Here’s another installment of Balladeer’s Blog’s annual end of year retrospective, this one reflecting on March’s best.
FLORIS (1969 and 1975) – Rutger Hauer and Paul Verhoeven’s neglected television series starring Rutger as a swashbuckling hero caught up in the Guelders Wars of the Netherlands. Read about it HERE.
BOOK OF THE DUN COW – My examination of each section of Ireland’s Lebor na hUidre, The Book of the Dun Cow. Part One HERE. Part Two HERE. A wealth of mythology.
TWO EARLY GOTHIC HORROR NOVELS – I reviewed The Monk (1796) and The Castle of Otronto (1764) HERE.
BAD MOVIE REVIEW: HITLER – DEAD OR ALIVE (1943) My review of this bizarre movie HERE.
BLONDE PHANTOM: HER 1940s STORIES – Stan Lee’s 1946-1949 female superhero from his much, much younger years. Click HERE.
ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: THE END OF AN EPOCH (1901) – A bio-engineered disease that wipes out millions upon millions of lives on Earth. Click HERE.
JUSTICE SOCIETY AND JUSTICE LEAGUE CROSSOVER STORIES: 1963-1969 – Their first 7 meetings HERE.
DEMOCRATS FURTHER CEMENT DONALD TRUMP’S MARTYRDOM. Click HERE.
MY TOP HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS HORROR FILMS – Read it HERE.
GRACE O’MALLEY: THE PIRATE QUEEN OF IRELAND – The real-life female pirate leader of the late 1500s and early 1600s. Click HERE. Continue reading
As regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog may recall, December and early January are when I sprinkle in more tales of the Paladins of Charlemagne. These are the legends about Charlemagne and his Paladins, not the actual history, so there will be dragons, monsters and magic. 
RUGGIERO AND THE ENCHANTRESS ALCINA – When we left off last time around, the Emperor Charlemagne and his armies were still engaged in their war against the recent Muslim invasion from North Africa and Spain, led by Agramant. 
FIRST SEMIFINAL – In this game the NORTHWESTERN (IA) COLLEGE RED RAIDERS clashed with the visiting GEORGETOWN (KY) COLLEGE TIGERS. The Red Raiders parlayed their 7-0 1st Quarter lead into a 14-3 advantage by Halftime. Northwestern College continued to dominate after the break, ultimately winning by a final score of 35-10. 
POWER MAN Vol 1 #48 (December 1977) 
Shades (at right) and Comanche, escaped cons who served time at Seagate Prison with Luke Cage back when he went by his real name Carl Lucas, were sent by Bushmaster to abduct Power Man’s girlfriend Dr. Claire Temple and her colleague Dr. Noah Burstein. They have done so and, per Bushmaster’s orders, they give Luke Cage/ Carl Lucas their boss’s ultimatum. 
They make it clear to Power Man that to gain the release of those two doctors he has been close to for years, he must capture and deliver to Bushmaster one of his foes, private investigator Misty Knight. The villain doesn’t just send Shades and Comanche (at left) to abduct her because Misty’s associates, her investigative partner Colleen Wing and the superhero Iron Fist, stand beside her. 
A FLINTSTONES CHRISTMAS CAROL (1994) – Balladeer’s Blog’s 14th Annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon continues with a review of this 69-minute version featuring the story tailored to fit the characters from The Flintstones. 
Not only does Fred become unbearably snobbish toward the players with “lesser” roles but he grows impatient and short-tempered with everyone around him. In addition, Fred goes Method Actor on everybody, so thoroughly immersing himself in the role of Scrooge that he becomes a stingy figure in “real life” too. 
With Venezuela’s announcement that they want to annex Guyana we all got another reminder that centuries-old issues can turn hot again at any moment. The 19th Century situation when Venezuela and Great Britain nearly went to war over what was then called (and spelled) “British Guiana” was fodder for my “What if” speculations about another Harry Flashman adventure never completed before George MacDonald Fraser’s death. 
The Action: Sir Harry Flashman and his wife Elspeth visit British Guiana right after 
THE KEEP (1983) – My review of this love-it-or-hate-it movie directed by Michael Mann. Part horror, part fantasy, The Keep could have been a classic but wasn’t. During World War Two, Nazis uncover a site which holds a demonic entity, and while it’s fun watching it prey on the S.S. troopers the entity goes on to prey on innocent people as well. 
RAFAEL SABATINI NOVELS – Balladeer’s Blog’s review of several books by the writer of many, many swashbuckling, sword-swinging tales of pirates, rebels, knights and cavaliers. In addition to well-known Sabatini classics like Captain Blood, Scaramouche, The Sea Hawk and The Black Swan I also reviewed overlooked works like The Tavern Knight, Love at Arms and Venetian Masque. CLICK 
THUNDER WARRIOR: ALL THREE MOVIES – The trilogy of movies in which cult actor Mark Gregory starred as a combination of Rambo and Billy Jack, waging all-out war on corrupt law enforcement, corrupt businesses and corrupt politicians in unrealistic but kickass ways. CLICK 
HOLLYWOOD (1980) – A week ago Balladeer’s Blog took a look at the classic documentaries 
THE PIONEERS – A look at the era when movie production was predominantly in New York and New Jersey, until expenses and encroachments by organized crime forced the industry to migrate to Hollywood, CA, a place then known mostly for its lemon groves. Featuring footage from The Great Train Robbery (1903) on up through films from the mid-teens and the 1920s like Ben-Hur (1925), The Black Pirate (1926), The Fire Brigade (1927) and The Wind (1928). 
SINGLE BEDS AND DOUBLE STANDARDS – Stories from the raucous, hard-partying years of Hollywood’s silent movie era. As 
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