A couple of years ago, A.V. Club editor Keith Phipps purchased a large box containing more than 75 vintage science-fiction, crime, and adventure paperbacks. He is reading all of them. This is book number 69.
For such a bland actor, John Agar made a powerful impression—though maybe just on me. Whenever I read science fiction from a certain era with a Wonder Bread protagonist, I tend to picture Agar, who got his start working as an actor for John Ford, then moved on to B-movie immortality as the star of The Mole People, Attack Of The Puppet People, and suchlike. Basically, if you had a modest budget and you needed someone to play a handsome professor, or doctor, or airman fond of saving damsels from giant tarantulas and similar perils, Agar was your man. He looked good, he could throw a punch, and he could even stretch a little, as when he played a man possessed in The Brain From Planet Arous. For anyone who grew up deprived of Mystery Science Theater 3000 or Saturday-afternoon syndicated television that reran old movies, here’s who I’m talking about:
In my mind, I gave Agar a starring role in Treasure Of The Black Falcon. Not that this novel entirely fits the mold of his movies, but it isn’t far off, and its hero, the unheroically named Dirk Gordon, carries himself much like Agar would. He’s earnest and well-meaning, with just a hint of libidinous leering beneath the surface.
As for what sort of mold the novel would fit, that’s a slightly tougher question. It begins as high-concept science fiction, but ends up pitting the good guys against a decadent feudal civilization fond of human sacrifice, like a tale straight out of Edgar Rice Burroughs. And there’s a reason for that.
The author is John Coleman Burroughs, the third child of Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan and John Carter Of Mars, and author of a bunch of other books, too. John Coleman Burroughs followed his dad into the family business, first as an illustrator, then as a writer. Burroughs The Younger first illustrated his father’s work in 1937 with the publication of The Oakdale Affair And The Rider. He also drew the John Carter newspaper strip for a while, and kicked around illustrating circles for years. Most intriguingly, he also worked with animation giant Bob Clampett on a never-realized John Carter cartoon. (For samples, you can visit this confoundingly organized website.) He first tried his hand at writing in the late 1930s, in collaboration with his brother Hulbert. Written in 1947 but unpublished until 1967, when Edgar Rice Burroughs’ work enjoyed a new wave of popularity thanks to paperbacks, Treasure Of The Black Falcon is John Coleman Burroughs’ only solo novel, which doesn’t surprise me that much.
It isn’t a bad book, or at least not that bad of a book. But it’s a neither-here-nor-there-effort. It begins with a brief note explaining that the book has been constructed as best as the author could from an actual conversation! (It isn’t.) We then open in 1947 aboard the Ellen Stuart, an ultra-high-tech private submarine staffed by bland Yanks, a mute stowaway, and a couple of broadly drawn French and Cockney stereotypes. Three men lead the ship: Dirk, the darkly magnetic Von Benson, and Phillip Montague, the ship’s designer and fiancé of the “girl” (actually a grown woman) who lent her name to the ship, Ellen Stuart. Even though they have enough money to build and staff a submarine, they’re on the hunt for treasure.