Western Historical Manuscript Collection: The working title for this story was “The Mountain of Terror.”
Since there has always been considerable discussion about this story and the amount of killing in it I paid close attention to some of the details. In general it seemed to me that Doc only killed in self-defense. A couple of other circumstances are odd. In one instance during a fight, Doc cuts off a fellow's hand. The man then dies from shock brought on by his drug addiction. In another situation, Doc shoots down some gang members just as they are about to open fire on his men and surely kill them. There isn't time for Doc to do anything except grab one of the criminal's machine guns and shoot them first.
There also seems to be some confusion about the first villain Doc fights. The man receives a terrific blow to the face but it doesn't appear to be lethal. Later it is said that all of Squint's five original men are dead but then we are told that the ambulance only took away the body of the man whose neck was broken.
One villain is left on the island and is presumably killed after the lava dike is breached. In the death of Kar, he jumps from the plane before we can know what would have happened. It is similar to the death of Don Rubio Gorro in The Man of Bronze. The killer jumps to his death rather than face Doc Savage. What exactly would have transpired had that not happened is arguable. We do know that the other members of Kar's gang are sent to the Crime College for rehabilitation.
Certainly Doc was no angel and certain phrases in the story depict him as death dealer but when you sit down and examine the varying circumstances you find that the murderers are being killed in self-defense. It can be argued that there are so many deaths in this story because Doc was up against an especially vicious gang. The murder of Jerome Coffern is as cold blooded as they come. Also remember that everyone else associated with the Thunder Island expedition had been murdered at Bittman's orders.
Surely this is a bloody story as there must be thirty or more deaths in the entire account including the gang members who Kar himself killed to silence. Later on Doc has the mercy bullets and the metal thimbles he uses to drug his enemies in a fight. Perhaps if he had had these there would not have been so many deaths in this story. Doc personally kills about twenty men. That's a lot but if you look closely things are happening in kill-or-be-killed type situations. The flavor of this novel is certainly violent and bloody.
Gladiator by Philip Wylie has an interesting parallel. There is a scene where Hugo Danner is playing football. His temper gets the better of him and he ends up killing a member of the opposing team. Danner simply breaks his neck with a single blow. Danner is a changed man after this. He leaves college and basically goes into exile. For a while he seeks out danger on the chance he can help. Hugo Danner has a new appreciation for human life.
One could view The Land of Terror in the same way as Hugo Danner's last football game. That is, you could if Doc had actually killed in anger. That is not the case. Dent makes a particular point of documenting Doc's philosophy: “Doc Savage never shot a man except in actual defense of his own life, or that of someone else.”
The
Fortress of Solitude: Jerome Coffern is openly speculating about Doc's secret lab to his fellow workers.
King Kong raises some interesting questions about the movie and the story. King Kong was in production from January 1932 through early February 1933. Advance publicity for the film may have lead Lester Dent to adapt some of the movie’s elements into his own story, The Land of Terror. Both Skull Island and Thunder Island are surrounded by insurmountable cliffs and each is populated by dinosaurs. The New York Times published an article on the up-and-coming movie, in the January 22, 1933 issue, titled Hollywood’s Mighty Ape.
But there may
be much more to this. In December 1932, King Kong appeared in novel form (Grosset & Dunlap) as an advertising tool to promote the
upcoming film. The story is credited to Edgar Wallace and Merian Cooper but
actually was written by Delos
W. Lovelace. Certainly Lester Dent
had an opportunity to read the story before submitting his story to Street
& Smith.
Another
possible work influencing the story development would be the 1925 movie version
of The Lost World. This was a silent film adaptation of A. Conan
Doyle’s story of the same name.
April 1, 1933 – The Shadow Magazine publishes The Silent Death.
April 1, 1933 – The German Navy, the Reichsmarine, commissions the pocket battleship Deutschland.
April 4, 1933 - The U.S. dirigible USS Akron (ZRS-4) crashes in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New Jersey.
April 5, 1933 – Norway loses in the International Court. Greenland belongs to Denmark.
April 5, 1933 – President Roosevelt issues Executive Order 6102 forbidding the private ownership of gold.
April 11, 1933 – Attempting to set a new speed record, Captain Bill Lancaster takes off from England in his plane the Southern Cross Minor for the Cape of Good Hope and disappears. French troops discovered the wreckage in Algeria in 1962.
April 15, 1933 – The Shadow Magazine publishes The Shadow’s Justice.
April 19, 1933 - President Roosevelt announces that America will go off the gold standard.
April 21, 1933 – The airship USS Macon (ZRS-5) is launched.
April 22, 1933 – Sir Henry Royce of the Rolls-Royce Company dies.
April 30, 1933 – Peruvian President Sanchez Cerro is assassinated.
