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Dark Canyon (1963)

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by Louie L'Amour Gaylord Riley has built a cattle ranch with money staked to him by his former outlaw gang, and when those men come back needing help, he has to decide whether he can honor an old debt without losing the life he worked to make.  At the same time, he is pressured by a rival rancher and a saloon keeper, both of whom threaten the fragile respectability he has built for himself.  Louis L’Amour keeps the plot moving, and he gives the American Southwest enough presence that the setting feels like more than just a backdrop.  Louis L'Amour Riley’s struggle to escape his past gives the story some real emotional weight, but the novel follows a very predictable template, and Riley himself never becomes very interesting.  L’Amour gives him a traumatic backstory, but not much psychological depth, and parts of his backstory do not fully hold together.  The supporting cast does not help much, since the villain and the love interest are both thinly drawn, and th...
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The Chessmen of Mars (Barsoom #5) (1922)

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by Edgar Rice Burroughs Princess Tara of Helium is swept up by a sudden storm and deposited near the isolated city of Manator, where she’s captured and made the human stake in a lethal, live-action game of Jetan (Martian chess).  Gahan of Gathol goes after her, disguises himself among enemies, and has to win the game to secure both her freedom and her affection.  This installment keeps the “lone warrior chases the missing princess” structure that Burroughs used in the previous installment.  The storm-capture-rescue plot is replicated so faithfully that an experienced reader can see most of the turns ahead of time.  Still, there are highlights like Manator’s Jetan spectacle and the genuinely alien menace of the Kaldanes, who push the series toward higher-concept sci-fi/horror instead of yet another round of warring tribes.  Tara also helps; she’s more proactive than Dejah Thoris tends to be, relying on her own judgment and a concealed dagger rather than simply wa...
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Death Squad (The Executioner #2) (1969)

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by Don Pendleton Mack Bolan heads to California with a Mafia contract on his head, where he recruits a small “death squad” to hit the Los Angeles family as both police and mob killers close in on him.  This second installment of Don Pendleton’s seminal men’s adventure series shifts away from lone 70s revenge thriller toward more of a Dirty Dozen vibe.  Don Pendleton There are entertaining stretches from the Mafia’s point of view in which they get increasingly frazzled and short-tempered as the siege tightens.  The frantic efforts of the police to respond to a threat they can’t quite locate, always a step behind, gives a cat-and-mouse feel to the action.  Unfortunately, the new team never fully comes alive.  They are less like characters than a set of interchangeable “skills,” and I had trouble keeping straight who was who; functionally, they operate as a single partner to Bolan rather than distinct presences with their own personalities.  "Death Wand" (Gree...
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Ranked: The 1960s

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    A ranking of all the films released during the 1960s that have been reviewed on my blog. #38 Becket (1964) 2259 https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2021/07/becket-1964.html #37 Splendor in the Grass (1961) 2048 https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2022/11/splendor-in-grass-1961.html #36 Matango (AKA Attack of the Mushroom People) (1963) 1995 https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2020/11/matango-1963.html #35 Cat Ballou (1965) 1832 https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2021/07/cat-ballou-1965.html #34 Band of Outsiders (1964) 1460 https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2021/02/band-of-outsiders-1964.html #33 The Endless Summer (1966) 1449 https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-endless-summer-1966.html #32 The Leopard (1963) 1089 https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-leopard-1963.html #31 Black Sabbath (1963) 1074 https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com/2021/09/black-sabbath-1963.html #30 The Last Man on Earth (1964) 1054 https:...
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