Book(s) You May Have Missed (#8)

Solar Pons stories by August Derleth

Plagiarism or homage? The covers indicate the former; the content the latter. 

If you enjoy the Arthur Conan Doyle stories of Sherlock Holmes but don’t regard them as some sort of sacred text, then you might enjoy prolific American author August Derleth’s pastiches involving his 1920’s English detective Solar Pons of Praed Street, London as told by his friend Dr Parker.

I think it may be a measure of how good these stories are that in 1946 Doyle’s Estate tried legal action to get Derleth from issuing any more of Pons’ adventures.

The Derleth written Solar Pons series of books are –

The Adventures of Solar Pons

The Memoirs of Solar Pons

Three Problems for Solar Pons

The Return of Solar Pons

The Reminiscences of Solar Pons

The Casebook of Solar Pons

Well worth looking out for.

After August Derleth’s death, British author Basil Copper took over the Solar Pons character and produced several more collection –

The Dossier of Solar Pons

The Further Adventures of Solar Pons

The Secret Files of Solar Pons

The Uncollected Cases of Solar Pons

The Exploits of Solar Pons

The Recollections of Solar Pons

I haven’t read any of these so can’t comment on their quality.

Film You May Have Missed (#7)

Richard III (1995)

 

By the time Shakespeare wrote Richard III, just over a hundred years had passed since the events depicted but it was played out in late Elizabethan dress and in the language of the 1590’s, so why did purists get so upset when director Richard Loncraine set his version of the play in the 1930’s/40’s?

Personally, I find Shakespeare’s language difficult to understand and the plots of his Histories require a level of knowledge only Simon Schama possesses, so any help is a bonus. Setting Richard III in an alternate 1930’s Fascists England but retaining the language certainly works for me.

Sir Ian McKellen as Richard in the guise of a Dictator King obviously takes centre stage and the audience is expected to root for this obvious sociopath much in the same way as we enjoyed the antics of Francis Urquhart in the original British version of ‘House of Cards’. Loncraine even uses the same talking-direct-to-camera trick.

The supporting cast includes Jim Broadbent, Nigel Hawthorne, Maggie Smith, Jim Carter, Edward Hardwicke, Dominic West, Bill Paterson and the underrated Tim McInnerny (best known as Captain Darling in Blackadder despite a long and successful stage career that has included the British National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theater and the Old Vic Theatre Company).

One last thought – Isn’t Richard Loncraine the perfect name for a director of a Shakespeare adaptation? He was destined to do it the moment he was christened.

Book You May Have Missed (#7)

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (1910)

Forget the bloody Andrew Lloyd Webber musical! ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ was not written by the Gnome of Shaftesbury Avenue! It was one of forty-two novels written by the French author Gaston Leroux between 1907 and 1927.

The plot is too familiar, thanks to you know who, to reiterate here but, rest assured, the only singing in the book is in the context of the Operatic stage performances. Leroux uses the then popular device of an Introduction that claims the story that follows is the truth about the Opera Ghost and is based in part on a meeting between the author and one of the protagonists (The Persian).

Leroux was better known for ‘The Mystery of the Yellow Room’ until 1925 when the American-made silent film of the ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ starring Lon Chaney Snr. was released to great public acclaim. It has been remade several times (including 1943 with Claude Rains as Erik and 1962 with Herbert Lom) but none of the later versions can match Lon Chaney’s performance. and make-up.

Film You May have Missed (#6)

Margery and Gladys  (2003)

A good old-fashioned English Class System comedy with Penelope Keith, of ‘To the Manor Born’ fame, and June Brown, the long serving ‘Eastender’ Dot Cotton, playing to type perfectly. Margery (Keith) thinks she has killed a burglar so goes on the run with her cleaning-lady Gladys (Brown) and their subsequent trials and tribulations make for a laugh out loud film.

The supporting cast includes Roger Lloyd Pack (‘Only Fools and Horses’ and ‘The Vicar of Dibley’), Martin Freeman (‘The Office’ and ‘Sherloc’k) and Peter Vaughan (‘Game of Thrones’ and just about every BritishTV series since 1954!).

I saw this made for TV film recently by accident when channel hopping and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Book(s) You May Have Missed (#6)

The Brighton series by Peter Guttridge (2010 -  )

The description of the first book in the series, ‘City of Dreadful Night’, on www.fantasticfiction.com sold it to me immediately - 

First gripping mystery in the Brighton Trilogy - July 1934. A woman's torso is found in a trunk at Brighton railway station's left luggage office. Her identity is never established, her killer never caught. But someone is keeping a diary . . . July 2009. Ambitious radio journalist Kate Simpson hopes to solve the notorious Brighton Trunk Murder, and she enlists the help of ex-Chief Constable Robert Watts, whose role in the recent botched armed-police operation in Milldean, Brighton's notorious no-go area, cost him his job. But it's only a matter of time before past and present collide . . .

It ticked all the boxes – based in a real location, inspired by real events and as hard-boiled as they come.

The second and third books continue to uncover more secrets about the past and present of Brighton’s criminal family, the Hathaways.

I have yet to read the last two in the list below but from the reviews on Amazon etc they appear to be drifting away from the world created in the first three.

Peter Guttridge’s Brighton series –

City of Dreadful Night (2010)

The Last King of Brighton (2011)

The Thing Itself (2012)

The Devil's Moon (2013)

Those Who Feel Nothing (2014)

Film You May Have Missed (#5)

La Antena (2007)

A completely unique take on silent cinema is this fairy-tale like story by Argentinian director Esteban Sapir, beautifully shot in black-and-white and practically without dialogue; ‘La Antena’ is a feast for the eyes.

'The City without a Voice', is ruled by Mr. TV. He has stolen the inhabitants’ voices and is in total control of all spoken words and media, forcing everyone to eat his own brand of TV-food. Mr TV is not just a monopolist, he is the personification of evil and totalitarianism, even the swastika appears as a symbol a number of times. He secretly works on a device to steel the words through his television broadcasts. For this purpose, he kidnaps the only one left with The Voice, a beautiful singer, but a TV repairman witnesses the kidnapping and using The Voice’s blind son who is the only other inhabitant that can speak tries to thwart Mr TV’s evil plans.

In the opening sequence, we see a book, titled ‘La Antena’, that opens and a three dimensional city made of paper rises from the pages into which the camera dollies. The production design is stunning with beautiful sets and imagery. Although, shot primarily with the basic language of silent cinema, Esteban Sapir also adds a number of fresh techniques of his own, such as a combination of typographic and animation techniques. Everyone ‘talks’ to each other through text balloons (usually floating near their mouths), the louder they talk, the larger the font. The same trick is used for sound effects. The balloons themselves can be pushed away or crushed as if they had physical presence.

A magical film quite unlike anything else I’ve seen before or since.

Book You May Have Missed (#5)

Dangerous Davies by Leslie Thomas (1976)

When it comes to reading I am a neophiliac so I rarely read a book more than once, but it was after reading ‘Dangerous Davies’ for the third time that I wrote my first (unfinished) novel. I loved Leslie Thomas’ mixture of comedy, whodunit and a very English admiration for the under-dog.

Detective Constable ‘Dangerous’ Davies (we never get to know his real first name) is a sort of English equivalent of US TV’s Colombo, scruffy, bumbling and accident prone but he gets the job done in the end.

Thomas wrote 4 Dangerous Davies books. As well as the original, there was ‘Dangerous in Love’, ‘Dangerous by Moonlight’ and ‘Dangerous Davies and the Lonely Heart’.

You may have seen the TV series based on the character – ‘The Last Detective’. It starred Peter (Dr Who) Davison and comedian Sean Hughes who played Dangerous’ sidekick Mod.

There was also a film ‘The Last Detective’ (1981) with Bernard Cribbins as Dangerous and a terribly miss-cast Bill Maynard as Mod.

Fun Fact: I saw Leslie Thomas once. He was walking along Exeter Street by the wall of Salisbury Cathedral Close. I waved but he ignored me.

Film You May Have Missed (#4)

Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)

In 1964 I began working in central London and discovered the delights of the Academy cinemas and the French New Wave films, one of which was 'Alphaville'

Jean Luc Godard’s spoof of, and/or tribute to, American sci-fi/spy dramas/crime films starred Eddie Constantine as secret agent Lemmy Caution on a mission to Alphaville, the ultra-modern city state that has criminalised love and self-expression. The authoritarian voice of the city is that of a computer Alpha 60 invented by Professor Von Braun who is Caution’s mission target, but first he must find Henri Dickson played by the Russian-born American actor Akin Tamiroff  and get involved with Von Braun’s daughter played by Anna Karina (Godard’s wife who appeared in several of his films).

 

                        Akin Tamiroff and Eddie Constantine      Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina

Remember, this is Godard directing, so don’t expect a straightforward drama film, although French New Wave voice overs, cinema-verité location shooting, Raoul Coutard’s black and white high-contrast cinematography and Eddie Constantine playing his part totally seriously all add up to a very interesting period piece.

In my opinion, Alphaville is the last of the run of great films Godard made that started with ‘À Bout de Souffle’ (‘Breathless’) in 1960 and included ‘Pierrot le Fou’, ‘Vivre sa Vie’ and, Tarrantino’s favourite, ‘Bande à Part’ (‘The Outsiders’). Godard then seem to stop considering his audiences and made a number of totally self-indulgent films, some of which are frankly unwatchable even to a veteran of ‘left-field’ film viewing like myself.

Fun fact: Eddie Constantine had already played Lemmy Caution in a series of French adventure films in the 1950’s and ‘60’s.

Book You May Have Missed (#4)

Wisdom’s Maw: The Acid Novel by Todd Brendan Fahey (1996)

 

                                              Todd Brendan Fahey

An easy book to have missed, it was self-published, after being praised but turned down by just about every publisher in America for fear of being sued by one or more of the surviving cast of characters (according to Fahey).

Fahey has taken the facts, the rumours and the conspiracy theories concerning the CIA, the Hippies, JFK’s murder and everyone who was anyone in the Counter Culture of the 1960’s and added a tab or two of inspiration (LSD) to create a mad bad alternative history that might just be true after all.

Some of the characters are thinly disguised by name changes (Franklin Moore is the late great Ken Kesey, Carlo Marx is Alan Ginsberg (Fahey used the same alias as Jack Kerouac used for Ginsberg in ‘On The Road’)) while many retain their true identities; including the larger than life Captain Al Hubbard.

Al Hubbard

If you want to get a non-fiction view of the times and people in Wisdom’s Maw, I’d recommend ‘Acid Dreams’ by Martin A Lee and ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test’ by Tom Wolfe.

Film You May Have Missed (#3)

The Big Kahuna (1999)

 

Two older cynical salesmen and a younger guy from the Company’s research department wait in a hotel suite for the arrival of the Big Kahuna (Big Shot in English) whose potential orders might save their financial bacon.

A ‘talkie’ as opposed to a ‘movie’ and based on the play ‘Hospitality Suite’ by Ron Komora, it is a single-set (for 95% of the time) three-hander starring Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and Peter Facinelli who gossip, joke, argue, boast, bare their souls and act their little cotton socks off for 90 minutes. I loved it.

A gem but, as more than one IMDB reviewer has warned, not one for the Action junkies.

Fun fact: New Jersey born, Kevin Spacey decided to be an actor during a trip to London when he was 10.

Book You May Have Missed (#3)

The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. by George Steiner (1979)

This 126-page novella by French-born writer, linguist, critic, philosopher and teacher, George Steiner, was published in 1981 and was met with both great praise and severe criticism.

Not an Alternate History story but based on the premise that Adolph Hitler escaped from Berlin on the eve of the Russian takeover of the city, it tells of a group of Jewish Nazi-hunters who find an aging Hitler in the jungles of South America twenty-five years later and their attempt to get him back to civilization to stand trial for War crimes.

The controversy surrounding the book stems from Steiner giving voice to Hitler’s defence of Nazism and the Holocaust. Despite being Jewish himself, Steiner was accused of being anti-Semitic. In my opinion, a classic case of critics confusing the author’s opinions with those of his or her characters.

It is not an easy read but so well written that, if you are interested in the power of the spoken word, it’s worth the effort.

The cover shown above is from the 1981 Faber and Faber edition that I have and, oddly, shows no author’s name on the cover or spine.

Film You May Have Missed (#2)

Toto The Hero (originally Toto Le Hérôs) 1991

Thomas (and his alter-ego Toto the Hero) is played by three actors - Michel Bouquet as an old man, Jo De Backer as an adult and Thomas Godet as a child – in this wonderful film. Thomas believes that he was swapped with another baby (Alfred) during a fire in the maternity hospital where they were both born. The fire is shown but it is deliberately not made clear whether or not the babies were muddled up. Alfred grows up in a rich household and has a successful and happy life whereas Thomas has it pretty rough; losing both a young sister and his father before their time. To make things worse, when he meets and falls in love with a woman, she turns out to be Alfred’s wife.

This all sounds like the recipe for a miserable ninety minute’s film watching that you’ll never get back, but as written and directed by Jaco Van Dormael it is anything but. It skips back and forth between Thomas’ childhood, middle-age, old-age and the fantasy life of his imaginary self (Toto the Hero) with a dexterity that never confuses and always intrigues and/or delights.

Toto the Hero features one of catchiest tunes you’ll ever hear – ‘Boum’ by Charles Trenet – all together now Boum! L'astre du jour fait boum. Tout avec lui dit boum. Quand notre coeur fait boum-boum!

This is one of those films (‘Venus’, ‘About Schmidt’) that I have seen at the right time in my life (i.e. old) to really appreciate them.

Fun fact –
As of 2012, Michel Bouquet, who plays old man Thomas, has had a sixty-nine year career in film and television. He is still working at the age of 91.

Book You May Have Missed (#2)

Making History by Stephen Fry  (pub. 1997)

I have always been a sucker for Alternative History stories (‘The Difference Engine’, ‘11.22.63’, ‘Dominion’, ‘K is for Killing’ etc) and this third novel by the poly-talented Mr Fry is a corker. The genre depends on authors asking the “What if…?” question. “What if the North won the American Civil War?” “What if JFK hadn’t been assassinated?” ”What if Margaret Thatcher hadn’t been in league with the Devil?”

In ‘Making History’ the question is “What if Hitler had never been born?” – not original but intelligently handled. A warning, though, I almost gave up during the first couple of chapters. They didn’t make a lot of sense, although, in retrospect, my lack of knowledge about Hitler’s parents’ lives probably contributed a fair bit to this, then suddenly I turned a page and read a paragraph which made everything clear and I was off and avidly page-turning.

As Hitler/Nazism alternate realities go, this makes a lot more sense than the TV version of Philip K. Dick’s ‘The Man in the High Castle’.

I’d just like to throw in a recommendation for Ben Elton’s book ‘Time and Time Again’- my favourite time travel novel. 

Film You May Have Missed (#1)

The Cat’s Meow (2001)

In November 1924, Thomas Ince, a very successful Hollywood director and producer, was taken ill during a weekend cruise on newspaper magnet William Randolph Hearst’s yacht and died 2 days later. His death certificate showed the cause as being ‘heart failure’ but contemporary rumours spread that Ince had been shot by Hearst and that there had been a cover-up.

The Cat’s Meow, directed by Peter Bogdanovitch (‘The Last Picture Show’, ‘Targets’, ‘Paper Moon’) is a nicely crafted fictionalised version of events during that weekend, starring Cary Elwes as Ince, Edward Herrmann as Hearst, Kirsten Dunst as Hearst’s mistress Marion Davies and my favourite comedian, raconteur and actor, Eddie Izzard, as Charles Chaplin the man behind the ‘Little Tramp’ character.

It’s not an action-packed thriller or even a ‘who-done-it?’ but a thought-provoking and entertaining film for anyone interested in Hollywood’s silent era and its inhabitants’ excesses. And/or Eddie Izzard fans.

Fun fact: The title is a 1920’s slang term meaning ‘the best’. A better-known variation (in the UK) was ‘the cat’s pyjamas’.  “When it comes to live stand-up, Eddie Izzard is the cat’s pyjamas.”

Book(s) You May Have Missed (#1)

This is the first of a regular Friday postage of 'Book you may have missed' alternating with 'Film you may have missed'. Remember that what is one person's goldmine is another's cesspit, so don't dive in without a snorkel.

Lawrence Block’s ‘Burglar series’

The prolific American crime-fiction author Lawrence Block has to date (he’s now 78 years-old) written about 100 novels and 28 novellas. 11 of the novels feature Bernie Rhodenbarr, the owner of a second-hand bookstore (Barnegat Books on East Eleventh Street) in Greenwich Village by day and thief by night.

They were published between 1977 and 2013 with a gap between ’83 and ’94. It was after this gap that I discovered the series and so read them all over a period of about 20 years. If I had only just found out about them I would be tempted to read them back-to-back but, even though they are immensely enjoyable capers with a good dose of humour, like most book series they follow a formula - in this case almost always involving Bernie’s attempt to extradite himself from false suspicion of murder helped (or hindered) by a regular cast of characters, so I wouldn’t advise binge reading them.

They don’t have to be read in order but this is the chronological list pinched from the ‘IMDB’ of  sci-fi / fantasy / horror / mystery / thriller / romance / western / mainstream books- www.fantasticfiction.com –

Burglars Can't Be Choosers (1977)
The Burglar in the Closet (1978)

The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (1979)

The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (1980)

The Burglar Who Painted like Mondrian (1983)

The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (1994)

The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart (1995)

The Burglar in the Library (1997)

The Burglar in the Rye (1999)

The Burglar on the Prowl (2004)

The Burglar Who Counted The Spoons (2013) 

All are obtainable from Amazon (other online booksellers (who actually pay their taxes) are available)