The Fine Art Of Night Stalking!

Above is a painting one of my former students presented me with several years ago. I was extolling the virtues of The Night Stalker and she took it on herself to treat to her own special version of Carl Kolchak himself. I like a lot and want to share it with other Kolchak fans. 

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The Night Stalkers!

The Night Stalker starring Darrn McGavin is probably my favorite TV movie for sure and just might be my favorite movie all time. I never tire of watching it. The idea of putting a gothic horror like a vampire among the brightly lit streets of 70's Las Vegas is too fetching to resist. While that Las Vegas has mostly gone, like nearly all the folks who made this 1971 film happen, the flick still resonates, giving the viewer a peek into the nighttime world that makes Vegas so alluring and dangerous. As the story points out, Las Vegas is a city of strangers, and a predator of humans could well thrive within its borders. The prey is abundant and too naive to hide. This is the first movie to give us a look at Pete Rice's creation of Carl Kolchak, a brave reporter who hearkens to an earlier age when the truth mattered. That such a time likely never existed makes Kolchak all the more potent as an agent for the viewer to penetrate the unknown. Kolchak goes where angels fear to tread and no politician can even imagine. Kolchak penetrates are darkest heart and with his cheap flash camera brings those deadly secrets to life. 

 As good as The Night Stalker is, he sequel The Night Strangler written by Richard Matheson is much like but fails to be original enough to distinguish it from its predecessor. Kolchak is back and he finds infatuation if not live this time beneath the streets of Seattle. Again, there is work to bring the reality of the city onto the small screen but alas the city for all its charm lacks the vivacity of Las Vegas. Instead of a vampire Kolchak must battle against an alchemist from the mists of history. Highlights in this production are JoAnne Pflug and Wally Cox. Let me hasten to add that the debut film as well was superbly cast with the likes of Claude Akins and Kent Smith adding zest to a taut tale. 

Following the success of the two television movies a series seemed logical. Compared to the excellent movies, I've always rather found the episodes wanting, but on this viewing their virtues became evident. The wit which informed the movies is still very much in evidence. Kolchak's relentless pursuit of the truth is undiminished if his motivations seem garbled at times. Often, he pursues as story which will never be published because he seems to have set himself up as a protector of society. The range of threats is pretty wide. We of course get another vampire (connected to the first which was nice), a werewolf, a ghost or two, a zombie, a swamp monster, and such. But also, there are aliens and robots and energy creatures which made for some fascinating tales. Another very entertaining aspect was the wide variety of police officials Kolchak had to contend with, ranging from the naive to the cantankerous to downright conniving. Some were honest some were not, but they all seemed to be a great foil for Kolchak's hijinks. But truth told it was easy to see that after a mere twenty episodes the premise was weakening, and we are probably better off now that Darren McGavin's Carl Kolchak left the small screen with us wanting more. 

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Progeny Of The Adder!

Progeny of the Adder by Leslie H. Whitten from 1965 is often touted as a major influence on Jeff Rice's later project The Kolchak Papers which became the TV movie The Night Stalker. Some have even suggested Rice is guilty of plagiarism. Having never read the Whitten novel I have unable to render my opinion until now. The story is set in Washington DC, and we follow a dedicated police detective who doggedly pursues the murders of women, many of whom are prostitutes. It is to his credit that he applies the same dedication to the case even before it is revealed that one victim is actually connected to a foreign embassy. The pressure goes up as slowly the truth is revealed. The murderer acts like a vampire and before the story is over. we are led to believe he is in fact one. 

Change the setting to Las Vegas and given that brief summary a connection between Whitten's novel and Rice's seems evident. But the Whitten book is told very differently than the tale of the reporter Carl Kolchak. For one thing a significant aspect of the book is a budding romance between the detective and a female colleague who also ends up working the case. There is no sense that Kolchak even cares about romance. (He does get a girlfriend of sorts in the sequel The Night Strangler.) The subtext of a corrupt system fouling the search is really not evident in the Progeny of the Adder. There are frustrations but mostly the case seems to be pursued minus any significant political pressure. There is one scene concerning a used car salesman that seems remarkably similar, but truth told it was the only one. And the finale of Whitten's novel is completely different with a car chase dominating the action. 

So, I say nay! There are similarities in that we have two modern cities plagued by vampires, but that can be said of 1931's Dracula who turns up in a very modern London. I found Progeny of the Adder a fun read, but it was not as involving as Rice's novel for one simple reason, the singularly compelling character of Carl Kolchak was not present and that more than the vampire is what makes those stories resonate. 

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The Kolchak Papers

One of the most significant vampire stories in the history of the genre was never published. At least it wasn't until after it was also filmed for television and then released in conjunction with that production. Of course, I mean The Kolchak Papers by Jeff Rice, a novel better known as The Night Stalker. The Night Stalker shook up the horror fan universe when it hit the small screen bringing with it big thrills and one of the most memorable vampire hunters of all time. Van Helsing had nothing Carl Kolchak, a throwback relentless reporter who sought the truth even more doggedly than the story, though he'd likely deny that himself. 

In the era of Watergate and the Vietnam War when trust in the power structures ws at all epic low, an indefatigable enemy of deceit and cant was a welcome white knight, even if he did wear a low-rent seersucker suit and a bedraggled straw hat. What Kolchak represented in Rice's novel and in the TV show as well was a call for truth and accountability on the part of those who purported to lead us. The bogus concerns over public panic merely a dodge to help powerful men keep powerful positions seemed the essence of what foul leadership had become in America in the 70's. (Sadly it's only gotten worse I have to say.) 

The vampire in the story is an enemy to be confronted, but only on the terms it demanded, by confronting the truth that the world was deeper and darker than popular myths espoused. Carl Kolchak was also a man who sought his own success, but he was not one who cared so little for his fellow man that he'd get that success regardless. Kolchak at once an everyman, relatable, but then also a hero who is courageous even when he's scared spitless. He's what we want to be, but all too often aren't. 

This story set in the riotous world of vintage Las Vegas slams the dark gothic myths of yore right up against the neon lights of today. It says that monsters are not safely tucked away in Grimm's fairy tales and horror novels, but right out among us. We are not safe, and we must first recognize that fact before we can become even a jot safer. And it's up to us to do it. I really enjoy this book, which offers a somewhat more contrite and complicated Kolchak than Darren McGavin delightfully treated us to.

Also included in the Moonstone edition of The Kolchak Papers is the novelization of The Night Strangler. Ironically Richard Matheson adapted The Night Stalker from Rice's novel and then it was left for Rice to turn Matheson's script for the sequel into novel form. Aside from a more elaborate romance the Kolchak sequel adheres very closely to the television movie.  

But some Jeff Rice might have stolen his story for The Night Stalker. More on that tomorrow. 

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The Norliss Tapes!

The Norliss Tapes is one of those lost gems from the 70's which made a mark in my budding teenage brain which still remains.  One of the countless TV movies of the time, this one was produced by horror-meister Dan Curtis as an attempt to get lightning to strike again where the properly famous The Night Stalker had made such a lasting impression. It didn't work this time alas, but not for lack of trying. Beware, there are spoilers galore below.

The stories are again told using recordings, the narrator is a laconic writer named David Norliss played by the impassive Roy Thinnes. Often it is Thinnes who is singled out by critics as making The Norliss Tapes so much less impressive than The Night Stalker it so valiantly tries to imitate. Thinnes as Norliss is so calm and cool that it's sometimes difficult to tell what he thinks of the crazy things he encounters. I like Thinnes in this though I'll admit that sometimes his co-stars often steal the show from him. He tells his tales by means of tape recordings of his investigations into the occult, from the point of view of a skeptic, and these are discovered by his publisher (Sandford Evans) who listens to them in hopes of finding out why David has all but disappeared from the face of the Earth.

What Norliss encounterd is a widow (Angie Dickinson) who thinks that her husband, a sculptor (Nick Dimitri) might not be as dead as she'd imagined when she encounters him in his remote studio one dark and stormy night. It turns out she's right and he has indeed risen from his grave, at the behest of a demon named Sargoth who has struck a bargain with the zombie artist to fashion for him a new body of clay and human blood. That final ingredient is gathered by murdering various folks and those murders bring some alarm, but not as much as you'd think, from the local sheriff played in proper gruff form by Claude Akins, an alumni of The Night Stalker in pretty much the same role.

This one has some great atmosphere, most particularly a driving rainstorm which dominates much of the action of the final act. This is some of the best rain in a movie until first Blade Runner and later Se7en many years later made such great use of the atmospheric effect.

I mostly love the movie for some great shocks, in particular when a beautiful woman, the widow's sister (Michele Carey), discovers the amber-eyed zombie lurking at her window. That scared the bejeezus out of me when I was a mere stripling and still gives me the shivers. The notion of drawing back the curtains to find such an awful countenance is a mighty scary experience.

One thing that hurts the story is some sloppy editing, something The Night Stalker also demonstrates though there it has less effect. Some scenes seem clearly to have been shifted in the storytelling and it is not necessarily an improvement to the overall effect. Perhaps the changes were guided by the need for a TV movie to deliver proper mini-climaxes at the end of each commercial break, but whatever the case it makes the sense of the story less clear.

Some critics point out that Norliss never really undergoes any really change in temperament, beginning as a skeptic but quickly facing up to the reality of an actual supernatural nemesis. Being more familiar with characters like Doctor Graves and Doctor Thirteen, I perhaps was more forgiving of this point.

Whatever the reason, this NBC effort only ever generated this single episode. The template was there for more stories and the frame story of disappearance of Norliss is never solved. Too bad. 

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Holmes And Kolchak - Cry For Thunder!

Cry for Thunder is an oddball teaming of The Night Stalker's Karl Kolchak and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. They never meet of course, since they are separated by a century of time, but the story they work on separately does link up. 

This is a Kolchak story though for the most part with the Sherlock Holmes bits, properly narrated by his worthy companion Dr. Watson through a document Kolchak uncovers occupy about a third of the total narrative. The story begins in the American wild west where two cowboys encounter a mysterious shadow and then there is the enigmatic photograph of said cowboys with a giant bird which seems to be a very dangerous item to know about or handle.

Sadly this isn't much of a mystery and Kolchak's handling of it seem fairly chaotic and unfocused as he plumbs the depths of Native American mysticism and pursues a properly cretinous villain. I did though have a hard time keeping his motivations in focus as he ambles about the story doing Kolchakian things. Likewise Holmes seems muted somehow in his sections of the tale.

This is a prose adaptation of a comic book story written by Moonstone's publisher Joe Gentile, a hale fellow well met. I have not read the comics, nor do I much care to, but I did eagerly look forward to this prose handling of two of my favorite characters and I sadly have to say that the result is a decided ho-hum. I was disappointed.

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Kolchak - A Black And Evil Truth!

When Moonstone got the rights to Kolchak; The Night Stalker they really went all out in putting material into the marketplace featuring the idiosyncratic 70's paranormal reporter. Comics of course, short stories eventually, and finally novels. A Black and Evil Truth by C.J. Henderson published in 2007 claims to be at the time the first Kolchak novel in over a decade (since Grave Secrets by Mark Dawidziak I'm guessing) which would make it the fourth novel in the series overall (by my unofficial count).

The Kolchak of this story is a much more restrained and reflective individual, less the mildly cartoonish bumbler so beautifully overplayed at times by Darren McGavin and more the conflicted protagonist of Jeff Rice's original novel. Still in all there are times in the book when it doesn't feel like Carl Kolchak at all.

The story is a whopper as Kolchak is sent by an unexpectedly sympathetic Tony Vincenzo to the Virginia and West Virginia border town of Gore in West Virginia to examine the weird murders of two people in two towns separated by a twenty miles and a state line. The murders are savage and utterly mysterious and that mystery grows even more pronounced when an entire family falls victim to the brutality. Kolchak finds a town full of people who are mostly friendly and he finds cops who greet him without the usual skepticism he encounters from big city police forces. He also finds love of a sort and that is really strange.

There's nothing that Kolchak does or doesn't do in this novel that strikes me as implausible for the character, but the tone seems at times too relaxed given the wild nature of the crimes encountered. Henderson does do a great job of dropping hints at the ends of chapters which keep you pulled into the narrative and it is an entertaining diversion, though I have to confess the finale left me a bit cold. The mythology of the Kolchak stories is intact here so fans of the movies and the TV series won't be left out, that's true enough.

I found A Black and Evil Truth a rousing read which works for me right up until I find out the answer to the mystery, then it sort of stops working for me. There's a heavy-handedness to the ending which undermines the great build up, but maybe that's just me. This strikes me as a "your mileage might vary" kind of book big time.

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Kolchak Is Dead! Long Live Kolchak!

It's Halloween and it's a sad holiday in one respect. Forty-five years ago today Jeff Rice completed his original manuscript for The Kolchak Papers, the story which would be picked up a few months later by ABC Television and director Dan Curtis, and with the minor help of screenwriter Richard Matheson would become The Night Stalker. It was a blockbuster, a rollicking and lucrative television success for most involved, but not so much for the author Jeff Rice.

 Jeff Rice has left us, passing away in July of this year. Unfortunately I only learned of this a few weeks ago when on a whim I picked up The Kolchak Papers from Moonstone Books and started to read the great story again. As is my wont when I'm reading a book, I researched a little bit and soon stumbled across a few columns announcing the untimely passing of Rice. You can reference them here and here. I was amazed I'd not run across this information before, given the significance The Night Stalker had for many in the community I ramble across on the great wide web. Likely I was just oblivious, but clearly the news was not widespread.

The story of how Rice created and sold the story which became The Night Stalker is told eloquently by his friend Mark Dawidziak at the article linked above. How he failed to realize the riches he'd deserved because of that success is equally narrated. Rice became yet one more Hollywood story of woe and distress, ironically not unlike his luckless hero Carl Kolchak.

The second Kolchak novel The Night Strangler was written by Rice based on the screenplay by Matheson, a reversal of their roles on the first superior effort. And despite getting name credit on the short-lived single season of Night Stalker Rice did not realize much in the way of remuneration. Apparently his life since had been a struggle, his retention of the publishing rights seemed to be a burden and not a boon.

Thankfully a deal was struck with Moonstone Publishing some few years ago allowing Rice's two Night Stalker stories to see republication, and which allowed me to finally read them. Spoilers below for those not already familiar with these two delightfully frightful tales.

On this reading I tried as much as possible to focus on those aspects of the novel which make a brisk and compelling crime narrative. The horror elements get all the attention, but what makes The Night Stalker (The Kolcak Papers) such a vivid experience both in print and on the small screen is the way it conforms to modern crime stories. We have an irascible reporter who doggedly follows a story which the mostly corrupt officials seek to keep quiet for all sorts of reasons, some base and selfish and some reasonable. We see the story of a vampire killer in Las Vegas through Kolchak's eyes but also we have the direct voice of Rice as he interrupts the story to add information which had "come" to him since Kolchak left the case. We get information before and after the main story which add to our understanding of the true nature of Rice's theme, not so much the fear of the supernatural in the modern world, but the dread of venal corruption which coats all of modern society with a grime that slanders the truth. The nature of how the story is related echoes Bram Stoker's great novel Dracula in that it is told indirectly through personal accounts and other materials. The complete narrative is left for the reader to partially assemble from the disparate elements making of the reader an active participant in the composition of the tale, giving it an immediacy which it might otherwise lack. We are so removed from Stoker's London atmosphere to feel that in his tale so much, but Rice's 1970's Las Vegas still feels modern despite its documentation of a small town on the verge of becoming something more elaborate and something less desirable. For fans of the movie, the novel does offer some intriguing differences, especially the finale, so reading the tale is well worth the investment of time, if one wants to know all there is to know about what it's like when a vampire appears in the shadows of a modern American city.

The follow-up novel The Night Strangler which adapts the screenplay by Matheson is not nearly so good a story as the original, mostly because much of the heft and ambiguity of the character Kolchak have been removed and replaced by the charming bluster and bombast of Darren McGavin's interpretation of the character. In this story, which takes place in Seattle and relates how a mysterious dead man prowls the streets both above and below ground killing lovely women for ancient arcane reasons, we get the Kolchak we recognize though to the detriment of the narrative heft of the story. In place of mildly complicated characterization we get shouting contests between Kolchak and Vincenzzo and a romance with a beautiful stripper which doesn't hardly make much sense at all given Kolchak's nature. To be honest some of the shouting between Kolchak and his soft-hearted boss actually stop the narrative in its tracks and seems weirdly forced. It's hard to sympathize with Carl in this one as he blunders into crime scenes and seems to cause as much damage to the police effort as he does in spelunking to find the answers. There's an aroma in this story of it all being a little too neat in the final analysis, though admittedly the story itself is plenty fun to read. It doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor sadly.  

So let me take a moment to remember Jeff Rice, a complex man who saw the darkness within society and decided to call it out. That he made the corruption he found into a dark fantasy has made it linger in the imagination, but the real message of the failings of the human animal are no less apparent.

Rest in peace Mr.Rice. Thank you for The Night Stalker.

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The Big Book Of Kolchak!

I've been in a Kolchakian mood lately, so I picked up a book that has been tempting me for some time. The Big Book of Kolchak reprints the first two Moonstone trade paper collections which themselves gathered up the first seven Kolchak comic book adventures the company published. The original trades were in color on slick paper and having already read the first of these, I can safely say that this volume which collects twice the stories on flat stock in glorious black and white is a much superior product. These stories are much better told in black and white, as the shiny color mitigates the mood and atmosphere, of which there is ample.

The collection begins with the Jeff Rice and Gordon Purcell adaptation of the original Night Stalker story. In this one we meet again Janos Skorzeny and relive his reign of terror in Las Vegas. This story blends elements of the classic television movie and the original novel as well as adding some new touches. So even if you're intimately familiar with the original show, there is some new stuff here for you. The artwork by Gordon Purcell looks much better in black and white.

The Get of Belial by Joe Gentile and Art Nichols is a rockem' sockem' Kolchak adventure which takes him to the coal fields of West Virginia where he encounters a most unusual and mysterious family and the demon which seems to haunt them.

Fever Pitch by Stuart Kaminsky and Chris Jones tells the nightmare tale of a very specific disease which finds its way to America from the wilds of Africa. This particular affliction moves from one person to another, one at a time and brings not only gruesome death, but also a very particular kind of fear.

There is a very short Kolchak tale which has only appeared in these collections titled "Mask of Moment" by Stefan Petrucha  and artists Andy Bennet and Dave Adkins, in which Kolchak encounters his second vampire, or perhaps not.

Devil in the Details by Stefan Petrucha and Trevor Von Eden tells the wild tale of technology gone amok and of an exceedingly dysfunctional family in which murder is only the beginning of the horror.

Pain Most Human by C.J. Henderson and Greg Scott takes Kolchak into territory normally covered by Mulder and Scully, two FBI agents who were inspired by his adventures. Find out what happens when Kolchak meets an alien.

And finally Pain Without Tears by C.J. Henderson and Dennis Calero is a very heartfelt tale of a woman with an amazing talent which causes her to be the focus of an intense search by large and powerful folks. Kolchak helps her, but as it turns out she helps him  so very much more.

These are good solid tales, better than I expected frankly. Kolchak is presented as a most flawed human being, at times just trying to stay out of trouble, but always finding it despite himself. The Kolchak stories have the risk of becoming repetitious and dull, repeating familiar beats without fail but eventually without interest. This collection doesn't fall into that trap, at least not often.

The artwork is generally good, though it does vary from story to story. My favorite rendition of Kolchak might just be Trevor Von Eden's. This is a very reasonably priced collection and I highly recommend it. This is the way to read Kolchak comics.

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The Kolchak Papers - Grave Secrets!

  

What do Janos Skorzeny, Richard Malcom, and Louis Henson have in common? They are all the primary antagonists for the rumpled reporter Carl Kolchak. The first two names may well ring a bell, as they are the names respectively of the "Night Stalker" and the "Night Strangler". But that third one might be a bit more obscure, as that fantastic opponent only appears in The Kolckak Papers - Grave Secrets, the third authorized Kolchak novel written by Mark Dawidziak. Dawidziak is a Kolchak scholar and wrote this rather compelling novel in 1992.

Recently Moonstone Publishing, the current home of all things "Kolchakian" uncovered a big batch of these obscure novels and made them available. I'm very glad they did, as this is one of the best Kolchak adventures I've ever read, and one well worthy of the character. Dawidziak has real  feel for the rhythms of Kolchak's speech which is critical to presenting these first-person adventures.

This one deals not with vampires or immortal murderers, but with a plain old ghost. Now that's not strictly true, the ghost here is far from plain and the wonderful depth of detail really helps solidify the phantoms here and gives the whole adventure a real credibility. The novel is exceedingly well researched and that background is the kind of obscure lore that bristles throughout the story.

We meet some old favorite characters and meet some well-developed new ones as Kolchak spans the American continent in search of his latest nemesis. The story begins in Hollywood and switches to Ohio which is presented with great local color.

If I'd fault the book for anything is an overly detailed setting, specifically time. This story takes in place in late fall 1992 and that's locked in with a gaggle of specific details about the politics and affairs of the day. The references are very topical, but so specific that a reader coming to the book without a familiarity with the pop culture of the time might be sometimes mystified.

But that's a quibble. The story grabs you and never lets go, as Kolchak in typical fashion follows his leads and finds the truth, even if we all know he'll never get Vincenzo to publish it.

If you can find a copy of this handome tome, get it. If you like Kolchak's adventure, I suspect you'll enjoy this one.

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Secrets From The Grave!

Despite an early call to my local vendor, I missed the only copy of The Kolchak Papers: Grave Secrets by that much (as Maxwell Smart was wont to say). I'm eager to read this original story by Mark Dawidziak, a noted Kolchak scholar. This was apparently the first of a failed 90's attempt to launch a series of novels starring Kolchak in some original tales.  This one got published but no more. Moonstone has made it available again, apparently through a warehouse find.  Now my copy is on back order and I hope I get one. If I find it elsewhere I will snap it up for sure.

At the time this was published Kolchak stories were limited to the two TV movies, the much-too-brief TV series and a couple of novelizations by Kolchak creator Jeff Rice. I've dabbled in Moonstone's efforts with Kolachak in a limited way, getting their prose efforts and some select comics collections, but a lot of the crossover stuff I'm letting slip by. It's the core Kolchak stories that interest me most, and he's a very touchy character who doesn't mix well in other venues in my opinion.

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The Kolchak Papers!

A few years ago I was able to at least do something I've itched to do for decades -- read the original Jeff Rice novel The Kolchak Papers better known as the The Night Stalker.

Like droves of other folks, I'm a fan of the original TV movie starring Daren McGavin, based on Rice's book, with a Richard Matheson script, and which gave me shudders for many a moon after. It's possibly the creepiest movie ever made for TV, with a wildly successful noir tone blended with an easy comedic charm that makes the whole far greater than the sum of the parts.

Well the novel version of the story which was published only after the success of the movie, has been notoriously hard to get until recently Moonstone, the company which has taken charge of the much negelected and abused Kolchak property, released both the original novel and its sequel which became The Night Strangler.

The TV-movie follows the novel very closely for the first third then veers off a bit and the ending is essentially the same but altered in some very interesting ways from the original. That's why I much prefer reading books which have inspired films rather than film novelizations, because the differences are very interesting and can be very revealing about the story's real value.

I also scouted up Moonstone's first trade reprint of their original adaptation of the "movie". The adaptation is written by Jeff Rice (making it very desirable) and drawn by Gordon Purcell (who does a workmanlike job). It draws both from the TV movie and from the novel offering up yet a third iteration of the original Kolchak story.

I don't recommend either of these unless you're already a fan of the franchise, but if you are, then you won't be disappointed by these other "versions" of the story.

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