Gale forces are still blowin' strong here at THOIA, as we re-enter Earth's atmosphere, leaving behind Gale Allen and her space-age Girl Squadron (see our previous post HERE), thus, landing once more back on solid, blood-soaked soil to find not one, but TWO great, horror-tinged, Gail Ford murder mysteries awaiting us! Yep, someone's dumped a dead dame amongst the dummies in a department store window display. Now it's up to Gail (and her Bettie Page bangs 'n legs) to bring the baddie to justice! From the October 1950 debut issue of Crime Smashers #1, plus fun art and fast paced script from Gene Leslie! But first, Gail gasps it up in a graveyard at midnight as someone has once again turned a gal into a ghost! Gene Leslie delivers another daring, detective doozy, this time via the December 1950 issue of Crime Smashers #2! And just because it's been awhile, it's casting call time again: Starring Broderick Crawford as Inspector Madson, and Jean Brooks as beautiful, bad ass-- Gail "Girl Friday" Ford!
6 comments:
“A dead dame among the department store dummies” is one heck of a hook! I continue to be amazed by the gems you dig up for us here… and also, you’s weren’t kiddin about those bangs n legs!
And just wait until you get a gawk at the gams lined up for the next gem! Gahhh!!
Two first page Jeepers girls. That's probably a record around here!
There's an interesting juxtaposition on the writing. In the first tale, Gail basically takes a backseat to Mac; sure she's front and center but she needs to be rescued and in the last couple pages it's all fists of fury from Mac.
In the second story, she's calm, collected, doesn't need a man and even gives us a quip before she nails the bad guy. There's even gun play!
I love the chute gimmick, we get it shown before it's used, that's some good story writing 101.
Nice art in both stories, but much better action and energy in the second one. I do like how abbreviated these cases are; we get multiple suspects but we don't get multiple clues; we just get a conclusion and a reveal of the clue after the murder is shown. This is somewhat standard for these comic tales because normally showing clues can be text heavy and not as exciting as getting punched.
Get a clue, or get punched —sometimes the choice is obvious
With a little reworking, these plots could have been used in a Phantom Lady, Blonde Phantom, Spider Widow or a Bert and Sue adventure.
These were a nice pair of whodunnit tales.
Well I don't think anybody's going to beat your casting. But a hero plays to play--even when he can't win--so how about Ella Raines and Jim Backus as Gail and Madison? I always love seeing early Backus when he's playing it serious. And maybe Ted de Corsia for Mac (though I can't imagine anyone better than Broderick Crawford here, either).
Two fun and breezy stories. It's kind of fascinating how callous people are about the victims in these stories. The diner patrons all seem to like Stella, but then one refers to her as "getting croaked." And Madison's dummy joke at the end of the second story seems both mean and a little off-the-mark, what with how they should have been bragging about Lydia's quick thinking with regard to the evidence that will put her murderer away.
While I liked the second story better for all the reasons mentioned above--that long cat-n-mouse with the armed silhouette is very effective--I am delighted that these back-to-back Girl Friday mysteries aren't identical. Both start with a surprise corpse, and both feature Gail getting a thankless service industry job in the course of the investigation, but other than that their shapes are a lot different. I hope the whole series is like this, and by the end her resume is as long as her leg and she has a whole new appreciation for the working class.
Have to say, if I was a seventies Brit prog-rock band I'd be filing "Nobody Suspects the Inspector" away as my next concept album.
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