Bøger af Ed Hulse

Created as the mysterious narrator of a 1930 radio drama, The Shadow immediately enthralled listeners and became the star of his own pulp-fiction magazine, which at its peak had a paid circulation of some 300,000 copies per issue. And in the depths of the Depression, to boot! Success like this was bound to be noticed by Hollywood, which came calling right away. This fact-filled monograph charts The Shadow's lengthy history in movies, from modestly produced short subjects made in 1931 to the multi-million-dollar spectacular released in 1994 with Alec Baldwin as the legendary Master of Darkness. Brimming with behind-the-scenes production info and illustrated with rare photos, posters, lobby cards, magazine covers, and even frame captures from the movies themselves, FLICKERING SHADOWS is one of the most absorbing pop-culture histories published in years.

During the pulp era - roughly the first five decades of the 20th century - more than one thousand all-fiction magazines reached the nation's newsstands, if only for a single issue. Of that number, just a couple dozen attained any reputation for literary quality, and fewer than half that many regularly published stories considered to be on a par with those accepted by the prestigious "slick" magazines. The top periodicals in the field - ADVENTURE, ARGOSY, BLUE BOOK, SHORT STORIES, THE POPULAR MAGAZINE, and a few others - were edited and packaged with loving care and consistently reflected the best that rough-paper magazines had to offer. And for decades American readers, ravenous for escapist entertainment, devoured them in weekly or monthly intervals. PRIDE OF THE PULPS contains lengthy, in-depth surveys of the most prestigious all-fiction magazines. Considerably revised and expanded from their original appearances in the award-winning journal BLOOD 'N' THUNDER, these essays reflect scholarly devotion and fannish enthusiasm in equal measure. They chart the evolutions of ADVENTURE, SHORT STORIES, THE POPULAR MAGAZINE, and several other periodicals of comparable quality, noting the memorable authors, stories, and characters that paraded across their woodpulp pages, entertaining readers through two World Wars and a Great Depression. PRIDE OF THE PULPS, profusely illustrated with cover art and interior illustrations from the pulp magazines under consideration, is the first volume in BLOOD 'N' THUNDER PRESENTS, a series of book-length histories of vintage American popular culture as reflected in books, magazines, comic strips, radio dramas, and motion pictures.

For more than 14 years, the semi-professional journal BLOOD 'N' THUNDER chronicled the evolution of adventure, mystery and melodrama in pulp fiction, radio drama, comic strips, and motion pictures produced in the first five decades of the Twentieth Century. Exhaustively researched and engagingly written by hobbyists, historians, and academics, the non-fiction pieces in BLOOD 'N' THUNDER raised the bar for scholars of American popular culture. This anthology collects some of the most memorable works to grace the journal's pages, along with the illustrations that accompanied their initial publication. Such popular pulp heroes as The Spider and Doc Savage are explored. Early multi-media appearances of famous fictional characters Zorro, Tarzan, Hopalong Cassidy, and the Green Hornet are covered in depth. Lengthy biographical essays profile such giants of the pulp-magazine industry as publisher Frank A. Munsey, writer Gordon Young, and artist Norman Saunders. The Golden Age of American popular culture is celebrated in each and every selection, with BLOOD 'N' THUNDER contributors offering previously unreported and long-forgotten facts. Painting a vivid picture of a bygone era, the material contained herein is not only educational but entrancing as well.

Frances Marion Dee defied the Hollywood odds, essentially becoming that almost mythical figure: the extra girl plucked from a chorus line or crowd scene arbitrarily and given the Big Break that catapults her to stardom. Frances was a day player at Paramount when someone in the studio's casting department mistook her for a more accomplished actress and gave her a bit role in Ernst Lubitsch's Monte Carlo. Shortly thereafter, a chance meeting with Maurice Chevalier in the Paramount commissary won her the female lead in his next picture, Playboy of Paris, after director Ludwig Berger had rejected her as too inexperienced for the part. Then, on the basis of her good work with Chevalier, she was signed to a long-term contract. It would be easy to attribute the ongoing interest in Frances to her ageless beauty, the quality summed up by that great Norma Desmond line in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard: "We had faces then." Few female stars or starlets were photographed as often or as gorgeously as Frances; you can gaze upon hundreds of her old publicity portraits and never see one in which she looks less than ravishing. But it isn't just the perfect lines and features that impress, it's the emotions she conveyed with her face. She didn't need special lighting or makeup to suggest the proper mood-it came out through her expressions, especially through her eyes. Frances was equally effective as the impeccably bred lady-in-waiting of If I Were King and the masochistic nymphomaniac in Blood Money. The many Sweet Young Things she played early in her career blinded some in Hollywood to her true range, which was considerable. This book-length study of her films is a handy reference guide, dedicated to a star unjustly forgotten-or, at the very least-unfairly neglected and definitely underrated.

Walter Miller and Allene Ray co-starred in ten classic cliffhanger serials produced and released during the late silent era by Pathé, one of the pioneering motion-picture companies. Miller and Ray were an incredibly popular team whose incredibly popular and profitable chapter plays included THE GREEN ARCHER (a 1925 adaptation of Edgar Wallace's best-selling mystery novel), THE HOUSE WITHOUT A KEY (the 1926 serial that introduced Charlie Chan to moviegoers), and THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE (a 1928 mystery-horror hybrid whose grotesquely disfigured villain anticipated a slew of fright-film characters). Working in tandem with chief director Spencer Bennet and their favorite scenarist Frank Leon Smith, Miller and Ray temporarily restored luster to a unique film form that had become tarnished. This monograph exhaustively covers the Miller-Ray phenomenon: author Ed Hulse has seen all surviving footage from their chapter plays, and his account also relies on private correspondence from Frank Leon Smith, interviews with Spencer Bennet, and careful analysis of surviving scripts from their serials. The text is supplemented with dozens of rare photos, including previously unpublished candids taken during production. Fans and students of silent movies will relish Hulse's extensively researched coverage of this unappreciated and largely undocumented phase of film history.

In addition to being the most profitable chapter play in the 20-year-history of Republic Pictures-generating more than $1.1 million in worldwide revenue-THE LONE RANGER (1938) set new standards of excellence for motion pictures adapted from characters originating in other media. It was a genuine phenomenon, securing bookings from major theater circuits and big-city picture palaces at the time when serials mostly played during Saturday matinees in small-town movie houses. Along with their success at box offices, both THE LONE RANGER and its 1939 sequel, THE LONE RANGER RIDES AGAIN, added considerably to the lore and evolution of this beloved hero of American pop culture.In this profusely illustrated monograph, film historian Ed Hulse presents a comprehensive, heretofore untold, behind-the-scenes history of both serials' production. It has been extensively researched from recently uncovered documents buried deep in the files of George W. Trendle, the broadcasting magnate whose Detroit radio station WXYZ was the Lone Ranger's birthplace and home for more than two decades. Hulse has reviewed hundreds of pages-private letters, legal correspondence, inter-office memos, studio production reports, even the original 1937 contract between Trendle and Republic-culling from them all pertinent details relating to the making of both serials and the first's 1940 feature version, HI-YO SILVER. To this material he has added information gleaned from his own interviews of principal participants: co-director William Witney, head writer Barry Shipman, stunt double Yakima Canutt, and cast members Herman Brix, George Letz (Montgomery), and Sammy McKim.The monograph sports dozens of illustrations: rare stills, posters, advertisements, lobby cards, magazine covers, and production documents.

For more than a decade, BLOOD 'N' THUNDER has explored American popular culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as manifested in its mass-market fiction-dime novels, nickel weeklies, pulp magazines-and such complementary storytelling forms as stage melodramas, motion pictures, and Old Time Radio thrillers. The first 21 issues of this award-winning, limited-circulation journal are long out of print, and collectors have been known to pay as much as ten times the original cover price for back numbers that infrequently turn up on eBay. A follow-up to 2011's THE BEST OF BLOOD 'N' THUNDER, this deluxe volume reprints the finest reviews and articles that appeared in issues 11 through 21-more than 100,000 words of history, biography, criticism, and commentary. In the book's 316 pages you'll read about such popular characters as The Shadow, Doc Savage, and Sam Spade. You'll read about such legendary pulp magazines as ADVENTURE, BLACK MASK, and SHORT STORIES. And you'll read about such famous authors as Talbot Mundy, Dashiell Hammett, and L. Ron Hubbard. Like its predecessor, THE BEST OF BLOOD 'N' THUNDER: VOLUME TWO is a one-volume encyclopedia for aficionados of vintage adventure, mystery, and melodrama.

Best-selling author Zane Grey wrote nearly 60 novels set in the American West, and a substantial number of them were adapted for the silver screen-some of them up to five times. With a total estimated audience of 250 million people, the former dentist and world-class fisherman entranced readers and viewers for decades with his highly romanticized tales of the frontier and the colorful pioneers who settled it. Some 111 feature-length films and two cliffhanger serials were adapted directly from Grey's stories, and Filming the West of Zane Grey covers each one in detail. Casts, credits, plot synopses, contemporaneous reviews, release dates, running times, alternate titles-just about everything you'd want or need to know about Zane Grey movies is here. And it's all tied together with an extensive, analytical, bio-historical essay by film historian Ed Hulse.

This companion volume to DISTRESSED DAMSELS AND MASKED MARAUDERS continues Ed Hulse's history of the silent-era movie serial. It covers the "chapter plays" released by such companies as Universal, Vitagraph, Mutual, Paramount, Arrow, Mascot, Rayart, and members of the Edison Trust. The fascinating history of these pioneering productions - more than 190 episodic thrillers made between 1914 and 1929 - is told in 160,000 words and illustrated with hundreds of rare vintage photos, posters, lobby cards, magazine ads, and even frame blowups from surviving film elements. The product of nearly 25 years of research, HANDSOME HEROES AND VICIOUS VILLAINS is the last word on this unique form of American film entertainment.

This illustrated guide celebrates the American motion picture's first and most enduringly popular genre.

The motion-picture serial, routinely dismissed, overlooked, or undervalued by mainstream film historians, finally gets the attention it deserves in this meticulously researched and lovingly written book. Drawing on the well-established conventions of pulp fiction and blood-and-thunder stage melodrama, the motion-picture chapter play thrilled viewers of all ages and, more importantly, helped make moviegoing a weekly habit for millions of Americans during the Teens and Twenties. Author and film historian Ed Hulse, the editor of publisher of BLOOD 'N' THUNDER magazine, opens the book with a 25,000-word overview of this unique film form, debunking old myths and putting the silent serial in its proper historical context. The bulk of the book is devoted to Pathé Exchange, the company that employed the most popular stars (serial queens Pearl White, Ruth Roland, and Allene Ray) and released the most successful and influential chapter plays (THE PERILS OF PAULINE, THE EXPLOITS OF ELAINE, THE TIMBER QUEEN, THE GREEN ARCHER). Hulse presents a comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at Pathé's output, impeccably sourced and featuring first-hand recollections from people who were part of those halcyon days. DISTRESSED DAMSELS AND MASKED MARAUDERS has more than 250 illustrations: rare movie stills, posters, advertisements, lobby cards, candid on-set snapshots, even frame captures from the films themselves. Most of these have never before been reprinted. Hulse has in painstaking detail recaptured this remarkable period in motion-picture history, and even those film buffs with limited interest in serials will be fascinated by this evocative history of the chapter play.

From the dawn of the sound era through the mid-1950s, action-loving moviegoers patronized their local picture palaces every week to see the latest thrill-packed episode of their favorite chapter plays. And while they were primarily drawn to the intrepid heroes who battled dastardly villains in pursuit of lost treasures or secret formulas, they also paid close attention to the distressed damsels in constant need of rescue. Of course, not every woman in serials required saving; a few were pro-active partners in peril, willing and eager to mix it up with brutish heavies whenever the occasion demanded. But all of them were sweetly sexy, even if they rarely got the chance to show off their charms. In this book serial historian Ed Hulse has gathered more than a hundred rare photos showing the serial queens at their sexiest and most provocative. Some are clad in swimsuits, others in negligées, still others in their skivvies. You'll see the most familiar-Kay Aldridge, Frances Gifford, Noel Neill, Jean Rogers, Linda Stirling-as well as the obscure actresses who appeared in only a single chapter play. Hulse provides informative captions summarizing the careers of these cliffhanging cuties of yesteryear.

The top-selling, best-reviewed title in Murania Press history is now available in a newly revised and expanded 2024 edition! With nearly 3000 copies in print, sold in 23 countries, THE BLOOD 'N' THUNDER GUIDE TO PULP FICTION has been acclaimed one of the foremost (the foremost, in the opinion of some) reference books covering the subject.During the 20th century's first half, millions of Americans flocked to newsstands every month in search of thrills provided by all-fiction magazines printed on cheap pulp paper. These periodicals introduced and popularized such famous characters as Tarzan, Zorro, Sam Spade, Buck Rogers, Doc Savage, Hopalong Cassidy, and Conan the Barbarian, to name just a few. The producers of pulp fiction churned out their vigorous and occasionally outré stories at a feverish pace, generally for a mere penny per word. Some eventually graduated from the pulps to become world-famous, best-selling authors-among them Edgar Rice Burroughs, Max Brand, Erle Stanley Gardner, Ray Bradbury, Louis L'Amour, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler.Often derided in their own time, the "rough paper" magazines had an incalculable effect on American pop culture. They gave birth to modern science fiction and the hardboiled detective story, but also to plot devices, character types, and storytelling innovations that live on in today's most popular novels, movies, and TV shows.Illustrated with 750 magazine covers and original paintings, THE BLOOD 'N' THUNDER GUIDE TO PULP FICTION presents a complete and lively history of this unique literary form, covering genres individually and identifying key titles, authors, and stories. It also offers advice on collecting the vintage magazines and directs readers to recently published reprints of classic pulp. This handbook is a perfect companion piece to 2017's THE ART OF THE PULPS, co-edited by Ed Hulse.Along with addressing previous omissions and making editorial corrections, we've added nearly 10,000 words of new copy (recently uncovered facts and additional analysis) to the existing manuscript. We've also included more cover reproductions, among them at least a half dozen important first issues left out of the original 2013 edition.What's more, we've updated the four appendices, which offer carefully-compiled lists of mass-market pulp-fiction anthologies, reference books about the pulps, small-press publishers specializing in rough-paper fiction reprints, and a collector's guide to building a comprehensive pulp-magazine collection. Perhaps most importantly, the book now has a complete index - the lack of which was the only substantive complaint we've ever received about the earlier GUIDE.The new material has been added (without significantly increasing the book's page count and list price) by slightly reducing the text's font size, thus getting more words per page. We also filled blank pages that previously separated chapters. The 2013 GUIDE had 414 pages, the 2024 revision has 428.

The Shadow, The Spider, The Avenger, Doc Savage, The Black Bat, The Phantom Detective - these swashbuckling heroes of mid-20th-century pulp fiction all had one thing in common: They fought crime from outside the law, unhindered by red tape and unmindful of such legal niceties as due process. They fought with fists and guns, for the most part hiding their true identities beneath outlandish costume and grotesque disguises. This collection of essays by distinguished pulp-fiction aficionados chronicles the era of single-character magazines from offbeat angles and with keen insight. The pieces herein analyze key stories and characters while offering rare, behind-the-scenes glimpses of authors and editors at work, crafting and polishing the pulp-paper fever dreams that enthralled millions of young readers during the Great Depression, World War II, and beyond. Ed Hulse, editor of BLOOD 'N' THUNDER, the award-winning journal of adventure, mystery and melodrama, has assembled these affectionate essays with loving care and a discerning eye for the high-water marks in this phase of American popular culture. This third volume in the series BLOOD 'N' THUNDER PRESENTS, like its predecessors, is profusely illustrated with pulp-magazine covers and original artwork.

Return with us to those halcyon days of yesteryear, when writers of pulp fiction made a precarious living-sweating out plot details, trying to make their hackneyed characters seem fresh, working insane hours, often typing until their fingers bled. And usually for just a penny a word. In this collection of articles from vintage writer's magazines, those journeymen scribes explain how-and why-they did it. Represented in these pages are pulp fiction's leading lights: Lester Dent, Frank Gruber, Frederick Davis, H. Bedford-Jones, Erle Stanley Gardner, and many more. The tips they presented to aspiring fiction writers are, for the most part, still applicable today. And they make fascinating reading, bringing back to life a long-gone phase of American popular culture.

For nearly 50 years the motion-picture chapter play was a vibrant part of our country's pop-culture scene. Following their favorite serials turned moviegoing into a weekly habit for millions of Americans. During the silent-film era, episodic thrillers were marketed to adults and children alike, but their emphasis on base melodrama and contrived thrills appealed more to kids. Those youthful habitués of Saturday matinees faithfully followed serials and retained fond memories of them. Subsequent generations discovered cliffhanger classics via later broadcasts on TV and reissues in collectable home-video formats. Among the many episodic thrillers analyzed in this sequel to 2012's well-received BLOOD 'N' THUNDER'S CLIFFHANGER CLASSICS are such fan favorites as THE MILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY, THE HOUSE OF HATE, THE RIDDLE RIDER, TARZAN THE FEARLESS, PIRATE TREASURE, THE LOST CITY, RADIO PATROL, THE SPIDER'S WEB, SPY SMASHER, and SECRET SERVICE IN DARKEST AFRICA. The essays herein, focusing on chapter plays of unusual quality and significance, are not the typical puff pieces generally found in books on this subject. Each article has been carefully researched and supplemented with first-hand recollections of people who worked in the serials being examined, including leading men Buster Crabbe, Kane Richmond, and Rod Cameron; stuntmen Dave Sharpe and Tom Steele; and directors Ford Beebe and William Witney. Their input makes this volume of CLIFFHANGER CLASSICS a valuable addition to the historical record, as well as an entertaining read. The book is profusely illustrated with rare stills, posters, and lobby cards from each serial. An appendix reprints rare marketing material created in 1936 to promote the first Flash Gordon serial. Th

Judge these books by their covers! Get immersed in the definitive visual history of pulp fiction paperbacks from 1940 to 1970.The Art of Pulp Fiction: An Illustrated History of Vintage Paperbacks chronicles the history of pocket-sized paperbound books designed for mass-market consumption, specifically concentrating on the period from 1940 to 1970. These three decades saw paperbacks eclipse cheap pulp magazines and expensive clothbound books as the most popular delivery vehicle for escapist fiction. To catch the eyes of potential buyers they were adorned with covers that were invariably vibrant, frequently garish, and occasionally lurid. Today the early paperbacks--like the earlier pulps, inexpensively produced and considered disposable by casual readers--are treasured collector's items.Award-winning editor Ed Hulse (The Art of the Pulps and The Blood 'n' Thunder Guide to Pulp Fiction) comprehensively covers the pulp-fiction paperback's heyday. Hulse writes the individual chapter introductions and the captions, while a team of genre specialists and art aficionados contribute the special features included in each chapter. These focus on particularly important authors, artists, publishers, and sub-genres. Illustrated with more than 500 memorable covers and original cover paintings. Hulse's extensive captions, meanwhile, offer a running commentary on this significant genre, and also contain many obscure but entertaining factoids. Images used in The Art of Pulp Fiction have been sourced from the largest American paperback collections in private hands, and have been curated with rarity in mind, as well as graphic appeal. Consequently, many covers are reproduced here for the first time since the books were first issued.With an overall Introduction by Richard A. Lupoff, novelist, essayist, pop-culture historian, and author of The Great American Paperback (2001).