WILEY AND THE HAIRY MAN

In outline, skinny black Wiley in Alabama and the scary "hairy man" he has to fool three times to be rid of can't help reminding you of Mayor's Liza Lou (above) and the separate swamp monsters she tricks, but Bang's glowing gray-and-white pictures are far more subdued and there's a touch of humor in her monster even though he's as ferocious a creature as you'd want to see. That the hairy man keeps coming back makes for a better story, and though the three-times-and-out condition, introduced toward the end, does seem to be stacking the cards for the hero, you will admire Wiley's mother and her resourceful final routing of the bogey.