Category Archives: Armchair adventuring
Tits & Sand: Captain Sindbad, 1963
OK, let me get this straight – we are about to talk about a Tits & Sand movie shot in Munich, Germany, featuring the guy that played Zorro as Sinbad.
I am sure that it can get weirder than this, but still…
There are three men before whom a woman need have no shame: her husband, her doctor and her magician.
Captain Sindbad, produced in 1963 by the King Brothers, is a strange affair, an odd assortment of mismatched pieces: we get Guy Williams, that had played Zorro in a Disney-produced series, Pedro Armendariz, a class act that has a lot of fun as the bad guy El Kerim, and German actress and singer Heidi Bruhl, that in the same year represented Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest. TV mainstay Abraham Sofaer rounds up the cast as the dotty magician Galgo, complete with pointy hat and star-spangled coat. Continue reading
Wan ghosts of Baker Street
The man living at 221B, Baker Street, keeps haunting my life.
I was talking to a friend, a few nights ago, and found out he never read the Holmes stories, nor watched to movies. This was a hard blow for my conviction that Holmes is one of the most immediately recognizable characters on the planet.
But two things soon emerged.
My friend had indeed watched the Robert Downey Jr movies, and he knew of the character, in a very nebulous way (and I guess the Robert Downey Jr movies did not help).
What caused my friend to steer clear of the Canon was his inability to get Holmes’ motivation.
Why the heck is this guy solving crimes anyway? Continue reading
Hope & Glory – Talk Like a Pirate!
Ahoy, mateys!
Today it’s Talk Like a Pirate Day, but I’d rather talk about pirates and other assorted ship-based scoundrels and adventurers.
And because I am still promoting like hell my game Hope & Glory, why not give a look at piracy in the skies.
After all, Hope & Glory is a game that features airships.
And indeed, the scenario The Man that would be Quinn includes piracy in the sky lanes, the piracy in question being loosely based on South Cina Sea piracy.
And Emilio Salgari.
We’ve been there already, and you know the Tigers of Mompracem did have an influence on my game.
But really, let’s talk about pirates and adventurers, and Hope & Glory. Continue reading
The Hound of ’77
And as we were talking about the Hound, here’s the audio version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, featuring Kevin McCarthy, from the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, March the first 1977.
Courtesy of the Internet Archive.
Enjoy!
The Second Lauren Bacall Blogathon: Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
This is The Second Lauren Bacall Blogathon, run by the In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood blog, and if I have to explain to you who Bacall was, you are reading the wrong blog.
But please follow the link and check out the wealth of great posts from the blogs that are participating in the blogathon, and then come back here, because we have a train to catch, and we are running late. Continue reading
Sherlock will never die
The other day, on my post about the Japanese series, Miss Sherlock, Joe commented
Sherlock will NEVER die!
And I had to agree, of course.
Sherlock Holmes is one of the great characters of popular culture, together with Dracula and Tarzan1, and through infinite version and editions and adaptations, it has reached every corner of the world and every social stratum.
Sherlock Holmes is everywhere, and he is not going away.
And I was reminded, reading Joe’s comment, of a thing I caught somewhere and I’ve been unable to trace, that is, Harlan Ellison suggesting the Canon as the basis of a reasonable education. Continue reading
Karavansara 