Posted inMovies

“The Mask of Fu Manchu” (1932)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023194/]

Cap­sule Descrip­tion: The malev­o­lent Man­darin, Fu Manchu, attempts to ral­ly the hea­then Asi­at­ic hordes under his ban­ner by way of the leg­endary Sword and Mask of Genghis Kahn, pro­claim­ing him­self the rein­car­na­tion of the leg­endary con­queror. But his oppo­nent, Sir Nay­land Smith, is there to oppose his scheme.

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Posted inAdvertisements Miscellaneous

“Hypnotique” by Max Factor

For the women born to enchant men. Max Fac­tor’s Hyp­no­tique … the new fra­grance that’s cap­tured the very essence of wom­an’s pow­er over men. Cool­ly and with great ele­gance Hyp­no­tique attracts … holds … per­suades … and then! Any­thing can hap­pen! (Adver­tis­ing copy from the first mag­a­zine ad.)

Descrip­tion: All cos­met­ics, includ­ing fra­grances, are designed in part to attract and focus atten­tion on the wear­er. Some fra­grances are just a lit­tle more bla­tant about it. Fra­grances with names like “Spell­bound”, “Hyp­nose”, “Mes­mer­ize” or “Hyp­not­ic Poi­son”  bla­tant­ly sug­gest the pow­er of com­mand­ing and con­trol­ling men (although Avon’s “Mes­mer­ize”, which was orig­i­nal­ly a wom­an’s fra­grance, is now being more direct­ly mar­ket­ed toward men, strange­ly enough.) Even fra­grances not so named are fre­quent­ly adver­tised using hyp­not­ic ter­mi­nol­o­gy and imagery.

But one of the ear­li­est and cer­tain­ly one of the most bla­tant of the hyp­not­ic cos­met­ics was “Hyp­no­tique” by Max Fac­tor. Released in the late 1950’s, the hyp­not­ic imagery was very notice­able in the mag­a­zine ads:

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Posted inFiction Movies

“Our Man Flint” (1966)

His­to­ry: The year is 1966. Amer­i­ca is under­go­ing the throes of the British spy inva­sion. James Bond 007 leads the assault from the movie screen and book racks every­where, sup­port­ed ably on the small screen by “The Avengers”. Amer­i­ca coun­ters with its own home-grown tele­vi­sion spy series. “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and “Get Smart”, but who shall chal­lenge the fore­run­ner, the invin­ci­ble 007 him­self, on the big screen?

In answer to Amer­i­ca’s call comes Derek Flint, super­spy, mar­tial artist, bal­let mas­ter, speak­er to por­pois­es, mil­lion­aire, gour­mand, man-about-town, ladies man, etc. In effect, every­thing James Bond is, and more. Armed with his trick lighter, which can per­form 82 dif­fer­ent func­tions (83 if you include light­ing a cig­ar,) his quick wits and flash­ing grin, Flint saves the world from poten­tial con­querors and nuclear dis­as­ter in “Our Man Flint” (1966) and “In Like Flint” (1967).

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Posted inCartoons and Anime

‘Hare Brained Hypnoist’ (1942)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034829/]

Cap­sule Descrip­tion: Bugs Bun­ny’s eter­nal neme­sis, hunter Elmer Fudd, tries a new tac­tic this time: hyp­no­sis. Using a book on hyp­no­sis, he first hyp­no­tizes a bear then tries to hyp­no­tize Bugs, only to be hyp­no­tized in return. Bugs turns the tables on him by com­mand­ing him to be a rab­bit, but, when turn­ing the tables, Bugs dis­cov­ers that the tables can be turned in both directions.

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Posted inFiction

“Lammas Night” by Katherine Kurtz

[amtap book:isbn=0345295161]

His­to­ry: I’ve known about Kather­ine Kurtz as an author since my col­lege days: not only was I attract­ed to her writ­ing for her “Deryni” nov­els, but also to her own back­sto­ry. Before she turned to pro­fes­sion­al writ­ing, she was a mem­ber of the ear­ly Soci­ety for Cre­ative Anachro­nism, even­tu­al­ly becom­ing its first Seneschal (the equiv­a­lent of being the nation­al chair­man of the orga­ni­za­tion) as well as being award­ed the title of Duchess (mean­ing that she had been Queen of the King­dom of the West twice.) She also pub­lished a fanzine called “Deryni Archives: The Mag­a­zine” which con­tained a wealth of sup­ple­men­tary infor­ma­tion and sto­ries that helped affirm my fas­ci­na­tion for the Deryni.

Since then, she has devel­oped into a pop­u­lar and pro­lif­ic fan­ta­sy writer, known pri­mar­i­ly for her “Deryni” nov­els and her con­tem­po­rary fan­ta­sy “Adept” series in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Deb­o­rah Turn­er Har­ris. She edit­ed a col­lec­tion of Deryni sto­ries and oth­er short sto­ry col­lec­tions, also wrote numer­ous short sto­ries and stand-alone nov­els, one of which is “Lam­mas Night”.

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Posted inFiction

“The God Machine” by Martin Caidin

[amtap amazon:asin=B001YU5XZC]

[amtap book:isbn=0671698273]

His­to­ry: When I was in junior high school, I worked as a vol­un­teer in the library, because I was an avid read­er and loved the access to books this posi­tion gave me. I was also becom­ing a fan of sci­ence fic­tion, tran­si­tion­ing from my ear­li­er love of mys­ter­ies. And, most impor­tant­ly, even in my ear­ly teens I had a deep inter­est in the sub­ject of hyp­no­sis, so I was hunt­ing for books on the sub­ject: I was already read­ing the books on hyp­no­sis I could find in the local library, pri­mar­i­ly the Melvin Pow­ers books but a few sim­i­lar ones. I used the local library because, as might be expect­ed, books on hyp­no­sis were not to be found in the school library.

How­ev­er, I was mis­tak­en, at least in think­ing hyp­no­sis-relat­ed books were only to be found in the non-fic­tion sec­tion: one of the SF nov­els I dis­cov­ered there in the school library was “The God Machine” (1968) by Mar­tin Caidin. Caidin is best remem­bered for one nov­el, which not only became a tele­vi­sion series (which in turn spawned a spin-off series) but it was one of the few pro­grams to immor­tal­ize a sound effect in the pub­lic con­scious­ness. That nov­el, “Cyborg”, became the TV pro­gram “The Six Mil­lion Dol­lar Man”. How­ev­er, Caidin was a very pro­lif­ic author, with over 50 nov­els to his cred­it, includ­ing “Marooned” which became the basis for the movie of the same name, as well as being an avid avi­a­tor, air­plane restor­er and non-fic­tion author.

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