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.