b***@volcanomail.com
2008-04-02 01:48:31 UTC
A while ago someone asked about Doc's ability to lip read Chinese.
Searching my database, turned up these:
7/1/1933 "Pirate of the Pacific" Chapter 9
"Several Mongols were now in the Dragon concern office. They moved
about, conversing. The image carried to Doc by television was too
jittery and dim to permit him to read their lips. Indeed, he could not
even identify the faces of the men in the room, beyond the fact that
they were lemon-hued and slant-eyed."
I didn't read enought to figure out if they were speaking English or
not.
In "Cold Death" 9/1/1936 and "Land of Long JuJu" 1/1/1937, we learn
that all Doc's aids are expert lip readers. Both of those are
Lawrence Donovan stories. In "He Could Stop the World" 7/1/1937,
Donovan informs us that Pat is also an expert lip reader.
3/1/1937 "The Metal Master" Chapter 5
Doc is able to lip read Spanish:
"Half a block distant, a bronze giant dropped below a roofs edge and
hastily stowed away a tiny tube of a telescope into a pocket. Doc
Savage's features were expressionless, except that there was a trace
of strain around his forehead. Reading lips is not easy at best.
Reading them when they speak a foreign language rapidly is less easy."
11/1/1941 "The Invisible Box Murders" Chapter 1
For some reason, Ham has to hire a lip reader:
' "Ham," said Monk, "has gone to hire a good, trustworthy lip reader
to sit in the office with Renny and read the lips of Uncle Joe Morgan,
or any visitors he has, with the binoculars." '
2/1/1942 "Men of Fear" Chapter 6
Doc can lip read German and it is said other "major languages".
"Doc Savage watched them arise and pay their check. The telescope the
bronze man was using was strong enough to bring out secondary craters
on the moon. And he was not far from the men--only across the street,
in an upstairs shop window. Moreover, he had, in the past, studied lip
reading in the major languages, of which these men had used one."
2/1/1944 "Death Had Yellow Eyes" Chapter 12
Monk has now lost the ability to read lips (or Lester Dent did not
read Donovan's stories closely enough):
"Doc Savage could read lips fairly well. He got the query. Since Monk
could read lips with about the ease with which he could read ancient
Egyptian blindfolded, Doc had to answer aloud."
9/1/1944 "Weird Valley" Chapter 12
Monk regains some of his lip reading skill:
"Monk didn't know quite enough lip-reading to get it, but he surmised
what it must have been. He shrugged."
4/1/1944 "The Whisker of Hercules" Chapter 3
Not only could Doc read lips, he could even tell what the person's
voice would sound like!!
"Doc Savage had not heard the yellow-haired man's voice, but he felt
this one belonged to the fellow. Doc had read the man's lips from a
distance at the airport, and he judged the fellow's voice would be
about like this. When you were an expert lipreader, you could tell
somewhere near what the voice would sound like."
8/1/1944 "The Shape of Terror" Chapter 4
Doc's skill at lip reading German has dwindled:
"Doc had a time reading the man's lips. The words were German; Doc
wasn't too skilled at lip-reading German. The microphone concealing
partly the man's lips made it hard, too."
12/1/1944 "The Lost Giant" Chapter 6
Doc's lip reading skills have grown dull:
"That he saw them speaking was the literal truth, and he was damned
glad, as he had been a few times before, that he'd had the days and
days of patience that it had taken him to learn lip-reading, and to
become skilled at it. He'd learned the trick quite a number of years
ago, become fairly good at it, good enough to become smug about
himself. Now, in the next minute or two, he wished fervently he'd kept
practicing, kept his skill at more of a peak. Because he missed some
of what they said."
That was all I could find.
Bruce
Searching my database, turned up these:
7/1/1933 "Pirate of the Pacific" Chapter 9
"Several Mongols were now in the Dragon concern office. They moved
about, conversing. The image carried to Doc by television was too
jittery and dim to permit him to read their lips. Indeed, he could not
even identify the faces of the men in the room, beyond the fact that
they were lemon-hued and slant-eyed."
I didn't read enought to figure out if they were speaking English or
not.
In "Cold Death" 9/1/1936 and "Land of Long JuJu" 1/1/1937, we learn
that all Doc's aids are expert lip readers. Both of those are
Lawrence Donovan stories. In "He Could Stop the World" 7/1/1937,
Donovan informs us that Pat is also an expert lip reader.
3/1/1937 "The Metal Master" Chapter 5
Doc is able to lip read Spanish:
"Half a block distant, a bronze giant dropped below a roofs edge and
hastily stowed away a tiny tube of a telescope into a pocket. Doc
Savage's features were expressionless, except that there was a trace
of strain around his forehead. Reading lips is not easy at best.
Reading them when they speak a foreign language rapidly is less easy."
11/1/1941 "The Invisible Box Murders" Chapter 1
For some reason, Ham has to hire a lip reader:
' "Ham," said Monk, "has gone to hire a good, trustworthy lip reader
to sit in the office with Renny and read the lips of Uncle Joe Morgan,
or any visitors he has, with the binoculars." '
2/1/1942 "Men of Fear" Chapter 6
Doc can lip read German and it is said other "major languages".
"Doc Savage watched them arise and pay their check. The telescope the
bronze man was using was strong enough to bring out secondary craters
on the moon. And he was not far from the men--only across the street,
in an upstairs shop window. Moreover, he had, in the past, studied lip
reading in the major languages, of which these men had used one."
2/1/1944 "Death Had Yellow Eyes" Chapter 12
Monk has now lost the ability to read lips (or Lester Dent did not
read Donovan's stories closely enough):
"Doc Savage could read lips fairly well. He got the query. Since Monk
could read lips with about the ease with which he could read ancient
Egyptian blindfolded, Doc had to answer aloud."
9/1/1944 "Weird Valley" Chapter 12
Monk regains some of his lip reading skill:
"Monk didn't know quite enough lip-reading to get it, but he surmised
what it must have been. He shrugged."
4/1/1944 "The Whisker of Hercules" Chapter 3
Not only could Doc read lips, he could even tell what the person's
voice would sound like!!
"Doc Savage had not heard the yellow-haired man's voice, but he felt
this one belonged to the fellow. Doc had read the man's lips from a
distance at the airport, and he judged the fellow's voice would be
about like this. When you were an expert lipreader, you could tell
somewhere near what the voice would sound like."
8/1/1944 "The Shape of Terror" Chapter 4
Doc's skill at lip reading German has dwindled:
"Doc had a time reading the man's lips. The words were German; Doc
wasn't too skilled at lip-reading German. The microphone concealing
partly the man's lips made it hard, too."
12/1/1944 "The Lost Giant" Chapter 6
Doc's lip reading skills have grown dull:
"That he saw them speaking was the literal truth, and he was damned
glad, as he had been a few times before, that he'd had the days and
days of patience that it had taken him to learn lip-reading, and to
become skilled at it. He'd learned the trick quite a number of years
ago, become fairly good at it, good enough to become smug about
himself. Now, in the next minute or two, he wished fervently he'd kept
practicing, kept his skill at more of a peak. Because he missed some
of what they said."
That was all I could find.
Bruce
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