MovieChat Forums > Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982) Discussion > Did late western writer, Louis L' Amour ...

Did late western writer, Louis L' Amour inspire this tv series?

posted 14 years ago by jeffyoung1
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The late, famous writer of American Old West fiction, Louis L' Amour, preceded his old west stories with pulp fiction back in the 1930s.

One of his early pulp fiction stories is titled, "Wings Over Khabarovsk", and takes place, circa late 1941 to 1943. If you can't find this book, try Stephen Coonts' anthology, ON GLORIOUS WINGS, a collection of aviation fiction short stories by various authors, including Louis L' Amour. "Wings Over Khabarovsk" is one of the stories. I recommend ON GLORIOUS WINGS for many reasons; there's even sci-fi short stories of futuristic aerial dogfights.

In "Wings Over Khabarovsk", the fictional, early World War II short story takes place in eastern Siberia on the coastline. It involves an adventurer/mercenary pilot, Turk Madden, who owns by coincidence, a twin-engined, Grumman Goose. His sidekick is an Asian man, 'the Manchu', Shin Bao. Turk Madden, it seems, has had a number of adventures in the air with his Grumman Goose. Stephen Coonts' introduction to the short story describes Turk Madden's adventures as comparable to pulp western fiction set in the air. The late Louis L' Amour took some technical license with his fiction. He implausibly armed the Grumman Goose with eight (8) - that's correct, eight - 0.50 caliber Browning M2 machine guns. Anyone who knows any technical information on the late 1930s Grumman Goose knows that it was a twin-engined, little transport amphibious airplane, designed to transport six passengers and/or cargo. The aircraft was never designed to carry machineguns in its wings or fuselage. A cursory study of the wing shows that trying to fire heavy machineguns through it would have shaken the wing to pieces. But this is fiction after all, and Louis L' Amour's purpose was first and foremost, entertainment.

The short story's plot was essentially Turk Madden in the temporary employment of the Soviet government/military in the Far East as a mercenary freelance scout pilot. Turk uncovers an insidious plot by the Japanese to secretly construct a hidden shipping cargo pier on the Siberian coast which would facilitate the delivery of troops and military supplies in event of a possible war between the Soviets and Imperial Japan.

When you read the short story, you immediately recognize the parallels to the television series Grumman Goose pilot, Jake Cutter, from, "Tales of the Gold Monkey". The only difference is that there is no lovable pug dog with a patch over it's eye.

[–] DrZaat 14 years ago

" The only difference is that there is no lovable pug dog with a patch over it's eye."

Plus, the fact that Jake's sidekick is an American.
Plus, this story takes place in the Soviet Union, while TotGM takes place in the South Pacific.
Plus, the story occurs during wartime, and TotGM is pre-war.
Plus, the story has no female US spy involved with the pilot.
Plus, ..., etc.
Kinda looks like there are a lot of differences, wouldn't you say?

Certainly, "Wings Over Khabarovsk" is the type of story which inspired TotGM, but the pulp magazines [and probably the movie serials] of the '30s and '40s were full of this sort of fiction. One would be hard put to prove that Belisarius must have been familiar with this particular story in order to come up with TotGM. There were tons of such tales around at the time.

[–] Jack_LesCamela 11 years ago

According to the creators of the show, it was Howard Hawks' movie ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS and Milton Caniff's comic strip TERRY AND THE PIRATES.

“A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.”

[–] smerd_70 8 years ago

The only difference is that there is no lovable pug dog with a patch over it's eye.

There's no lovable pug dog on Tales Of The Gold Monkey.

I collect dead pigeons then I press them between the pages of a book.