SUPERHEROES ARE DAMN-NEAR EVERYWHERE #118

Primary SIDNEY BLACKMER has just one relevant credit, an episode of THE GIRL FROM UNCLE.

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Primary PAUL BLACKTHORNE  has become best known as the character "Quentin Lance" on ARROW and its WB crossovers, but also played the title character of THE DRESDEN FILES, acted in WAREHOUSE 13, and voiced "Metallo" in JUSTICE LEAGUE DOOM.

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Peripheral TAUREN BLACQUE acted in DEEPSTAR SIX with--

Primary GREG EVIGAN (right), who did the TEKWAR TV-movies and the subsequent TV series.

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Primary RUBEN BLADES acted in PREDATOR 2.

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Peripheral ESTELLA BLAIN, a.k.a. "Miss Muerte" from THE DIABOLICAL DOCTOR Z acted with--

Primary HOWARD VERNON of THE THOUSAND EYES OF DOCTOR MABUSE.

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Peripheral VIVIAN BLAINE acted in PARASITE with--

Primary DEMI MOORE, whose participation in one episode of the TV-show THE MASTER earned her starring-status on a videotape cover.

 

THE OVAL PORTRAIT (1842)

This is another of Poe's peculiar bifurcated tales. It starts out with an unnamed narrator, who, for undisclosed reasons, is traveling with one servant in the Appenines Mountains. The man has had an unexplained "affray with the banditti," which has left him with a painful but apparently not dangerous wound. The duo take refuge in an uninhabited chateau, whose owners never show up, and while the narrator is taking opium for his pain, he becomes interested in the "oval portrait" of a beautiful young woman.

He becomes so taken with the portrait that he digs through a convenient family history to find out who she was. In a touch reminiscent of Hawthorne, it's revealed that when the woman had her portrait painted by her beloved, he made it so lifelike that the life departed from the body of the model.

Nothing overtly fantastic takes place, but the narrative qualifies as uncanny because the pay-off is communicated through the venue of the internal story, which may or may not be a true representation of events.  The story doesn't even bother coming back to the narrator's concerns once the history of the doomed woman is told. The story was adapted into a godawful ghost-story flick, reviewed here.

A SUCCESSION OF SUNDAYS (1841)

A young man, raised by his uncle after his parents pass, conceives a passion for his uncle's daughter (yes, another first cousin). The uncle, a born jokester, tells the fellow that he can get married when three consecutive Sundays transpire. The ending is clever if not actually funny, in which the young man solves his problem with the help of the International Date Line.

ELEONORA-- A FABLE (1841)

This story uses a similar approach to ISLAND OF THE FAY-- published in the same year-- in which the glories of bounteous nature give way to doleful death, ELEONORA is far more successful, in part because Poe includes one of his favorite themes: that of a beloved wife-- the narrator's cousin, once again-- who passes away early. Her passing coincides so nearly with the decline of the natural forest where she and the narrator lived that nature seems in sympathy with her spirit. Hence this one rates as "uncanny."

An odd development is that prior to the cousin's death, the narrator swears never to look at another woman. Time passes, and he re-marries, but nothing happens except that he dreams that the spirit of Eleonora forgives him his transgression. An interesting combination of motifs from both MORELLA and LIGEIA.

NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD (1841)

Compared to Poe's early stories about demonic deals, "Never Bet the Devil Your Head" is the best of its kind thus far. A foolish young man develops the habit of making ridiculous bets in which he wagers his head to the devil if he loses. Predictably, a strange fellow shows up and tricks the better into performing a stunt that leaves the fellow missing one cranium.

It's never been an overly popular tale, but gained some moxie when it was adapted as one of the stories in 1968's SPIRITS OF THE DEAD.

THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA (1841)

This is, like THE COLLOQUY OF EIROS AND CHARMIAN, a static dialogue between two spirits who discuss the destruction of the world for a while. However, Monos, the male, seems far more interested in describing his experiences of dying, which are not a little reminiscent of the weird alive-but-not-alive symptoms seen in LOSS OF BREATH.

SUPERHEROES ARE DAMN-NEAR EVERYWHERE #118

Primary GRETA BLACKBURN, best known for the horror-film PARTY LINE, has a half-dozen credits in TV shows like AUTOMAN, LOIS AND CLARK, and V.

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Primary HONOR BLACKMAN acted in GOLDFINGER and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS,  as well as playing "Cathy Gale" on THE AVENGERS.

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Peripheral JOAN BLACKMAN acted in VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET with--

Primary EARL HOLLIMAN of FORBIDDEN PLANET.