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[Quirky Quokka]

Something a bit different this week—a radio show and two comic books that all involve some sunken treasure and have links to movies or TV.


Bold Venture Radio Show, Episode #21 – Sunken Treasure at 20 Fathoms

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=81665

‘Bold Venture’ was produced during 1951-1952 and starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. It has elements reminiscent of the movies ‘Casablanca’, ‘Key Largo’ and ‘To Have and Have Not’. Bogart plays Slate Shannon, seafarer and owner of a hotel in Cuba. Bacall plays his sidekick and ward Sailor Duval. If you like noir, this radio show should appeal. The episode is about 30 mins.


Sea Hunt #6

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=39007

This comic by Dell is based on the TV show starring Lloyd Bridges as a navy diver. I’m not sure if the comic is based on actual episodes or not. Maybe we can dig that up in our discussions. This issue contains two ‘Sea Hunt’ stories and some fillers, with the first story focused on sunken treasure at a Mayan site in Mexico.


Super Detective Library #59 – The Saint’s Sunken Gold

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=74180

This book follows Simon Templar, aka the Saint, who gets tangled up in a sunken treasure case while vacationing off the coast of Florida. What could go wrong?


Will we dig up some hidden treasure in these selections or will it be fool’s gold? I’ll look forward to your reviews and interesting side trips.

Cheers

Quirky Quokka

[The Australian Panther]

Well done! I'm going to enjoy these.
l like those Sea Hunt comics. Sea Hunt was a favorite TV show when I was in primary school.
cheers!   

[Quirky Quokka]

Well done! I'm going to enjoy these.
l like those Sea Hunt comics. Sea Hunt was a favorite TV show when I was in primary school.
cheers!

Glad I've picked something you like, Panther. 'Sea Hunt' was in reruns when I was in primary school, and at that age, I probably thought it was more of a boys' show. But when I came across the comics, I thought they were interesting and it's inspired me to dig out the old episodes. I see there are quite a few on YouTube, so will have to check them out.

Cheers

QQ

[Johnny L. Wilson]

You wanted to know if this was treasure? It certainly was for me. I thought the theme of sunken treasure for the three pieces was clever, but I enjoyed the fact that manta rays played a role in both the radio show and the text adventure in the Sea Hunt comic. I felt like the art was a little uneven in The Saint adventure, but I was so impressed with the length of the story and some of the full panels that I'm not disappointed.

As for Sea Hunt, it was my absolute favorite television show when I was a kid. As I put on the comment on the comic's page, the story played out like a mini-episode of the series. I just missed hearing Bridges narrating the voice over. The second Sea Hunt story was even more nostalgic for me. I had absolutely forgotten that Mike Nelson was supposed to be affiliated with Marineland of the Pacific. I was so thrilled when I was finally able to visit in my teens and disappointed to see the park completely gone in favor of modern development in my adulthood.

Putting this theme of sunken treasure together was a delightful journey. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

BONUS: You opened my eyes to the world of UK comics from that era, as well. I was totally ignorant.

[Quirky Quokka]

You wanted to know if this was treasure? It certainly was for me. I thought the theme of sunken treasure for the three pieces was clever, but I enjoyed the fact that manta rays played a role in both the radio show and the text adventure in the Sea Hunt comic. I felt like the art was a little uneven in The Saint adventure, but I was so impressed with the length of the story and some of the full panels that I'm not disappointed.

As for Sea Hunt, it was my absolute favorite television show when I was a kid. As I put on the comment on the comic's page, the story played out like a mini-episode of the series. I just missed hearing Bridges narrating the voice over. The second Sea Hunt story was even more nostalgic for me. I had absolutely forgotten that Mike Nelson was supposed to be affiliated with Marineland of the Pacific. I was so thrilled when I was finally able to visit in my teens and disappointed to see the park completely gone in favor of modern development in my adulthood.

Putting this theme of sunken treasure together was a delightful journey. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

BONUS: You opened my eyes to the world of UK comics from that era, as well. I was totally ignorant.

Great to see you here, Johnny. I've only been in the group since last August, so I'm still learning everyone's names. Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed the selections. I'm a child of the 60s, so 'Sea Hunt' was in re-runs by then and I was probably more interested in 'The Jetsons' and 'The Flintstones' at that time. However, when I discovered the 'Sea Hunt' comics here, they really took my interest. I think I can appreciate the stories a lot more now. That would have been great to visit the actual Marineland where it was shot. I live in Australia and we have a big marine park a couple of hours away called Sea World, which I've visited a few times. I love it.

Those Super Detective Library comics are great for full-length stories that allow for more story development. We've done a few of them before, and you'll find a really wide assortment, from straight detective stories, to sci-fi, to tales with well-known characters like The Saint. Plenty of range, so you should be able to find some more in there that you enjoy.

Thanks for your comments. That's a great way to start a Monday.

Cheers

Quirky Quokka

[Quirky Quokka]

Hi all

Trivia for the day. In the 'Bold Venture' radio show, there's a short song from a character called King Moses, who apparently does little musical interludes in all (most?) of the shows. I looked him up and the actor is Jester Hairston who was a composer, among other things. He wrote the well-known Christmas song 'Mary's Boy Child' that has been covered by tons of artists, the first being Harry Belafonte:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N8aNhbnP-Y

He also wrote the song 'Amen' which features in the Sidney Poitier film ' Lilies of the Field'. Sidney Poitier 'sings' it in the movie, but it was dubbed by Hairston. Here's a clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYHd0HKaVw4

Cheers

QQ

[K1ngcat]

Hi all

Trivia for the day. In the 'Bold Venture' radio show, there's a short song from a character called King Moses, who apparently does little musical interludes in all (most?) of the shows. I looked him up and the actor is Jester Hairston who was a composer, among other things. He wrote the well-known Christmas song 'Mary's Boy Child' that has been covered by tons of artists, the first being Harry Belafonte:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N8aNhbnP-Y

He also wrote the song 'Amen' which features in the Sidney Poitier film ' Lilies of the Field'. Sidney Poitier 'sings' it in the movie, but it was dubbed by Hairston. Here's a clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYHd0HKaVw4

Cheers

QQ

Thanks for the info, QQ.  I've known both of those songs for a long time, but never realised they came from the same composer. It's good (and perhaps not surprising) to find that "King Moses" was a bona fide musician and songwriter.

I'll be dipping my toes back into Bold Venture when I've done with the comics. All good choices.

All the best
K1ngcat

[The Australian Panther]

Good Research QQ!
One thing i love doing is finding althernative versions of evergreen songs.
Like these.
Jim Reeves - Mary's Boy Child
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLmt345o3mc

Harry Belafonte Sings "Amen" at Sidney Poitier's AFI Life Achievement Award
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBc0pV2Ipj8

Now this is worth listening to - this guy is a great songleader. I think you will like this bluesman!
"Amen" Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir 1994
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0obOtJGo-E

Speaking the line before the choir sings it, was a routine in black churhes because many present were illiterate and couldn't read.
I'd like to hear it done in modern churches where many don't sing at all.     

cheers!

[SuperScrounge]

Sea Hunt 6

Treasure of the Mayas
Funny how I started reading the narration and heard Lloyd Bridges' voice.  I think I last binge watched the show about 10 years ago.

For some odd reason the art seems more like Dan Speigle than Russ Manning to me.

Raney came straight out of Central Casting for bad guys. Yeah, the writers don't have much time to build these things up, but yeesh!

Given this is an archeological expedition, why don't they have an underwater photographer to snap photos before they start disturbing the artifacts?

Okay story.

Shadow of Danger
Okay story of it's type.

The Fisherman's Feat
Not bad.

Underwater City
Page 26 we see a restaurant named Manning's. Guess that's the artist sneaking in his sig. 

Considering the thickness of the stone bridge, I'm not sure those small bundles of dynamite would work. Why not just dump logs and stuff to make the bridge more like a dam?

Frankly I wonder if blowing up a section of land near the quarry might work better to divert the flow of water. (But then the story wouldn't work for Sea Hunt, Keith. Think of the poor writers and the artificial contrivances they have to invent!)

Hot and Cold Running Water - The New Frontier - Treasure of the Seas
Eh, okay.

[SuperScrounge]

Bold Venture 21

Sunken Treasure At 20 Fathoms

Hmmm, didn't know about this radio show. My first thought it was something like Lux Radio Theatre (radio adaptations of movies) or Escape (radio adaptations of print stories). Didn't realize Bogey & Becall did a continuing series.

Kind of funny how the manta ray, or devil fish, was considered a stock villain of the sea for sea stories up to some point in the mid-twentieth century, and then... I guess as skin diving became more of a hobby people began to see these distant relatives of shark's as more harmless fish that only cause trouble if you bother them and not the ruthless killers of fiction.

Nice story.

[Quirky Quokka]

Good Research QQ!
One thing i love doing is finding althernative versions of evergreen songs.
Like these.
Jim Reeves - Mary's Boy Child
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLmt345o3mc

Harry Belafonte Sings "Amen" at Sidney Poitier's AFI Life Achievement Award
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBc0pV2Ipj8

Now this is worth listening to - this guy is a great songleader. I think you will like this bluesman!
"Amen" Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir 1994
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0obOtJGo-E

Speaking the line before the choir sings it, was a routine in black churhes because many present were illiterate and couldn't read.
I'd like to hear it done in modern churches where many don't sing at all.     

cheers!

Thanks for digging those up, Panther. You can't beat a black gospel choir for that second one. And that last one with Jester Hairston shows he certainly didn't lose anything as he got older.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Sea Hunt 6

Underwater City
Page 26 we see a restaurant named Manning's. Guess that's the artist sneaking in his sig. 

Considering the thickness of the stone bridge, I'm not sure those small bundles of dynamite would work. Why not just dump logs and stuff to make the bridge more like a dam?

Frankly I wonder if blowing up a section of land near the quarry might work better to divert the flow of water. (But then the story wouldn't work for Sea Hunt, Keith. Think of the poor writers and the artificial contrivances they have to invent!)

Good pick up on that sign, SuperScrounge. I wouldn't have realised that. I also had a few logistical problems with blowing up the bridge, but as you say, they had to have a reason to call in the navy diver.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Bold Venture 21

Sunken Treasure At 20 Fathoms

Hmmm, didn't know about this radio show. My first thought it was something like Lux Radio Theatre (radio adaptations of movies) or Escape (radio adaptations of print stories). Didn't realize Bogey & Bacall did a continuing series.

Nice story.

Hi SuperScrounge - I'd never heard of it either, and was pleasantly surprised to find it here. They were pretty major film stars to do a weekly radio series. I love the bits with the snappy patter between the two of them, reminiscent of their films.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Thanks for the info, QQ.  I've known both of those songs for a long time, but never realised they came from the same composer. It's good (and perhaps not surprising) to find that "King Moses" was a bona fide musician and songwriter.

I'll be dipping my toes back into Bold Venture when I've done with the comics. All good choices.

All the best
K1ngcat

I thought you might like the music trivia, K1ngcat. Will be interested to here what you think.

Cheers

QQ

[K1ngcat]

Sea Hunt

I remember the TV series fondly, and the comic seems to capture the feel of the original.  I like the art, it's clean but appealing, and I see the artist went to some trouble to render Lloyd Bridges' eyebrows very accurately. It's a small point, but it helps bring the character to life.  The colouring is pleasing too, particularly in Treasure of the Mayas, the underwater scenes come across as beautifully fluid.

The Fisherman's Feat is a pleasantly amusing filler, but I found Underwater City slightly less gripping than the lead story, perhaps because of the scene in which it's set. There's less happening, too - they call Mike Nelson, he takes a dangerous job, has a setback, then goes on to save the day. Still, I suppose not having the adventure at sea does provide variety.

Overall I enjoyed this quite a lot, and it brought back some good childhood memories. Thanks for posting this one.

Sunken Gold
I'm less enamoured with this, for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, the detectoscope - "You tune it in to what you're looking for, and it tells you how deep it is?" It reads like the same kind of pseudo-science that I'd probably tolerate in sci-fi, but it seems out of place here. Surely Charteris could've done better.

The art is by John Spranger who was apparently very highly thought of, and worked with Jack Cole and Will Eisner.  I'm sure I remember seeing his name in a few early Marvel comics too. Anyway, as suspected this is a newspaper strip, cut down to fit the SDL format, and as a result the amount of detail in a panel seems to vary wildly, and it doesn't do Springer any favours.  Clegg is a little disappointing too, he seems to be straight out of Villains R Us, the powerful build, scowling simian face, and stripey shirt are all dead giveaways. I'm sure it was better in newspaper form, and maybe in colour, there are some nice examples here:

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/s/spranger_john.htm
Some interesting reading, QQ, I'll go back to Bold Venture for another listen before I comment.

[Morgus]

Funny how universal some things are, huh? I watched SEA HUNT after school in syndication too. The comic had all the elements I loved...lovely ladies in diving suits, underwater caves, and people not listening to Mike’s common sense advice...to their peril. The photo on the inside reminded me of his appearance in AIRPLANE with the hair standing up. The art was really nice and the colouring didn’t get in the way but at the same time was nice to look at. A good job done by DELL and a good choice.

And yeah, thanks for the Boogie and Bacall radio show. Didn’t know it existed either.

[SuperScrounge]

Super Detective Library 59

The Saint's Sunken Gold!

Nice story. Admittedly expanding some of the panels for book publication kinda of showed off the artist's weakness as an artist (some bigger than normal noses on the Saint and Don), although it might have been ignored as a comic strip panel. But aside from a few minor points the art was fine.


As an aside thinking of possible suggestions I might make in a reading group one possibility was a Saint comparison featuring a normal comic book, maybe something like a Super Detective Library and one of the Vincent Price Saint radio shows that CB+ has (I think I listened to the whole collection they have here around a year ago. Highly recommended.)

[K1ngcat]

Now this is worth listening to - this guy is a great songleader. I think you will like this bluesman!
"Amen" Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir 1994
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0obOtJGo-E

cheers!

So that's Jester Hairston in the flesh, what a great entertainer, even when he runs out of breath !
Nice find, Panther, thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Quirky Quokka]

The photo on the inside reminded me of his appearance in AIRPLANE with the hair standing up.

Morgus, I forgot Lloyd Bridges was in Airplane (called 'Flying High' in Australia). I think I found that clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeI5ke0BENw

Cheers

QQ

[Morgus]

Yup. that’s the clip. I wonder why they had to change the title?

[Quirky Quokka]

Yup. that’s the clip. I wonder why they had to change the title?

Hi Morgus - I wasn't sure either, so did a quick search. It was basically that another film was released in Australia and New Zealand round about the same time with a similar title, so they changed it to avoid confusion. Though it can still cause confusion if people don't know it's the same film Here's a link with some other films that also have different titles elsewhere:

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/15-films-completely-different-titles-other-countries-movies-translation-a7929166.html

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Super Detective Library 59

As an aside thinking of possible suggestions I might make in a reading group one possibility was a Saint comparison featuring a normal comic book, maybe something like a Super Detective Library and one of the Vincent Price Saint radio shows that CB+ has (I think I listened to the whole collection they have here around a year ago. Highly recommended.)

Definitely worth a look. SuperScrounge, can you make a note in the suggestions thread?

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Sunken Gold
I'm less enamoured with this, for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, the detectoscope - "You tune it in to what you're looking for, and it tells you how deep it is?" It reads like the same kind of pseudo-science that I'd probably tolerate in sci-fi, but it seems out of place here. Surely Charteris could've done better.

The art is by John Spranger who was apparently very highly thought of, and worked with Jack Cole and Will Eisner.  I'm sure I remember seeing his name in a few early Marvel comics too. Anyway, as suspected this is a newspaper strip, cut down to fit the SDL format, and as a result the amount of detail in a panel seems to vary wildly, and it doesn't do Springer any favours.  Clegg is a little disappointing too, he seems to be straight out of Villains R Us, the powerful build, scowling simian face, and stripey shirt are all dead giveaways. I'm sure it was better in newspaper form, and maybe in colour, there are some nice examples here:

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/s/spranger_john.htm
Some interesting reading, QQ, I'll go back to Bold Venture for another listen before I comment.

Thanks for the extra info, K1ngcat. I didn't realise it came from a newspaper strip, so that explains why the storytelling is a bit patchy at times. It doesn't flow as well as the other Super Detective Library one we read recently.

Cheers

QQ

[The Australian Panther]

I didn't realise it came from a newspaper strip 

QQ, I pointed that out and pasted a link on Spranger, but over in the comments under the book itself, not in the reading group posts. The fact that two sets of comments on a book can exist on CB+ in two different places, can be quite confusing!

As I said there, quite a number of the Super Detective Libary Books are reprints from US strips. 

cheers!   

[K1ngcat]

Bold Venture

I've listened to this twice, trying to get the hang of identifying the different characters.  The voice-over intro and the incidental music still have the most impact for me. They're beautifully old-fashioned and melodramatic and just the sort of thing that they used to lampoon wonderfully on Around The Horne, a sixties humour programme on BBC radio.

Actually, I found the music easier to relate to than the plot, or for that matter the acting. I can appreciate that Bogart & Bacall have a certain magic, though I'm inclined to think the combination worked better on celluloid. It all seems a little hammy, but I think that's the style of the era. I watched the first episode of the Captain Marvel movie serial, and it was just about as convincing.

The moral of the story seems to be everyone's got their own agenda and you can't trust anybody further than you can throw them. I'm sure Cornell Woolrich would agree, and I'm inclined to go along with him. Manta Rays seem to have attracted some bad press, but I can find no suggestion that they're particularly interested in harming humans. However, apparently they have the highest brain-to-body ratio of all fish, so if they knew what we were like as a species maybe they'd figure out that we can't be trusted.

An amusing diversion, but I suspect I'm more comfortable with comic books! Nice choice though QQ, thanks for changing the pace a little.

All the best
K1ngcat