Having just finished Brian Murphy’s Flame and Crimson: a History of Sword-and-Sorcery, published in 2019 by Pulp Hero Press, I can now expand on my initial post of a few days back. I am doing this because I think this books deserves a wide circulation, and so we need to talk about it, and because I got wind of some less-than-positive opinions going around, and I’d like to address those, too.
So, for starters, let’s see what you get in the package.
Continue readingAs sometimes happens, the mailman delivered this morning a packet that caused me to change my plans for the rest of the day – or the next two days probably. The packet being an Amazon bubble-wrap envelope containing a copy of Brian Murphy’s Flame and Crimson: a History of Sword-and-Sorcery, published in 2019 by Pulp Hero Press (as far as I know there is no ebook edition).
I know this will sound outrageous, but in the long run I rather like best “the other” Hammer movies rather than the classic Dracula & Frankenstein flicks. Maybe it’s because the Dracula and Frankenstein movies I have seen so often that in the long run I know them by heart, while the less-well-known Hammer films still bring an element of surprise.
So, I’m going through the Hammer catalog, checking out the less well known flicks. After 1962’s Captain Clegg, two nights ago I spent ninety minutes with The Reptile, from 1966 (that in Italy was distributed as “La Morte Arriva Strisciando” … Death Comes Crawling).
Yesterday a friend informed me that the most recent Italian translation of Dumas’ The Three Musketeers was selling for 99 cents on Amazon in digital format. Now I have my old copy here somewhere in some box, but I did the math and realized it’s been something like thirty-six years since I last read the mother of all swashbuckler novels, and so I sacrificed one buck and got me the ebook.
And so yesterday night, after ordering a pizza, I sat down and re-watched a movie variously known as Captain Clegg or as Night Creatures, a 1962 Hammer movie featuring Peter Cushing and Oliver Reed. And if Cushing and Reed aren’t reason enough to watch a movie, well, sue me.
But it’s actually better than that, because Captain Clegg was not to be a movie about a guy called Captain Clegg or going under the alias of Parson Blyss – but then Disney got in the way.
Follow me…
I have just received a gift of books and chocolate from a far-away friend. It’s the sort of thing that’s good for morale, because yesterday was a bad day – sometimes these coincidences happen, and they never cease to surprise me. We live in a strange, but not necessarily hostile world.
One of the books in the box was a well-beloved classic I mentioned I wanted to re-read, another is a war story that looks quite exciting, and the third… oh, the third I am starting right away, and filing it under research.
Continue readingThe first movie in this series (Vyi) was beautifully looking, brainless fluff, am OK entertainment for a warm summer night.
The second episode looks like more of the same, but with all dials turned up to eleven. We’ll see what the end result is…
Karavansara 