day, for the ennui and emptiness of the scene and the lack of options for young people, especially young women. 

Comics in Film: Top Guns of the West in The Harder They Come (1972)

Comics in Film: The Harder They Come (1972). Top Guns of the West: Super DC Giant #14, 1970.

Reggae star Jimmy Cliff reads a comic about gunfighters in this movie about a wannabe reggae star who finally has a big hit on the radio and the sales charts when he becomes a gunfighting marijuana dealer. This comic is a reprint collection of classic western stories illustrated by well-known superhero artists like Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, and Joe Kubert (who drew the cover). Also seen in the film, in a scene where Cliff's jealous preacher boss looks through the car, is another 1970 comic book, Two Gun Kid #95, featuring stories by the Holy Trinity of Marvel Comics westerns, John Severin, Dick Ayers, and Jack Kirby. Cliff's character later become something of a "two gun kid" himself when he embarks on his crime spree, killing a bunch of cops with a pair of pistols and then brazenly posing for a set of glamour shots in a photo studio brandishing the same guns like a comic book cowboy. These imported U.S. comics were part of the cultural mileu that ska and reggae emerged out of, along with crime movies and U.S. top 40 pop and jazz. The desperate life of serial unemployment and low-level drug dealing the film documents had a fantasy flipside in the music that could just as easily reference "James Bond" and "Al Capone" as well as romance or Rastafarianism.

Comics in Film: Apache Kid in Cronenberg's The Dead Zone

by BK Munn

Comics in Film: The Dead Zone (1983). A copy of Apache Kid #53 in a serial killer's bedroom. The comic book appears in the childhood bedroom of Deputy Frank Dodd, the Castle Rock Killer. Dodd (played by Nicholas Campbell) retreats to the seemingly derelict home where he lives with his over-protective mother, pursued by his boss Sheriff George Bannerman (Tom Skerritt) and precog John Smith (Christopher Walken), after Smith correctly identifies Dodd as the man responsible for a series of rapes and murders in a small New England town. The killer's room is littered with many childish features, from its cowboy wallpaper to broken toys to a rocking horse, and is part of the film's obsession with rooms and childhood. The "Cowboys and Indians" theme is repeated in another room later, when Walken's character visits the home of a millionaire with a troubled son who needs tutoring. Apache Kid #53 (really #1) was published in 1950, and is a regular western-hero-with-secret-identity character typical of the period. The cover to this issue is drawn by Joe Maneely, the main artist for Atlas/Marvel during the 1950s before his untimely death in 1958 led to Jack Kirby returning to the company and starting the revival of superheroes. Other stories in the issue are drawn by Syd Shores and Mike Sekowsky. The appearance of the comic in the film is a nice touch, playing with the Wertham-esque idea of comics as junk culture responsible for juvenile delinquency and violent and sexually sadistic tendencies. The dual-identity nature of the Apache Kid (a white boy raised by Apaches after his family was slaughtered only to witness the slaughter of his adoptive family by whites) is also a call out to the way the film plays with its many dualities: cop/killer, villain/hero, adult/child, etc. Both director Cronenberg and Stephen King, the original author of The Dead Zone, were fans of comic books as kids, and Cronenberg has talked about his childhood obsessions, including "E.C. Comics, scary and bizarre and violent and nasty—the ones your mother didn’t want you to have." 

Comics in Film: Panic in Needle Park, Al Pacino and Bijou Funnies

by BK Munn

Comics in Film: Panic in Needle Park (1971). A heroin junkie reads a copy of Bijou Funnies #4 in a room full of addicts, including on the bed next to her, Bobby, played by Al Pacino. The film documents the doomed love affair between small-time hustler, dealer, and addict Bobby and struggling artist Helen (Kitty Winn). Panic was filmed on the streets of New York, with many glimpses into the culture of the day, including this comic, typical reading material for young people like Bobby and Helen, we are given to believe. Edited by cartoonist Jay Lynch, Bijou Funnies was one of the premiere Underground Comix anthologies of the early-70s. Lynch transformed his own Chicago Mirror newspaper into a MAD Magazine-styled comic after seeing Robert Crumb's Zap, and issues of Bijou included a Who's Who of comics, including Crumb. Bijou #4, published in June 1970 by the Berkeley-based Print Mint, featured a cover by Crumb and comics by Crumb, Lynch, Skip Williamson, Kim Deitch, Jay Kinney, Daniel Clyne, and Justin Green. There's not much drug-themed content, outside of the drug-fueled nature of the work itself: the hallucinogenic characters and plots, and the hip milieu of the stories. The cover feature is a classic Crumb 5-pager starring Projunior, in which the characters Honeybunch Kaminski and Mr. Man get stoned on dope for a few panels, flopping-out in a daze like the characters in Pacino's room. And like Bobby and Helen in the film, Projunior and Honeybunch will not be long-separated by "the Establishment." The back cover of the comic features another drug reference, a full-colour cut-out "Speed Freak Mask" by Lynch.

Comics in Film: Breathless

by BK Munn

Comics in Film: Jean-Paul Belmondo reads a September 1959 edition of the newspaper France-Soir while spying on his character's girlfriend (played by Jean Seberg) being questioned by the Paris police in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960). Belmondo is on the run for killing a cop, and his face is on the front page of every newspaper in town, so of course he goes straight to a newsstand and buys a paper. On view are two comics, the U.S. strip "The Heart of Juliette Jones" by Stan Drake, and "13 rue de l'Espoir" by writers Jacques and François Gall and cartoonist Paul Gillon. Both strips are soap operas with female, "career girl" leads. If you squint, it's possible to read the chic Seberg character, a young American woman trying to land a job as a reporter in France and torn between two boyfriends, as a combination of Juliette Jones and Françoise Morel, the star of the French strip.  "13 rue de l'Espoir" ran for 13 years in France-Soir and was collected in two albums by Les Humanoïdes in the 1980s. Gillon (1926-2011) had a long career in bande dessinée, collaborating with Jean-Claude Forest on several series and creating a multitude of other books, Including The History of Socialism in France.

Comics in Film: Dick Fulmine and Sophia Loren

by BK Munn

Comics in Film: Sophia Loren reads a 1940s comic book, "Fulmine in Nel Regno dei Pigmei", in the film A Special Day (Una giornata particolare, 1977). The film takes place on May 6, 1938, the day Hitler visits Mussolini in Rome, a national holiday in Italy. Loren's character, a housewife, stays home while the entire city is at a gaint rally and has a one-day affair with a gay radio announcer and anti-fascist, played by Marcello Mastroianni, who is about to be interned on the island of San Domino. The comic book, "Lightning in the Kingdom of the Pygmies", is slightly anachronistic, having been published two years after the date of the events of the film, on March 24, 1940. The character, Dick Fulmine, is apparently an Italian version of Dick Tracy, created in 1938 by the sports journalist Vincenzo Baggioli and cartoonist Carlo Cossio. Based in part on the Italian boxer Primo Carnera, his protruding jaw obviously is an homage to Mussolini. The comic was guided through the WWII years by the MinCulPop (the Fascist Ministry of Popular Culture) to make it more of a propaganda tool for the government. The omnipresent images of fascist propaganda in the film, as well as the film's soundtrack which is comprised exclusively of the live radio broadcast of the Hitler-Mussolini rally, underscore the oppressive existence of the two main characters.