Robert Bloch in
Australia: Cinecon (1981)
by James Doig
Australia: Cinecon (1981)
by James Doig
James Doig works for the National Archives of Australia. He has edited several anthologies and single author collections of supernatural tales, such as Australian Ghost Stories (Wordsworth, 2010) and Ghost Stories and Mysteries of Ernest Favenc (Borgo, 2012). Doig also writes research articles on obscure writers of supernatural and pulp fiction for journals like All Hallows, Wormwood, and The Paperback Fanatic. Most recently he has contributed an introduction to a reprint of Frank Walford’s Twisted Clay, which is due to be published February 2014. He contributes to the Wormwoodiana blog at wormwoodiana.blogspot.com.
Robert Bloch in Australia: Cinecon 1981
From time-to-time Australia has made it onto the fantasy and horror writers’ gazetteer of preferred holiday destinations. Stephen King has famously made a couple of road trips into the outback. Once, in Alice Springs, a bookshop owner thought he was a yobbo defacing Stephen King books, when in fact he was signing them; the books were later auctioned for charity. However, the main reason why fantasy and horror writers have ventured to these shores is to attend conventions. At the science fiction World Con in 1975 the great science fiction and fantasy writer, Ursula Le Guin was guest of honour.
Australia’s first science fiction and fantasy film convention, Cinecon, was held in Melbourne from 17 to 21 April 1981. The Guest of Honour was Robert Bloch, billed in the program as ‘The man who has written so much more than Psycho’.2 Bloch, who died in 1994 at the age of 77, was one of the great modern writers of
horror and dark fantasy; his writing career began during the golden age of the pulps and was a member of the celebrated ‘Lovecraft Circle’ of weird fictioneers. Bloch’s 1935 story, ‘The Shambler from the Stars’, features a narrator modelled on Lovecraft who comes to a nasty end; Lovecraft returned the favour in ‘The Haunter of the Dark’ (1936), which features a ‘Robert Blake’ who comes to an equally appalling end. Of course, Psycho (1959) immortalised Bloch through Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film adaptation in 1960. Apart from his professional standing, which included multiple awards in various genres and the Life Award at the inaugural World Fantasy Convention in 1975, Bloch was a brilliant raconteur. Cinecon offered a rare opportunity for an
Australian audience to hear him speak about films, especially early films (about which he had an exhaustive knowledge), writing and fandom, amongst much else.
The organiser of Cinecon was Merv Binns, book dealer and lifelong fantasy and science fiction fan, and he was helped by Robin Johnson, another well-known fan and recipient of numerous science fiction awards and honours.
1981 proved to be a difficult year for Bloch, and his preparation for the conference was interrupted by illness and the death of some old friends and colleagues. On 12 January 1981, he wrote to Graham Flanagan:
For the past two weeks I’ve had the flu: matter of fact, narrowly escaped pneumonia. And I’m still not recovered: haven’t been out of the house for 15 days! ... I must gather strength enough to reply to letters from Merv Binns and Robin Johnson, who are trying to formulate a schedule for my trip. Lots of details to be ironed out, and I hope that
we can get things straight on my itinerary and just what they want me to do in Sydney as well as Melbourne. At this precise instant I confess I dread the trip — fearful that it’s going to be too much for me. As you know, travel in itself can be rather exhausting — but when one is also expecting to make half a dozen speeches and public appearances, plus possible radio, TV and paper interviews, plus being available to fans, etc, it requires more stamina than I possess — certainly at this moment! Of course I’d not mention this to Merv or Robin, and hopefully my strength will return in time, but right now it all seems a bit much.3
Just as disruptive was the sudden death of some old and dear friends. In January and February H. Warner Munn and Robert J. Fish died, but it was the sudden death of J. Vernon Shea that affected Bloch most acutely. In a letter of 11 February he wrote:
When I started this letter I was determined not to write about this, because the realisation of his passing still affects me strongly. But you should know he is gone, and it may be that there is no one else who’d be informing you of his passing.
Vernon and I corresponded for 47 years — perhaps a thousand times apiece — and although we only met four or five times face-to-face, I felt that I knew him as well or better than most. It’s fortunate that we did visit as recently as October at the Fantasy Con, but his sudden death — apparently with little warning except for what he diagnosed
as ‘gas pains’ in a letter written to me just a few days before he died — has set me to realising that there are now only seven or eight members of the ‘Lovecraft Circle’ still alive and most of them only corresponded with HPL briefly during the final years of his life ... In any case I’ll miss Vernon, always. He was a good friend and a good human being, and I only wish he’d gotten a better break in life. With his abilities and intellect he deserved far more than he ever received.4
Notwithstanding these setbacks the planning continued apace. On 24 February Merv Binns rang Bloch to say that People magazine would be contacting him for an interview; the interview was conducted by phone a few days later. Bloch’s planned itinerary was quite heavy. He was to arrive in Sydney after a long flight with several stopovers on 12 April, where he would present at a seminar at Sydney University. He would leave Sydney late on 14 April for Melbourne, and have the 15th and 16th free before Cinecon began on Friday 17 April. His guest of honour speech was scheduled for 8–9 p.m., and would be introduced by Graham Flanagan, the Bloch bibliographer and well-known fan and book collector.5 The next day he would participate in a panel with other film buffs about their early cinematic influences, and in the evening he was to judge costumes at the fancy dress party. On Sunday 19 April he had a 3.15 p.m. panel on the horror film, and another at 8 p.m. on the fantasy and science fiction film in Australia. On Monday, the last day of Cinecon, he had a 9.30 a.m. panel on science fiction fandom, and a 4 p.m. panel on the future of science fiction and fantasy films. The next day, Tuesday 21 April, he was scheduled to give two talks at a seminar on ‘writing science fiction and fantasy for the cinema, television and publication’ at the State Film Centre. He was to fly out of Sydney early on Wednesday morning.
In fact, the exhausting itinerary was worrying Bloch. In March he wrote:
Actually it seems like a pretty heavy schedule — interviews, at least 5 speeches at the two seminars and convention, plus 5 panel appearances and then, of course, the costume judging and the opening introduction. When I can possibly find time to prepare I don’t know — haven’t even had all the topics given to me yet! I may have to ad lib my entire trip!6
As it happened, the itinerary went smoothly, and Bloch himself was a great success. In his charming autobiography, Once Around the Bloch, he writes with fondness and affection of Australian fans, like Graham Flanagan, who made his trip memorable and successful, and he writes at length of a visit to the Old Melbourne Gaol where Ned Kelly had been incarcerated: ‘Nowhere is the ambivalent Australian attitude better exemplified than in the gaol, where symbols of law and order are displayed alongside artefacts associated with the lawless and dis- ordered career of its most famous guest.’7
A lengthier appraisal is given in Graham Flanagan’s report on Cinecon, which appeared in the Robert E. Howard fanzine, REHupa.8 The report gives a sense of the frenetic activity of Cinecon and the events surrounding it, and the good-humoured and magnanimous way in which Bloch accommodated unanticipated
rescheduling. So, when John Pinkney failed to show for the seminar on science fiction and fantasy writing at the State Film Centre, he was happy to extend his presentation from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. And there were other extracurricular activities:
Around 11 p.m. [after the guest of honour speech] I adjourned to the suite which the convention organisers were using as their headquarters. There I had a few quiet drinks and a most enjoyable discussion with Paul Stevens and Robert Bloch, but this was eventually broken up by a small but rowdy group of fans who had discovered in an earlier meeting in the hotel lobby that Robert Bloch is a singularly delightful and interesting individual. When I left at around 1am they were still engaged in deep conversation with their new-found idol.9
A fascinating record of Bloch’s speeches and panels at Cinecon and the writing seminar at the State Film Centre survive in the form of audio recordings made by Graham Flanagan. There are five 90-minute Sony tapes that comprise all of Bloch’s presentations. They provide an entertaining and often hilarious insight into
twentieth-century science fiction and fantasy literature, film, and fandom.
One of the most interesting pieces was the panel on fandom, where Bloch was interviewed by Australian fans on his involvement in fandom since the 1930s. He describes his involvement with H. P. Lovecraft and the ‘Lovecraft circle’ of writers:
It’s pretty generally known that I got into writing because of Lovecraft. He’s taken a lot of blame for a lot of things that he’s not really responsible for. But I did send my first fan latter to him because I’d read in the letter column of Weird Tales about his stories that had been published previously, but I didn’t know where to get them. They weren’t reprinted, they weren’t available. So I wrote to him and asked whether he knew where I could find some of this stuff, and he offered to let me borrow all of his published works. And then at about the fourth letter on he suggested that I try my own hand at writing. He’d be glad to read it and comment on it, and he gave me also a list of correspondents that formed what was later known as the ‘Lovecraft circle’. As a result of that I got in touch with August Derleth, who lived out in Sauk City about 125 miles from where I was, and Clark Ashton Smith, Eddie Hoffman Price, and J. Vernon Shea, who was not a professional writer but certainly one of the most avid fans and one of the most knowledgeable. And this increased my area of operations considerably, and some of the people I remained in
correspondence with for many years to come. It was a very rewarding experience.
Some of Bloch’s most insightful comments were on Australian fantasy films and the Australian film industry, and his comments could equally apply more broadly to Australian fantasy fiction.
He obviously had a special affection for Australian films and Australian actors. In January 1981 he had written to Graham Flanagan, ‘Yes, I saw Breaker Morant and was tremendously impressed. It is a fine film, beautifully conceived and executed (perhaps an unfortunate, but rightly appropriate word under he circumstances). Really one of the all-time best!’10 At the panel on early cinematic influences he mentioned various Australian actors who appeared in silent movies in Hollywood during the 1920s, as well as his association with the likes of Fritz Lang, Rouben Mamoulian, and Boris Karloff. However, his most important comments were made in the panel on Australian films:
I haven’t seen too many, I’m sorry to say, but what I have seen leads me to want to see a great many more. The films in the fantasy genre, and the realistic films, both exhibit a common characteristic thus far. They are definitely Australian films, there’s no doubt about it. The Last Wave, My Brilliant Career, Breaker Morant, I think succeed by virtue of the fact that they all, on their own separate levels, tell a coherent, consistent story derived from the Australian experience. The Last Wave is not another imitation vampire or werewolf horror film. It draws upon the legends, in the background, of the Australian experience and succeeds on that basis. There are some flash-cuts in it, some flashbacks, flash-forwards, flash-middles, but they are all used intelligently to further the story. By the time the story ends you understand how all of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are fitted together and you see the whole finished canvas, or picture. It serves a purpose. My Brilliant Career has very little of this sort of technique; you stay with the heroine, but by the time the film is over you know her, you know her background, you know her problems, you know her point of view, and you see the very, very believable consistent human drama enacted by virtue of the talent of the performers, the perception of the cinematographer and the director, and the craft of the writer. And it
works on that level. Breaker Morant. Again we have some flashbacks. We have a few things that are not exactly subliminal, but which seem to be a dream sequence, or flight of imagination on the part of the principals on occasion. But again, they work because they are set against the context of a totally believable and very gritty realistic story. It takes much more ability to create this illusion of reality than does the merely ‘dragged in all directions for special effects’ incoherent fantasy. So I think this is something you can well address yourselves to. Consider what’s been made here, that it has enjoyed a certain international acceptance, then realise that this is only the beginning.
Robert Bloch had obviously thought long and hard about the message he wanted to convey to Australian fans, writers, and the film industry. It is a positive message that stresses the importance making honest, unselfconscious films that use the unique Australian background and experience, and which do not make concessions to American tastes:
I don’t think there are things that are that strange or alien about the Australian background or milieu. I think you can safely go ahead without self-consciousness, dig in to that rich vein of fantasy and reality and not worry about the danger of not being understood. Audiences are greatly more sophisticated in that respect today, and what they are looking for is something different, something ‘now’. And what you’ve got now is the Australian fantasy and superstition lore in the background, and the physical background of the Australian landscape.
His final comments on Australian fantasy are just as appropriate to fiction as they are to film:
In fantasy, fear, terror, suspense are all part of an international language of emotions that we share everywhere. It’s a matter of presentation. And, again, in utilising the Australian background, the (for lack of a better word) aboriginality of the concepts that are foreign and mysterious to American audiences, I think that something very,
very interesting can evolve. I think that one of the things, and I’m speaking primarily about fantasy rather than science fiction, that is always being looked for is a new type of fantasy, a new type of legend, a new type of mysterious quality. And certainly in the Australian background this exists. As far as science fiction is concerned you have the physical landscape that lends itself so greatly to the production of science fiction films here. And all it takes is convincing the money people to let somebody with imagination go ahead with it. If someone has the concepts, the technical aspects can easily be supplied. The main thing that films require is a fine story-line, an idea that really
reaches out and appeals to the emotions of an audience. And I say that the emotions of an audience are pretty much a constant whether the film is made and distributed in Australia, the States, Great Britain, or continental Europe. That to me is what is important.
It is interesting to reflect on Bloch’s comments in the light of subsequent developments in Australian fantasy fiction and film. There is still an entrenched belief in Australia that a book or a film can only be successful if it draws off American culture, values, and attitudes, and that films must be driven by special effects and sudden shocks, rather than by characters and plot. In the global village, social, economic, and psychological forces affect us all alike, and the implication is that horror and suspense, which often plays on the extremes of these forces, has become homogenised. In a similar way, once distinctive national cultures are becoming homogenised, subsumed by the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Just as the regional supernatural tale that was so prevalent in the nineteenth and early twentieth century has largely disappeared, there is a danger that national traditions will go the same way. Too many Australian films and books have their roots in American popular culture — Stephen King, Hannibal Lector, Night of the Living Dead, rather than Australia’s own rich traditions. Australian fantasy and horror still takes its cue from what is, or what has been, popular in the United States, and as a consequence much of it contains little of lasting value. Bloch’s plea for a distinctly
Australian voice in fantasy and horror is critical but is yet to materialise.
Cinecon was a successful convention, and much of this success was due Robert Bloch’s tireless contribution. As he makes explicit in his autobiography, notwithstanding the burden of an exhausting international flight and an exhausting schedule, his Australian sojourn was a memorable one, thanks largely to the enthusiasm
and warmth of Australian fans. However, within weeks of returning to the United States events had overtaken him and memories of Sydney and Melbourne were already fading:
Is it only three weeks today that I left Melbourne? So much has happened since then that I can only synopsize. The return flight — with stopovers — lasted 28 hours — and I arrived in a rather bedraggled state. Elly and her visiting niece met me, and that helped a lot when once I saw her again. The next day, however, I was still more bedraggled. The dog got loose and ran into the neighbour’s patio. Elly followed him — I followed her — and, mistaking a hanging curtain for laundry on the line, fell headlong into the sauna. I hit my left temple as I landed in the water and passed out — fortunately, only for a moment, or else I might have drowned. I was hauled out with a lump above the left eye literally the size of an egg. Again, luck was with me: my eye wasn’t damaged and the doctors found
no fracture or concussion. But the thing took all this while to heal. Next day I started work again and in ten days completed the first draft of the Readers’ Digest opus — after demolishing a waiting stock of mail about two feet high.11 Then I picked for Writers Guild at Disney Studios, along with Ellison and van Vogt. Next got a call to do a long in-depth essay and introduction to a collection of Lovecraft stories I selected and which del Rey books intends to publish. Working on that now, since I must picket again tomorrow and another of Elly’s nieces may arrive shortly. After that I’ll get around to the tribute to Fritz for you.12
Very pleased to hear from you — and delighted with the photos and the con-report arriving today. I would very much like copies of the later (with the accompanying pictures) for University of Wyoming and for my daughter, who has developed a morbid interest in her father’s activities. I think your account is excellent, though much too generous in its attention to me and my big mouth. Tonight we get over to Ackerman’s for dinner with some Italian
producer-director whom I don’t know. Trust that you’ve had a chance to recuperate from all your travels, and Elly joins me in thanking you for everything you did to make my stay pleasant.13
The picture of Robert Bloch that emerges from his letters, speeches, and presentations is a warm, kind, and witty human being with an exhaustive knowledge of twentieth-century popular fiction and film. He also had a sharp, incisive mind that cut through the trivial and irrelevant into the heart of a matter, as exemplified by his telling insights into Australian fantasy. Certainly, he will be remembered as one of the great twentieth century writers of weird fiction.
Notes
1 I am very grateful to Graeme Flanagan for his help in the preparation of this article, especially in making his correspondence with Robert Bloch, and his audio tapes of the convention, available. Needless to say, most of the sources for this article are from his collection. The transcriptions from the letters and audio tapes are my own and any errors are my own.
2 Graeme Flanagan, ‘Introducing Our Guest of Honour: Robert Bloch, The Man Who Has Written So Much More Than Psycho’, Cinecon Program (1981), pp. 4–6.
3 Letter to Graeme Flanagan, 12 January 1981.
4 Letter to Graeme Flanagan, 11 February 1981.
5 Graeme Flanagan, Robert Bloch: A Bio-Bibliography (Canberra: Graeme Flanagan, 1979).
6 Letter to Graeme Flanagan, 11 March 1981.
7 Robert Bloch, Once Around the Bloch (New York: Tor Books, 1993), p. 375.
8 Graham Flanagan, ‘Cinecon’, Bunyips in the Mulga #3, in REHupa, 52nd mailing (July 1981), pp. 3–13. I am grateful to Rusty Burke for sending me a scan of the report.
9 Ibid., p. 6.
10 Letter to Graeme Flanagan, 27 January 1981.
11 Bloch was commissioned to write a chapter on the American serial killer H.H. Holmes for a non- fiction book, which does not appear to have been published. Holmes was the subject of Bloch’s 1974 novel, American Gothic.
12 i.e. Bloch’s friend and colleague, the great fantasist Fritz Leiber.
13 Letter to Graeme Flanagan, 12 May 1982.
— James Doig, May 2010
Note: in the footnote number 11, Doig speculates that Bloch's essay on serial killer H. H. Holmes was not published. It subsequently appeared as "Dr Holmes' Murder Castle" (40,000 words) in TALES OF THE UNCANNY (Pleasantville, NY: Reader's Digest Books, 1983).
(The Robert Bloch Official Website gratefully thanks Leigh Blackmore for providing this article and the above note regarding footnote 11.)
Robert Bloch in Australia: Cinecon 1981
From time-to-time Australia has made it onto the fantasy and horror writers’ gazetteer of preferred holiday destinations. Stephen King has famously made a couple of road trips into the outback. Once, in Alice Springs, a bookshop owner thought he was a yobbo defacing Stephen King books, when in fact he was signing them; the books were later auctioned for charity. However, the main reason why fantasy and horror writers have ventured to these shores is to attend conventions. At the science fiction World Con in 1975 the great science fiction and fantasy writer, Ursula Le Guin was guest of honour.
Australia’s first science fiction and fantasy film convention, Cinecon, was held in Melbourne from 17 to 21 April 1981. The Guest of Honour was Robert Bloch, billed in the program as ‘The man who has written so much more than Psycho’.2 Bloch, who died in 1994 at the age of 77, was one of the great modern writers of
horror and dark fantasy; his writing career began during the golden age of the pulps and was a member of the celebrated ‘Lovecraft Circle’ of weird fictioneers. Bloch’s 1935 story, ‘The Shambler from the Stars’, features a narrator modelled on Lovecraft who comes to a nasty end; Lovecraft returned the favour in ‘The Haunter of the Dark’ (1936), which features a ‘Robert Blake’ who comes to an equally appalling end. Of course, Psycho (1959) immortalised Bloch through Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film adaptation in 1960. Apart from his professional standing, which included multiple awards in various genres and the Life Award at the inaugural World Fantasy Convention in 1975, Bloch was a brilliant raconteur. Cinecon offered a rare opportunity for an
Australian audience to hear him speak about films, especially early films (about which he had an exhaustive knowledge), writing and fandom, amongst much else.
The organiser of Cinecon was Merv Binns, book dealer and lifelong fantasy and science fiction fan, and he was helped by Robin Johnson, another well-known fan and recipient of numerous science fiction awards and honours.
1981 proved to be a difficult year for Bloch, and his preparation for the conference was interrupted by illness and the death of some old friends and colleagues. On 12 January 1981, he wrote to Graham Flanagan:
For the past two weeks I’ve had the flu: matter of fact, narrowly escaped pneumonia. And I’m still not recovered: haven’t been out of the house for 15 days! ... I must gather strength enough to reply to letters from Merv Binns and Robin Johnson, who are trying to formulate a schedule for my trip. Lots of details to be ironed out, and I hope that
we can get things straight on my itinerary and just what they want me to do in Sydney as well as Melbourne. At this precise instant I confess I dread the trip — fearful that it’s going to be too much for me. As you know, travel in itself can be rather exhausting — but when one is also expecting to make half a dozen speeches and public appearances, plus possible radio, TV and paper interviews, plus being available to fans, etc, it requires more stamina than I possess — certainly at this moment! Of course I’d not mention this to Merv or Robin, and hopefully my strength will return in time, but right now it all seems a bit much.3
Just as disruptive was the sudden death of some old and dear friends. In January and February H. Warner Munn and Robert J. Fish died, but it was the sudden death of J. Vernon Shea that affected Bloch most acutely. In a letter of 11 February he wrote:
When I started this letter I was determined not to write about this, because the realisation of his passing still affects me strongly. But you should know he is gone, and it may be that there is no one else who’d be informing you of his passing.
Vernon and I corresponded for 47 years — perhaps a thousand times apiece — and although we only met four or five times face-to-face, I felt that I knew him as well or better than most. It’s fortunate that we did visit as recently as October at the Fantasy Con, but his sudden death — apparently with little warning except for what he diagnosed
as ‘gas pains’ in a letter written to me just a few days before he died — has set me to realising that there are now only seven or eight members of the ‘Lovecraft Circle’ still alive and most of them only corresponded with HPL briefly during the final years of his life ... In any case I’ll miss Vernon, always. He was a good friend and a good human being, and I only wish he’d gotten a better break in life. With his abilities and intellect he deserved far more than he ever received.4
Notwithstanding these setbacks the planning continued apace. On 24 February Merv Binns rang Bloch to say that People magazine would be contacting him for an interview; the interview was conducted by phone a few days later. Bloch’s planned itinerary was quite heavy. He was to arrive in Sydney after a long flight with several stopovers on 12 April, where he would present at a seminar at Sydney University. He would leave Sydney late on 14 April for Melbourne, and have the 15th and 16th free before Cinecon began on Friday 17 April. His guest of honour speech was scheduled for 8–9 p.m., and would be introduced by Graham Flanagan, the Bloch bibliographer and well-known fan and book collector.5 The next day he would participate in a panel with other film buffs about their early cinematic influences, and in the evening he was to judge costumes at the fancy dress party. On Sunday 19 April he had a 3.15 p.m. panel on the horror film, and another at 8 p.m. on the fantasy and science fiction film in Australia. On Monday, the last day of Cinecon, he had a 9.30 a.m. panel on science fiction fandom, and a 4 p.m. panel on the future of science fiction and fantasy films. The next day, Tuesday 21 April, he was scheduled to give two talks at a seminar on ‘writing science fiction and fantasy for the cinema, television and publication’ at the State Film Centre. He was to fly out of Sydney early on Wednesday morning.
In fact, the exhausting itinerary was worrying Bloch. In March he wrote:
Actually it seems like a pretty heavy schedule — interviews, at least 5 speeches at the two seminars and convention, plus 5 panel appearances and then, of course, the costume judging and the opening introduction. When I can possibly find time to prepare I don’t know — haven’t even had all the topics given to me yet! I may have to ad lib my entire trip!6
As it happened, the itinerary went smoothly, and Bloch himself was a great success. In his charming autobiography, Once Around the Bloch, he writes with fondness and affection of Australian fans, like Graham Flanagan, who made his trip memorable and successful, and he writes at length of a visit to the Old Melbourne Gaol where Ned Kelly had been incarcerated: ‘Nowhere is the ambivalent Australian attitude better exemplified than in the gaol, where symbols of law and order are displayed alongside artefacts associated with the lawless and dis- ordered career of its most famous guest.’7
A lengthier appraisal is given in Graham Flanagan’s report on Cinecon, which appeared in the Robert E. Howard fanzine, REHupa.8 The report gives a sense of the frenetic activity of Cinecon and the events surrounding it, and the good-humoured and magnanimous way in which Bloch accommodated unanticipated
rescheduling. So, when John Pinkney failed to show for the seminar on science fiction and fantasy writing at the State Film Centre, he was happy to extend his presentation from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. And there were other extracurricular activities:
Around 11 p.m. [after the guest of honour speech] I adjourned to the suite which the convention organisers were using as their headquarters. There I had a few quiet drinks and a most enjoyable discussion with Paul Stevens and Robert Bloch, but this was eventually broken up by a small but rowdy group of fans who had discovered in an earlier meeting in the hotel lobby that Robert Bloch is a singularly delightful and interesting individual. When I left at around 1am they were still engaged in deep conversation with their new-found idol.9
A fascinating record of Bloch’s speeches and panels at Cinecon and the writing seminar at the State Film Centre survive in the form of audio recordings made by Graham Flanagan. There are five 90-minute Sony tapes that comprise all of Bloch’s presentations. They provide an entertaining and often hilarious insight into
twentieth-century science fiction and fantasy literature, film, and fandom.
One of the most interesting pieces was the panel on fandom, where Bloch was interviewed by Australian fans on his involvement in fandom since the 1930s. He describes his involvement with H. P. Lovecraft and the ‘Lovecraft circle’ of writers:
It’s pretty generally known that I got into writing because of Lovecraft. He’s taken a lot of blame for a lot of things that he’s not really responsible for. But I did send my first fan latter to him because I’d read in the letter column of Weird Tales about his stories that had been published previously, but I didn’t know where to get them. They weren’t reprinted, they weren’t available. So I wrote to him and asked whether he knew where I could find some of this stuff, and he offered to let me borrow all of his published works. And then at about the fourth letter on he suggested that I try my own hand at writing. He’d be glad to read it and comment on it, and he gave me also a list of correspondents that formed what was later known as the ‘Lovecraft circle’. As a result of that I got in touch with August Derleth, who lived out in Sauk City about 125 miles from where I was, and Clark Ashton Smith, Eddie Hoffman Price, and J. Vernon Shea, who was not a professional writer but certainly one of the most avid fans and one of the most knowledgeable. And this increased my area of operations considerably, and some of the people I remained in
correspondence with for many years to come. It was a very rewarding experience.
Some of Bloch’s most insightful comments were on Australian fantasy films and the Australian film industry, and his comments could equally apply more broadly to Australian fantasy fiction.
He obviously had a special affection for Australian films and Australian actors. In January 1981 he had written to Graham Flanagan, ‘Yes, I saw Breaker Morant and was tremendously impressed. It is a fine film, beautifully conceived and executed (perhaps an unfortunate, but rightly appropriate word under he circumstances). Really one of the all-time best!’10 At the panel on early cinematic influences he mentioned various Australian actors who appeared in silent movies in Hollywood during the 1920s, as well as his association with the likes of Fritz Lang, Rouben Mamoulian, and Boris Karloff. However, his most important comments were made in the panel on Australian films:
I haven’t seen too many, I’m sorry to say, but what I have seen leads me to want to see a great many more. The films in the fantasy genre, and the realistic films, both exhibit a common characteristic thus far. They are definitely Australian films, there’s no doubt about it. The Last Wave, My Brilliant Career, Breaker Morant, I think succeed by virtue of the fact that they all, on their own separate levels, tell a coherent, consistent story derived from the Australian experience. The Last Wave is not another imitation vampire or werewolf horror film. It draws upon the legends, in the background, of the Australian experience and succeeds on that basis. There are some flash-cuts in it, some flashbacks, flash-forwards, flash-middles, but they are all used intelligently to further the story. By the time the story ends you understand how all of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are fitted together and you see the whole finished canvas, or picture. It serves a purpose. My Brilliant Career has very little of this sort of technique; you stay with the heroine, but by the time the film is over you know her, you know her background, you know her problems, you know her point of view, and you see the very, very believable consistent human drama enacted by virtue of the talent of the performers, the perception of the cinematographer and the director, and the craft of the writer. And it
works on that level. Breaker Morant. Again we have some flashbacks. We have a few things that are not exactly subliminal, but which seem to be a dream sequence, or flight of imagination on the part of the principals on occasion. But again, they work because they are set against the context of a totally believable and very gritty realistic story. It takes much more ability to create this illusion of reality than does the merely ‘dragged in all directions for special effects’ incoherent fantasy. So I think this is something you can well address yourselves to. Consider what’s been made here, that it has enjoyed a certain international acceptance, then realise that this is only the beginning.
Robert Bloch had obviously thought long and hard about the message he wanted to convey to Australian fans, writers, and the film industry. It is a positive message that stresses the importance making honest, unselfconscious films that use the unique Australian background and experience, and which do not make concessions to American tastes:
I don’t think there are things that are that strange or alien about the Australian background or milieu. I think you can safely go ahead without self-consciousness, dig in to that rich vein of fantasy and reality and not worry about the danger of not being understood. Audiences are greatly more sophisticated in that respect today, and what they are looking for is something different, something ‘now’. And what you’ve got now is the Australian fantasy and superstition lore in the background, and the physical background of the Australian landscape.
His final comments on Australian fantasy are just as appropriate to fiction as they are to film:
In fantasy, fear, terror, suspense are all part of an international language of emotions that we share everywhere. It’s a matter of presentation. And, again, in utilising the Australian background, the (for lack of a better word) aboriginality of the concepts that are foreign and mysterious to American audiences, I think that something very,
very interesting can evolve. I think that one of the things, and I’m speaking primarily about fantasy rather than science fiction, that is always being looked for is a new type of fantasy, a new type of legend, a new type of mysterious quality. And certainly in the Australian background this exists. As far as science fiction is concerned you have the physical landscape that lends itself so greatly to the production of science fiction films here. And all it takes is convincing the money people to let somebody with imagination go ahead with it. If someone has the concepts, the technical aspects can easily be supplied. The main thing that films require is a fine story-line, an idea that really
reaches out and appeals to the emotions of an audience. And I say that the emotions of an audience are pretty much a constant whether the film is made and distributed in Australia, the States, Great Britain, or continental Europe. That to me is what is important.
It is interesting to reflect on Bloch’s comments in the light of subsequent developments in Australian fantasy fiction and film. There is still an entrenched belief in Australia that a book or a film can only be successful if it draws off American culture, values, and attitudes, and that films must be driven by special effects and sudden shocks, rather than by characters and plot. In the global village, social, economic, and psychological forces affect us all alike, and the implication is that horror and suspense, which often plays on the extremes of these forces, has become homogenised. In a similar way, once distinctive national cultures are becoming homogenised, subsumed by the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Just as the regional supernatural tale that was so prevalent in the nineteenth and early twentieth century has largely disappeared, there is a danger that national traditions will go the same way. Too many Australian films and books have their roots in American popular culture — Stephen King, Hannibal Lector, Night of the Living Dead, rather than Australia’s own rich traditions. Australian fantasy and horror still takes its cue from what is, or what has been, popular in the United States, and as a consequence much of it contains little of lasting value. Bloch’s plea for a distinctly
Australian voice in fantasy and horror is critical but is yet to materialise.
Cinecon was a successful convention, and much of this success was due Robert Bloch’s tireless contribution. As he makes explicit in his autobiography, notwithstanding the burden of an exhausting international flight and an exhausting schedule, his Australian sojourn was a memorable one, thanks largely to the enthusiasm
and warmth of Australian fans. However, within weeks of returning to the United States events had overtaken him and memories of Sydney and Melbourne were already fading:
Is it only three weeks today that I left Melbourne? So much has happened since then that I can only synopsize. The return flight — with stopovers — lasted 28 hours — and I arrived in a rather bedraggled state. Elly and her visiting niece met me, and that helped a lot when once I saw her again. The next day, however, I was still more bedraggled. The dog got loose and ran into the neighbour’s patio. Elly followed him — I followed her — and, mistaking a hanging curtain for laundry on the line, fell headlong into the sauna. I hit my left temple as I landed in the water and passed out — fortunately, only for a moment, or else I might have drowned. I was hauled out with a lump above the left eye literally the size of an egg. Again, luck was with me: my eye wasn’t damaged and the doctors found
no fracture or concussion. But the thing took all this while to heal. Next day I started work again and in ten days completed the first draft of the Readers’ Digest opus — after demolishing a waiting stock of mail about two feet high.11 Then I picked for Writers Guild at Disney Studios, along with Ellison and van Vogt. Next got a call to do a long in-depth essay and introduction to a collection of Lovecraft stories I selected and which del Rey books intends to publish. Working on that now, since I must picket again tomorrow and another of Elly’s nieces may arrive shortly. After that I’ll get around to the tribute to Fritz for you.12
Very pleased to hear from you — and delighted with the photos and the con-report arriving today. I would very much like copies of the later (with the accompanying pictures) for University of Wyoming and for my daughter, who has developed a morbid interest in her father’s activities. I think your account is excellent, though much too generous in its attention to me and my big mouth. Tonight we get over to Ackerman’s for dinner with some Italian
producer-director whom I don’t know. Trust that you’ve had a chance to recuperate from all your travels, and Elly joins me in thanking you for everything you did to make my stay pleasant.13
The picture of Robert Bloch that emerges from his letters, speeches, and presentations is a warm, kind, and witty human being with an exhaustive knowledge of twentieth-century popular fiction and film. He also had a sharp, incisive mind that cut through the trivial and irrelevant into the heart of a matter, as exemplified by his telling insights into Australian fantasy. Certainly, he will be remembered as one of the great twentieth century writers of weird fiction.
Notes
1 I am very grateful to Graeme Flanagan for his help in the preparation of this article, especially in making his correspondence with Robert Bloch, and his audio tapes of the convention, available. Needless to say, most of the sources for this article are from his collection. The transcriptions from the letters and audio tapes are my own and any errors are my own.
2 Graeme Flanagan, ‘Introducing Our Guest of Honour: Robert Bloch, The Man Who Has Written So Much More Than Psycho’, Cinecon Program (1981), pp. 4–6.
3 Letter to Graeme Flanagan, 12 January 1981.
4 Letter to Graeme Flanagan, 11 February 1981.
5 Graeme Flanagan, Robert Bloch: A Bio-Bibliography (Canberra: Graeme Flanagan, 1979).
6 Letter to Graeme Flanagan, 11 March 1981.
7 Robert Bloch, Once Around the Bloch (New York: Tor Books, 1993), p. 375.
8 Graham Flanagan, ‘Cinecon’, Bunyips in the Mulga #3, in REHupa, 52nd mailing (July 1981), pp. 3–13. I am grateful to Rusty Burke for sending me a scan of the report.
9 Ibid., p. 6.
10 Letter to Graeme Flanagan, 27 January 1981.
11 Bloch was commissioned to write a chapter on the American serial killer H.H. Holmes for a non- fiction book, which does not appear to have been published. Holmes was the subject of Bloch’s 1974 novel, American Gothic.
12 i.e. Bloch’s friend and colleague, the great fantasist Fritz Leiber.
13 Letter to Graeme Flanagan, 12 May 1982.
— James Doig, May 2010
Note: in the footnote number 11, Doig speculates that Bloch's essay on serial killer H. H. Holmes was not published. It subsequently appeared as "Dr Holmes' Murder Castle" (40,000 words) in TALES OF THE UNCANNY (Pleasantville, NY: Reader's Digest Books, 1983).
(The Robert Bloch Official Website gratefully thanks Leigh Blackmore for providing this article and the above note regarding footnote 11.)