If you can’t look at a bottle of vanilla extract without thinking of Tom Hanks, I get it. Same. And have I got a book for you!

Every book bearing Lee Gambin’s name on the cover is worth purchasing, but Tonight, on a Very Special Episode: When TV Sitcoms Sometimes Got Serious — Volume 1: 1957-1985 is the only one whose mere introduction gave me goose bumps. Those initial pages aim to define what constitutes a “Very Special Episode” (hereafter abbreviated as “VSE”), but also weave a big, warm blanket of nostalgia for members of a certain generation or two: those weaned on afternoon reruns of sitcoms older than we were, and whose evenings were determined — if not outright dictated — by the grids in that week’s TV Guide.

As Gambin (We Can Be Who We Are: Movie Musicals from the 1970s) explains, the VSE represented a break from the show’s norm to present something different, whether a backdoor pilot, a series finale or a character’s life milestone, from the birth of the baby to a wedding or funeral. But more often than not, the VSE saw a seismic shift in tonality, however temporary, to tackle a Big Social Issue; the laugh track was given seven days’ rest so the creative powers could address not-funny situations of real life, like getting cancer, hating minorities, contracting the herp — you know, that sort of thing.

Nowadays, an entire network series can be built upon such a single hot-button issue (yes, you, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), but in more sheltered times, devoting a half-hour to STDs or ICBMs was considered a risky movie best left for parents, schools and churches to handle quietly … if handled at all, which may account for why the boob tube — increasingly the nation’s babysitter — stopped every now and again to take up the cause, to face reality with bravery, to stand up for what’s right, to fight the good fight, to give Barney Miller a werewolf.

Gambin’s overview ticks through some of the greatest hits, conjuring memories of treasured shows and particular VSEs I must have seen four or more times growing up. I remember learning about child molestation from Diff’rent Strokes, cerebral palsy from The Facts of Life, blackface from Gimme a Break!, speed (and the alcoholic properties of the aforementioned vanilla extract) from Family Ties and media manipulation from The Brady Bunch. (That Jesse James was one bad hombre. Who knew? Mike and Carol, of course.)

All those and more are here — many, many more: 124, if I counted correctly. Each episode in Tonight, on a Very Special Episode merits a stand-alone essay from Gambin or one of his contributors. (Bittersweetly, one is the recently departed and much-loved Mike McPadden, author of Teen Movie Hell, who takes the good and takes the bad of a couple Facts of Life episodes.)

The contents — which, honestly, could really use a detailed table of just that — include an expected surfeit of Norman Lear creations, namely All in the Family and Maude, both giants in the VSE field. As enlightening as the pieces on those VSEs are, I found the best to be about half-hours I somehow missed or forgot.

Four of these essays stand out as tops in terms of being informative, critical and passionate, all while detailing and deconstructing scenes that make one think, “This actually aired?!?“:
• the Beav palling around with a booze-soaked hobo (Leave It to Beaver);
• Tabitha and a Black playmate switching races, much to the chagrin of Darren’s racist client (Bewitched);
• Fred and the boys unknowingly auditioning for a porno movie (Sanford and Son);
• and Monroe being repeatedly raped by two obese women (Too Close for Comfort).

The Bewitched one won awards; Comfort, yanked from syndication.

From examinations of M*A*S*H to transmissions on WKRP, Gambin and friends pour their hearts into their work, because these shows mean as much to them as they mean to you. If Tonight, on a Very Special Episode leaves you wishing it didn’t end in 1985, great news: BearManor Media has simultaneously published Volume 2: 1986-1998, so The Golden Girls can co-exist beside your Good Times. Ain’t we lucky we got ’em? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon or BearManor Media.

Stephen B. Armstrong’s two volumes of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures (1970-1983): An Oral History are likely not what you think them to be, thanks to the “oral history” label. Today, we associate that term with a chronological narrative weaved together from quotes from varying sources, as one finds in untold numbers of internet articles and pop-culture books (e.g., I Want My MTV or Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live).

What you get from Volume One and Volume Two, however, isn’t a story, but a collection of Q&A interviews (published by BearManor Media) separated by the interviewee and not presented in any order — other than starting with Roger, of course.

With that carp out of the way, know this: There are some great stories for the reader to discover within these interviews (and it’s kind of amazing how many made their way to Corman via Martin Scorsese). Jonathan Kaplan recalls getting one day’s notice to direct his first film, Night Call Nurses. Lewis Teague talks about his assignment to figure out how to get some sex and action scenes cut into Monte Hellman’s Cockfighter. John Sayles reveals eye-rolling details from the Piranha script he rewrote, such as the killer fish seeking menstruating swimmers.

No one is more self-congratulatory than actor Martin Kove, while no one is more entertaining than actress Grace Zabriskie. It’s less about her #MeToo remembrance of Galaxy of Terror co-star Ray Walston and more about her blunt frustration and annoyance with the interviewer’s inquiries (“Dear God in heaven, I just can’t get interested in that question”), not to mention bafflement over why anyone wants to talk about Galaxy of Terror.

Others submitting to the hot seat include Sid Haig, Dick Miller (but just barely), Joe Dante, Allan Arkush, Mary Woronov, Robert Englund, Jack Hill and many more, several of whom are behind-the-camera personnel with names you won’t recognize. That’s not a bad thing, other than not always being properly introduced to the reader; in fact, I’d argue the single most informative conversation is with Corman attorney Barbara Doyle, who details her process for acquiring acclaimed foreign films for U.S. distribution, which gave Corman serious credibility to offset his miserly reputation.

On that note, a throughline emerges, with many acknowledging the low-as-possible budgets while also praising the flip side to that: real-world training and creative freedom. Not for nothing was the man awarded an honorary Oscar in 2009 … although it sure wasn’t for Galaxy of Terror. Armstrong makes sure to celebrate both, as one should! —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon or BearManor Media.

Jordan Todorov’s 2011 documentary, Dad Made Dirty Movies, is a wonderful introduction to one of cult film’s best-kept secrets. But Todorov’s new book on the topic, Dad Made Dirty Movies: The Erotic World of Stephen C. Apostolof, is even better. Although the ideal is to consume both media, 58 minutes face a sheer disadvantage against 336 pages.

Written with Joe Blevins and published by McFarland & Company, the book serves as not just a full biography of Apostolof, but the definitive source of information on this unheralded sexploitation pioneer. Even in death, Apostolof continues to live in Ed Wood’s shadow, thanks to their partnership on a handful of films — most notably, 1965’s immortal Orgy of the Dead. Todorov’s work goes a long way in restoring the proper amount of luster to Apostolof’s contributions.

Tracing his transformation from Bulgarian by blood to vulgarian by trade, the book functions best once Apostolof starts making softcore skinflicks. However, don’t dare skip the initial few chapters, because he led quite a life before becoming an off-color/off-Hollywood director, from working for tips as a whorehouse piano player to being sentenced to a concentration camp — all before fleeing his homeland for a fresh start in America.

With Orgy of the Dead marking his directorial debut, the riotous stories from behind the camera are, naturally, like something out of Ed Wood (a biopic that raised Apostolof’s ire, by the way, upon not being invited to take part and not being recognized himself). The contrast of the two men is fascinating, with Apostolof all business and the total pro, and Wood a full-blown alcohol constantly teetering — literally and metaphorically — toward a sad, self-made demise.

Sure, the thrice-married Apostolof had his failings, too, but they were largely about his inability to financially plan for the future, especially after the market for his breasty brand of bread-and-butter dried up with the proliferation of hardcore pornography. Today, more eccentric cineastes continue to discover and celebrate the relative joys of Fugitive Girls and College Girls Confidential, but in Apostolof’s time, the life for these films was fleeting — petering out shortly after viewers’ collective refractory period.

Despite carrying over the documentary’s title, the book is not framed from the Apostolof children’s point of view, although they certainly provide memories, clear up misinformation and dispel rumors. I found myself envious of son Steve, entering puberty as he visits the set of Dad’s Lady Godiva Rides, a vehicle for the buxom blonde Marsha Jordan.

Film by film, milestone after milestone, Todorov and Blevins tell their subject’s story with reserved reverence — unclouded by rose-colored fanboy glasses — and a fair amount of good humor. Some of the funny bits sneak up on the reader: “[Drop-Out] composer Jaime Mendoza-Nava provided another part-Latin, part-Muzak score. This time, he was billed as J. Mendozoff, a pseudonym that sounds like an over-the-counter sleep aid.” Other instances are more expected, but no less effective: “There are several unproduced Wood screenplays from this era whose titles tell you all you need to know about their contents: The Teachers, The Basketballers, The Airline Hostesses. You don’t need to read them to guess that they respectively concern teachers, basketballs and airline hostesses screwing their brains out.”

With more than 100 photos throughout, Dad Made Dirty Movies closes with a novel appendix offering a peek behind the curtain: two outlines for Apostolof’s never-realized The Immoral Artist, all of four combined pages. You don’t need to read it to guess that it concerns an artist who wants to screw his brains out. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Any longtime reader of our sister site, Bookgasm, now 15, knows novelizations run in its blood. I suspect for many of us, movie novelizations were among the first non-children’s novels we read for pleasure. Being born in 1971, I remember a time when such books were the closest one could relive the experience of seeing the film, outside of a re-release or random TV airing. Unlike many of us, however, I kept reading them as an adult, well into this new millennium.

When I learned of the existence of a new nonfiction book treating the subject of novelizations seriously, instead of scorn, my interest was piqued. As you’ve guessed by now, the title in question is the splendid Light into Ink: A Critical Survey of 50 Film Novelizations, by the UK-based S.M. Guariento.

While doing my due diligence, it was as if a cartoon devil and angel hovered on opposite sides of my head, respectively trying to talk me out of and into buying it:
• “That subtitle sounds so academic, its bones have been drained of marrow.” / “Nonsense, look at those preview pages.”
• “It doesn’t cover the novelizations you’ve expected.” / “So what? Expand those horizons!”
• “It’s self-published!” / “You know that doesn’t mean what it used to. Plus, so were your two favorite books from 2018: Keith Alison’s Cocktails & Capers: Cult Films, Cocktails, Crime and Cool and Howard David Ingham’s We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror.”
• “It costs more than $50.” / “True, but here’s a black-and-white edition for less than $20!”

Regarding that last “argument,” Guariento has issued two editions of varying price points: respectively, the splashy, full-color, 480-page DeLuxe edition and the more affordable Midnight edition, whose only differences are being color-free inside and sporting a black cover. Being on the fence, I opted for the more prudent choice of Midnight.

Unfortunately, I loved the book — and I mean absolutely loved it — so naturally I should have kicked myself for not going DeLuxe, right? Instead, I corrected the issue; see the difference for yourself in the sample spreads at the end of this review. Either way, Guariento’s introduction alone is almost worth the purchase price. In just under 50 pages, he gives a thorough, global tour through the history of the novelization, which dates back much further than I assumed: 1608!

What follows amounts to the meat on these bones: full, no-stone-unturned discussions of 50 novelizations, grouped among eight thematic sections that encompass the post-apocalyptic, the satanic, the speculative and even the Italian. The filmographies of John Carpenter and David Cronenberg get their own separate chapters, as do novelizations better than their source material and, finally, novelizations that stand alone as excellent fiction in their own right.

In that last group falls the unlikely Taxi Driver, a literary-minded reimagining of the film’s screenplay, which Richard Elman makes all the more chilling by writing in the first-person POV of perhaps the last character in whose head one would want to spend time: Travis Bickle. Elman’s stream-of-consciousness approach includes clipped verse and thoughts that peter out on the page, bringing out Bickle as an “angry poet in embryo,” as Guariento writes. This chapter, coming toward the book’s end, is the best argument for Light into Ink’s existence.

Remarkably, not a single chapter fizzles, each adhering to a sturdy framework of context and criticism covering not just the book, but the film itself, the assigned author, the book publisher and its various editions. In essence, Guariento is reviewing as many movies as he is books, but of most value are his comparisons of the two media: what was lost, what was gained and — since authors often had to work from early screenplays that didn’t necessarily represent the final product — what could have been. On one hand, the smash novelization of The Omen, written by the film’s own screenwriter, David Seltzer, is pretty direct, like a bar band covering a hit song with little to no variation; on the other, Dennis Etchison’s translation of Halloween III: Season of the Witch draws upon more of Nigel Kneale’s notoriously discarded screenplay than the sequel that resulted. (Speaking of Kneale, his own Quatermass novel of 1979 earns its own chapter.)

In other words, you’re going to learn a lot. For example, two separate tie-in novels exist for Mad Max 2, The Cat o’ Nine Tails and Capricorn One, all of which are covered here. One of the Capricorn books is penned by Bernard L. Ross, a pseudonym for soon-to-be-famous thriller writer Ken Follett. Guariento covers another title by an author on the cusp of becoming a brand name, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes by none other than John Jakes, as well as an already established bestseller in Christopher Priest‘s eXistenZ, working under a John Luther Novak nom de plume.

Those men, however, are the outliers. We won’t count the directors doing their own dirty work (as John Boorman and George A. Romero did as co-authors of the respective Zardoz and Dawn of the Dead tie-ins, both discussed at length herein), but most of Light into Ink’s featured names aren’t recognizable à la Alan Dean Foster, Robert Sheckley or Mike McQuay — and thank God for that, because it allows Guariento to widen his scope to the likes of Hadrian Keene (The Laughing Woman), proving not even Radley Metzger’s porn was immune to riding the tie-in train, no matter how counterintuitive that move may be; and to Phil Smith, whose interpretation of the gory monster mash The Incredible Melting Man is backhandedly celebrated as “pulp trash. … When its aspirations are so deliciously low, can we honestly complain when it achieves them?”

Which brings us to Guariento’s secret weapon: the scalpel. To his credit, he doesn’t dismiss novelizations outright, but when the books are junk, he calls them junk. However vicious his takedowns read — deliciously so — they are equally well-informed, precise and funny. I’m going to share three of my favorite examples:

• On Harriet B. Gilmour’s Eyes of Laura Mars: “There’s simply no way to make lines like ‘”Oh no!” she gasped’ read well, for example, and she really ought to have had the good sense to leave ‘Aargh!’, ‘”No!” she screamed’ and, especially, ‘Nooooo…oo…oo!’ in the comic books where she found them.”

• On Alan Radnor’s Rabid: “Radnor appears to have left the world of letters in peace, leaving behind him one baffling question: how was he ever allowed inside in the first place? Never was a bush so beaten around by a writer. Faced with a slender script, Radnor seems to have chosen simply to quadruple the word count and hope for the best. … No observation is too trite, no thought too clichéd. Taken together, the effect is cretinising.”

• On Michael Hudson’s The Case of the Bloody Iris: “Never was there a sorrier case of talent outstripped by ego. Hudson is as keen on gore as he is on exclamation marks, but hasn’t the same zeal for proofreading. The text is plagued by missing words, misplaced apostrophes and contagious italics, plus Google Translate gibberish (‘You like the closer, no?’), mangled readymades (‘All of the sudden…’), tautologies (‘Jennifer screamed. They were hysterical screams, and she couldn’t stop’), baffling imagery (‘His face was a large translucent crust’) and gobsmacking illiteracy (‘A gloved hand like what surgeons wore’). Dialogue scenes repeatedly confuse the identity of interlocutors, so that Jennifer ends up interrupting herself, and her ditzy roommate Marilyn somehow discusses her own murder, despite being dead.”

Nothing gets by him, so pity the poor transposed vowel! Whether his prose is irreverent, sober or somewhere in between (“pendulous of bosom and crude of tongue”), I simply love the way Guariento writes across these winning essays. Coupled with several hundred glorious illustrations of cover art, that makes Light into Ink a volume to treasure. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

What’s a book on “elevator music” doing on a movie site like this? Well, when you’re Joseph Lanza’s Easy-Listening Acid Trip: An Elevator Ride Through ’60s Psychedelic Pop, barely a spread goes by without one film or another either mentioned in passing or discussed in detail. Metaphorically speaking, does any other text allow Ronnie Aldrich to rub elbows with Russ Meyer?

A rather intoxicating companion to Lanza’s seminal 1994 work, Elevator Music, this square (in size and subject) paperback from the mighty Feral House is more spin-off than sequel, in which the author casts his ears and pen toward the flower-power era and its unlikely marriage of hippie music covered and co-opted by the chronically unhip. And thank God they did!

Acid Trip’s opening chapters serve as a crash course in the history of “mood music”: soothing instrumentals so nonthreatening, they’re vanilla. Ranging from Muzak to orchestra-backed crooners, the easy-listening genre enjoyed a quiet run of roughly three decades before a dose of LSD turned it into a highly carbonated vanilla soda. Suddenly, such mood-music masters as Percy Faith, Lawrence Welk and 101 Strings were making mainstream waves and chart hits by covering rock acts from Bob Dylan to The Beach Boys, not to mention theme songs from blockbuster films as varied as Airport, Midnight Cowboy, The Thomas Crown Affair and Rosemary’s Baby.

Not only that, but the studio-based artists often did so with more innovation than they get credit for, likely because listeners approach the material with closed ears — if they dare approach it at all — and are predisposed to dismiss it as wallpaper. This, if nothing else, is Acid Trip’s Big Takeaway. Lanza aims to prove the snobbery wrong — and succeeds. He describes tracks so richly (e.g., “soft, chewy, melodic center” and “a creamy, orchestral soft-serve”) that even if you’re unfamiliar with them, you come away knowing exactly how they sound. Trips to YouTube will prove it; that the book is not packaged with an accompanying soundtrack is its only negative.

As Lanza guides us through this lounge-adjacent America, seeing it from the birth of surf to the post-Hair fallout, he pauses to give more ink on seminal acts and songs of influence. In the former group, you have The Beatles and The Doors, whose singles caused controversy among pearl-clutchers for alleged sex-and-drugs content — some valid, most imagined — yet perfectly fine among the same audience when turned into orchestral confections void of lyrics. Every now and then, particular attention is paid to an entire album, such as Forever Changes, the divisive third (and final) LP from Arthur Lee’s Love. While considered a masterpiece today, the record was commercially and critically derided upon release as Love’s hard-charging rock that won over Whiskey a Go Go had suddenly downshifted — without warning — to a relaxed flavor of baroque pop emblematic of the tune-in/turn-on times.

In the latter group, you have Paul Mauriat’s “Love Is Blue,” The Lemon Pipers’ “Green Tambourine,” Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” actor Richard Harris’ “MacArthur Park” and more, each bearing an incredible backstory and each sparking a multitude of covers that pour from the faceless Hollyridge Strings, the twin pianos of Ferrante & Teicher, the mysterious Mystic Moods Orchestra, the mad hits of Bert Kaempfert and so many others. In fact, Easy-Listening Acid Trip closes with an A-to-Z appendix of 50 such standards, “Psychedelic Favorites Refurbished,” providing discographic details for completists of “Never My Love,” “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and 48 more.

If you’ve ever read any of Lanza’s cultural history lessons, including last year’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Film That Terrified a Rattled Nation, you know to expect a heavily researched, but breezy tour filled with incredible sights — in this case, full-color album art every few pages, potentially hallucinogenic and definitely addicting. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.