“It Came From Half-Price Books”

Today (Thurs­day) was the last day of a 20% off sale at Half-Price Books and I took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pick up a num­ber of selec­tions for the Collection.

 “Wonder Woman” — Season 1, 2, 3

All three sea­sons of the “Won­der Woman” TV series star­ring Lyn­da Carter and Lyle Wag­goner. No oth­er series fea­tures such con­tin­u­al mind con­trol ele­ments, espe­cial­ly Won­der Wom­an’s famous las­so, but there were also a num­ber of oth­er hyp­no­sis or brain­wash­ing ele­ments in the stories.

“Killers from Outer Space”

Peter Graves stars in this movie abut aliens who plan to mutate ordi­nary insects and ani­mals into an unstop­pable assault force on human­i­ty. Grave’s char­ac­ter is essen­tial for his sci­en­tif­ic con­nec­tions and is placed under the men­tal con­trol of the aliens to pro­vide that assistance.

“Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe”

The entire 12 episode series, the third of the Flash Gor­don seri­als. This one is note­wor­thy for the episodes where Dale Arden is exposed to an amne­sia agent and is turned against Flash. The set also includes episodes from the 50’s TV series and might con­tain anoth­er mind con­trol storyline.

“Instant Self Hypnosis” by Forbes Robbins Blair

A do-it-your­self self-hyp­no­sis book, with a large num­ber of scripts to fol­low and direc­tions on how to write your own scripts.

“Hypnosis: Secrets of the Mind” by Michael Streeter

[amtap book:isbn=0764125931]

A lav­ish­ly-illus­trat­ed guide to the sub­ject of hyp­no­sis, start­ing with the his­to­ry of the sub­ject and mov­ing on to spe­cif­ic sub­jects such as the appli­ca­tions of hyp­no­sis, self-hyp­no­sis, stage hyp­no­sis, etc. (It also includes a chap­ter enti­tled ‘Hyp­no­sis in the Media’.) Its a good book for the pro­fes­sion­al to give to non-pro­fes­sion­als to describe what they do.

And the one that got away, as the store could­n’t find the DVDs to put back into the packaging:

“Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” — Season 1

The black&white sea­son, ear­ly in the show’s his­to­ry when it was as much con­cerned with espi­onage as with mon­sters. This col­lec­tion includes the episode with the “fear gas”, where a for­eign agent tries to dis­rupt oper­a­tions by expos­ing the crew to a gas that mul­ti­plied their latent fears. 

There were a few oth­ers that are not des­tined for the Col­lec­tion but I could­n’t just pass up, including:

“Them!” (1954)

The first and best of the 50’s giant insect movies. Star­ring James Whit­more and James Arness (and appear­ances by Whit Bis­sell and Fess Park­er and even Leonard Nimoy), its a taut and sus­pense­ful sto­ry about mys­te­ri­ous attacks in the desert near where the first atom­ic bomb test was car­ried out. The first 10 min­utes are espe­cial­ly creepy, set in a wind-blown desert where the only sign of the pres­ence of the giant insects is the smell and the sound they make: there is a real feel­ing of claus­tro­pho­bic dan­ger here. Also to be men­tioned is the female sci­en­tist (Joan Wel­don) who demands to be treat­ed as a sci­en­tist first and a woman lat­er and gets it.