Happy Birthday Tarzan of the Apes!

Today is the anniversary of when "Tarzan of the Apes" by Edgar Rice Burroughs first hit the newsstands in the October 1912 issue of The All-Story pulp magazine! There seems to be some thought among scholars that the true release date might be September 10, 1912 but I'll just celebrate both days and be happy. 

The Phantom Detective - Cover Gallery

Although the pulp magazine was called The Phantom Detective the character was referred to as The Phantom in the stories. Like so many depression era do-gooders his true identity was Richard Curtis Van Loan, an independently wealthy man. He was orphaned at a young age inheriting wealth from his parents. In the first few issues of the title, the Phantom is introduced as a world-famous detective, whose secret identity is only known by one man - confidant Frank Havens, the publisher of the Clarion newspaper. Before World War I, he lead the life of an idle playboy, but during the war he became a pilot and destroyed many German planes in combat.

After the war, Van Loan had a difficult time returning to his old life and at the suggestion of his father's friend, Havens, he sets out to solve a crime that had stumped the police. After solving it, he decided he had found his calling.

In a turn that will seem familiar to fans of certain superhero comic characters, he trained himself in all facets of detection and forensics, and became a master of disguise and escape. In time, he makes a name for himself as the Phantom gaining the respect of police agencies around the world. 

I discovered the character through reprints and find his adventures to be fine pulp reading. I return to the series on occasion and am rarely disappointed in the thrill-ride nature of the mysteries. The name of the writer is a pseudonym so I never know who really penned the various tales but there is a consistently high level of quality across the dozen or so I've been able to read. 

 

What I Watched in September 2025

2025 has brought us a brand new Red Sonja film, and before I ever got the chance to see the film I heard so much bitching about it that I knew that it had no chance. It had been condemned sight unseen and no matter what, it was going to become a dismissed work. I despise this kind of prejudgment of a film before anyone has actually seen the subject, especially when it is obvious that it is primarily the genre of the film that has the nattering scum feel that attacking it is safe. Surely, no one thoughtful can take this type of cinema seriously – it’s trash and therefore fair game for derisive snobbery.

I have been looking forward to a new Red Sonja film for years. I’m a fan of the character even though I haven’t read many of the comic books produced in the last twenty years or so. I'm a fan of the character as created by Roy Thomas for Marvel Comics back in the 1970s as a part of their long running Conan the Barbarian series.  The comic character of Red Sonja is not really a creation of pulp writer Robert E. Howard but she springs from the same fertile soil.

There was a character named Red Sonya of Rogatino who was in a single Howard called ‘The Shadow of the Vulture’, and then the comics altered her a bit and plunked her down the Hyperborian Age. I'm a big fan of the original Marvel version of the character, especially when Frank Thorne was drawing the comics. And as ridiculous as it is, that's where the chainmail bikini idea originally came from. Iconic but impractical, to say the least!

I saw the first film based on the character back in the 1985 when it premiered and I wasn't impressed at the time. But it's one of those movies that, as time has passed, I've grown to really love. It hasn’t changed but my ability to enjoy it has grown until I find it a complete joy. As a matter of fact, on The Bloody Pit podcast a few years ago Cort Psyops, and I talked at length about the movie so if you want my lengthier (much lengthier) thoughts about the previous Red Sonja film, that's the place. So, understand, I've been hoping for a new Red Sonja film for a very long period of time.

Before I got to watch the 2025 version I couldn’t find a single positive comment about the movie online. As a matter of fact, I was inundated with negative reviews before I ever got the chance to see the thing. It seems as if this has become the latest target for every smarter-than-thou pseudo-critic online to hone their meager typing skills and go into great detail about how awful it is. This was never going to stop me from seeing it, of course.

The first thing I noticed is that it was directed by M.J. Bassett and I am a huge fan of her 2009 Solomon Kane movie. I also remember liking the slasher effort WILDERNESS (2006) but details have faded. So, to my mind, she was an excellent choice to take a shot at the character. She understands the genre and handles visceral violence with style.

I’ll admit that I had lowered expectations because of the mountain of bad online comments but I'm the perfect audience for a sword & sorcery film. As you may have guessed, I enjoyed the hell out of it! I'm not saying it's perfect. There are a couple of moments where I wanted some fine-tuned clarity in the editing. An example is a scene with a character suddenly buying it with an arrow to the eye and we then see Sonja, in the distance. She is presumably the character who shot this person in the head from across a battlefield but she is not holding her bow. Instead, she's charging on horseback with a sword in her hand. I'm not sure if what was trying to be communicated was that one of the other people who we are then shown riding in to help her fired the deadly arrow. That is clumsy editing and while I understand why it was done it is a hiccup in the flow of the scene. My assumption is they wanted to immediately introduce the character in motion and headed toward the people that she's threatening. This is a fairly minor problem considering how much I was impressed with the surrounding sequence.

The only other real complaint I have with the film is that in about four cases they use CGI to craft backgrounds and distant vistas which would have have been done using matte paintings in the past. Normally, I love those things and they usually look great rendered in CGI but these don't look as good as I wish they did. I'm assuming that all boils down to this being a lower budget film, which is a shame.

About the only thing that most people who are hating on the movie can agree on is that Matilda Lutz, who plays Sonja, is fantastic and I have to agree. She is believable throughout this story both as an actress and in the physicality of the role. It can’t be easy to play this kind of sword wielding action hero but she is superb. There's something about her that makes you invested in the character from the beginning. In a better world she would be a major star and if I could work my will upon cinema, she would play Sonja at least a couple of more times. 

THE LIST

RED SONJA (2025) – 7 (what is all the complaining about?)

CAUGHT STEALING (2025) – 8 

WHEN EVIL LURKS (2023) – 9 (rewatch)

THE FLYING SAUCER (1950) – 3 (deadly dull Alaskan travelogue) 

REPTILICUS (1961) – 6 (rewatch of AIP cut on Blu) 

HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944) – 7 (rewatch on Blu)

PRINCE OF TERROR (1989) – 7 (Lamberto Bava chiller)

THE CONJURING: LAST RITES (2025) – 7 

REPTILICUS (1961) – 6 (rewatch of Danish cut on Blu)

THE LONG WALK (2025) – 8 

THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE (1971) – 6 (rewatch on Blu)

THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED (1957) – 5 (rewatch on Blu)

SHADOW OF ILLUSION (a.k.a. Ombre Roventi) (1970) – 5 

REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES (1943) – 5 (rewatch on Blu)

AND THE BONES CAME TOGETHER (1973) – 6 (TV movie ghost story) 

SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES (2025) – 7 

ZORRO THE AVENGER (1962) – 5 (weaker Spanish Zorro effort)

QUEEN OF BLOOD (1966) – 7 (rewatch on Blu)

MYSTERE (1984) – 5 (flat giallo crossed with spy tale) 

OBSESSION: A TASTE OF FEAR (1988) – 7 (fascinating futuristic giallo) 

HIM (2025) – 7 

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1983) – 6 (rewatch)

 

The Shadow Novels vs Radio Shows

Over the past month I've read a couple of Classic Shadow pulp novels and I’ve been listening almost every night to old Shadow radio shows. This has, of course, caused me to compare and contrast and I have to say they are incredibly different animals. The radio show centers on Lamont Cranston and Margo Lane, his Girl Friday, but the pulps that I've read almost always have the shadow as a peripheral character. In the novels he is constantly stalking bad guys, listening and taking advantage of the weaknesses of various criminals and their gangs. On the page he is ably assisted by his huge network of helpers or undercover operatives. They occasionally make appearances in a way that push the story along or explain to the reader how certain pieces of information are being related back to the Shadow. I have to admit the two different versions of the Shadow that the radio play and the pulps provide are both very entertaining but I prefer the anthology nature of the pulp stories. I find that having the main focus on the bad guy characters who are being hunted down by the relentless Shadow with his blazing .45's to be much more entertaining. The Shadow radio show has a tendency to fall pretty squarely into the standard mystery or adventure radio shows of the 1930s with lots of bantering back and forth between Lamont and Margo. Of course, I guess it would be natural that you would need a couple of reoccurring characters who talked back and forth on a regular basis presenting different pieces of information and pushing things in the direction that a radio play would go. As I said, I've enjoyed them both and I will continue to do so but the pulp novels are grittier and more to my taste overall.

 

Pulp Covers - Doc Savage

Pulp Covers - The Shadow

 

Fu Manchu Novel Cover Gallery

In anticipation of receiving the Blu-Ray brick of Christopher Lee Fu films I have dived back into the novels to read some of the ones I've missed. Currently in the middle of Daughter of Fu Manchu from '31 and having a great time! Good pulp fun.