MATT HELM VINYL AND SCHMEISSER

 

Beginning a look at Matt Helm collectables I start with this LP record I spotted. Its on You Tube of you want to listen, the Theme from the Silencers.

I love how the producers have thrown together the cover image, two starlets wearing hip little next to an artexed wall and brandishing hefty weaponry.

The presumably real machine gun on the right - a Schmeisser maybe? - reminds me of the plastic toy rifle seen in an old blog legend of ours, the wonderful Gerry Anderson Starcruiser Mission Kit by Thomas Salter Toys.

But the schmeisser isn't the toy gun that made it to the shops.

I'll load that one later this week!

S C H I S M

 

GEEK SALAD: HISSING IN THE SEA

Another paperback I found in a charity shop this summer was The Hiss. Its a sort of monastic Sixth Sense involving a young novice monk who predicts the deaths of fellow monks. His predictions take place when he hears a hissing sound. The tone of the initial chapters was encouraging and it reminded me of the cloistered mystery found in the medieval whodunnit The Name of the Rose.

Despite these good beginnings I have to admit getting bored with The Hiss and it went back on the pile for further hissing in the future. Have you read it readers?

The Hiss calls to mind another verbal noise-based story I have called The Shout. This is a movie, not a book and is quite a harrowing watch as Alan Bates terrorises John Hurt with his lethal shamanistic shout. Its an odd but powerful film set on the Devon shore and the brazen tyranny of lodger Bates is shocking. 

Its shoreline atmosphere recalls that other Seventies oddity, Neither the Sea Nor The Sand by the famous newscaster Gordon Honeycombe. I enjoyed this book and the film version too. I seem to remember the book blurb on the front mentioning werewolves which is strange as there aren't any in it. Have you read or seen the Shout or Neither the Sea readers?

The idea of a powerful shout was a feature of my Kung Fu period as it happens. I was fascinated with all martial arts back in the early Seventies and the more obscure the better. One of the more obscure Japanese arts was Kiai-Jutsu or fighting by yelling. I used to try this out on my mates on the battlefield [our back garden]. God knows what our neighbours thought when high-kicking teenagers started screaming their lungs out at each other! Happy days!

Here's some footage of the Kiai yell I found on You Tube.  Are you a shouter readers?

           

MEGA MEGO MONSTER CASTLE IN NEW JERSEY

Hi Woodsy! Here is a display that I have been wanting to make for years but didn't have the time, money, or materials to do. This year I am pleased to add it to my  usual Halloween decorations.

I have combined a Mego Mad Monster play set with a Mego Wizard of Oz Witch's Castle playset and made a mega Mego castle for the monsters to roam in. The action figures are a variety of Mego Mad Monsters(Some old, some new) and figures from other toy companies, such as Diamond Select, Full Moon Toys and Distinctive Dummies. 

The Mad Monster Castle, plus the Dracula and series 1 Frankenstein's Monster are my own childhood toys, now 45 years old!

Brian F 

NJ USA.

GEEK SALAD: MATT HELM'S FOG

I keep dreaming about school dinners, especially one: a big hamburger bun with well done chips all drenched in gravy. This wasn't available when I was a kid but it is now and by God I'm going to treat myself to it if I make it to the end of next week and the start of Half-Term!

Which meal do you dream about readers?

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Today I hear that Paypal will charge inactive accounts a fee of £12. I've just remembered I have an old business account from my toy dealer days and I don't use it anymore. Whoops! I'd better close it down! I use my wife's nowadays! Anyone else heard about this fee?

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A recent read was The Fog by the British Stephen King, the late James Herbert. Its nothing to do with the fabulous John Carpenter movie of the same name about evil dead pirates in Antonio Bay. Herbert's Fog concerns a yellow mist rising from a crack in the ground and one which sends anyone caught in it murderously loopy. 

The plot reminded me of Romero's The Crazies aka Code Name Trixie and Herbert's book starts off really well. There are some stand-out scenes especially the harrowing plight of the PE teacher in the gym but alas I have to say that I found most of the novel boring. Its obsession with two characters called Holman and Casey drove me nuts and I had to speed read the book to get to the end quickly! Have you read The Fog? Am I being too harsh?

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Another paperback I once had, as part of my second-hand TV-tie in book box for toy fairs, was called The Silencers. It was based on a film starring Dean Martin I think, who's character Matt Helm was a sort of assassin. I've never read the book or any Matt Helm novels and I've not seen the films either. Are you familiar with Matt Helm readers?

THE REMCO ENERGISED 12 INCH FIGURES

I remember buying a loose Remco Batman from 1978 at an evening toy fair in the late 1990's. Normanton I think. It was an exciting find as I'd only just read about these 'action figures'.

Made of a similar hard plastic to my beloved Captain Laser by Mattel, Remco's energized toys combined great DC looks  - Batman, Spider-Man and Superman, with that universally fascinating device, the winch.

These 12 inch figures could go up and down on a nylon line and I was thrilled to find that my own car boot find actually worked. I was sad to sell it a few years later.

Here's the 1979 TV ad for the uber-cool Remco energised Spidey.

Have you got a Remco energised DC figure?

BABY'S GOT THE BENDS

GEEK SALAD: WOLFEN TUSKS

A pot-pourri of stuff here. My mind is a cluttered loft so I'll just babble.

I'm currently reading a paperback called Wolfen by Whitley Strieber. A classic 70's horror wolf tome I remember seeing the film years ago. It described a race of super-wolves living in the ruins of 70's New York. These creatures were hidden from humans whilst also feeding on them: vagrants, winos and strays. The problems start when two cops are half eaten. 

The book touches on native American folklore and the high-rise men working on the 'steel'. The invisible beasts stalking humanity remind me of Covid-19 to be honest and I find the idea of urban decay harbouring a secret really interesting. As you'd expect the book goes into more detail and is a proper good read. Haver you seen the film or read the book?

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I wonder if this oddest of years will be remembered by collectors as a good one? Certainly toy fairs have sadly bit the dust but has Ebay taken their place? Have space-toy collections prospered this year? What's your experience?

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I've just been reading about the oceans of Ganymede. They are ..... layered! Yep, maybe three oceans, each 100km deep, one on top of the other like a stack of pancakes! The mind boggles!

How amazing it would be to glide and sail through these vast seas in sleek chrome ships.  I seem to recall a book  I read as a teenager which featured subs whizzing through Pliocene oceans. The idea fascinated me. It was called The Many-Coloured Land by Julian May, whom I had assumed was a man but was actually a woman. I had all three books but don't think I read them all, something I ought to rectify. This was the iconic cover of the paperback. Have you read it?

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Mammoth skulls, with those huge curling tusks are quite primeval things. Mammoths in general really. I remember some fabulous art of the La Brea Tar Pits when I was a kid and stared at it for ages, its epic struggle of a trapped woolly mammoth and a roaring sabre-toothed tiger. For the life of me I can't recall where I saw it. Does it ring any bells readers?