Saturday, December 8, 2012

Week 14 Mini Research

I have always liked reading books that are older. Mainly from around 1900 into the 1930s. Throughout my reading of these books, I have found many authors that I found interesting, such as Jeffery Farnol, J. Jefferson Farjeon (who was descended from Thomas Jefferson), J.S. Fletcher, E. Phillips Oppenheim (who invented spy fiction), and Mary Roberts Rinehart (who invented "the butler did it").

Of these authors, I have read the majority of their books, and really enjoyed them. But a while ago I wondered if any movies had been made out of them. The authors are not very well known now, even though they were well liked in the time; Fletcher was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's (Sherlock Holmes' author) main mystery competitor, and a good amount of people in the time considered him better (as I do). Oppenheim was on the cover of the 1927 Time Magazine, called "The Prince of Storytellers."

Considering that they had so much attention then, I would think some movies must have been made from them. So I start researching on the internet, on my laptop with it's left bracket and comma keys about to come off.

What I found was that a good amount of movies were made from these authors' books. Rinehart's book's "Tish", and "The Bat" were made into movies, "The Bat" multiple times.

Farnol had some of his books made into movies, among them "The Amateur Gentleman" three times, including a silent movie in the early 1920s. He also had his book "Murder By Nail" used for a British murder television program in the sixties, featuring Farnol's favorite character, Bow Street Runner Jasper Shrig.

Fletcher had some made into movies, such as "The Root of All Evil" in 1947.

The only problem with all of these, of course, is that no one knows about them anymore. And since no one knows about them anymore, they are practically impossible to find anywhere. What I was hoping for was one with someone a little better known, an actor or director that I would know now.

I found one with J. Jefferson Farjeon. Although maybe not quite as well known as the others, he was also a successful writer. Successful enough, apparently, for Albert Hitchcock to adapt one of Farjeon's plays into a movie. I found that "No. Seventeen" was adapted into a movie called "Number Seventeen" in 1932, directed by Albert Hitchcock. Hitchcock did not want to do this movie, and later admitted that it was a "Disaster". Most fans of Hitchcock were disappointed and surprised when it was released. Some critics have said of it that "It is fun to watch, though incomprehensible." It is a comedy thriller.

This is what I was searching for. Someone who people now (at least some people) know him. And some people know this movie, as it can be seen in its entirety on Youtube (I watched it and agreed with the critic).

Oppenheim was who I will try next. I find some information on him. "The Great Impersonation" was made into a movie three times, including once that was pretty much just WWII propaganda in 1944. I thought that this would make it easier to find, but I could only locate the first four minutes of it.

But considering that Oppenheim has 24 books made into films, there might be more. I finally find one that might be known well enough for me to locate it. It is "The Curious Quest" was published in 1919. In 1936, it was made into a movie starting- someone that I think most everyone has heard of- Cary Grant.

I found what I was looking for. The full movie has been posted many times on Youtube, and I can see a movie on a book that I enjoyed reading. The only problem is that even though the full movie has been posted, I find out looking at another site that the original British version was 80 minutes, but no one knows if a copy of that one even exists anymore. The shortened American version is 61 minutes.

So apparently they thought that Americans had shorter attention spans even then. What a surprise.

2 comments:

  1. I started researching the Cary Grant movie and see that it has had at least three different release titles, as well as that 25% cut in running time--what is on those lost 20 minutes, I wonder? (I had thought that Cary Grant was purely a creature of Hollywood by this time, but apparently not as this seems to be an English production. I wonder if he dropped a bit of his Cary Grant accent and allowed himself to be old Archibald Leach again....) (But obviously my interest does not reach far enough for me to bring up youtube this morning and hear for myself!)

    Another thing that interests me is how much the premise of this movie has sunk into our entertainment subconscious (and that says something about the power of the Prince of Storytellers.)

    By 'sunk into our entertainment subconscious' I mean that this trading-places plot is a very attractive and well-worn device (and perhaps it was well-worn by the time EPO used it. Maybe he had taken a peek at Mark Twain's 'Prince and the Pauper.')

    But the premise was such a Depression era movie staple--off the top of my head, I can think of 'My Man Godfrey,' 'It Happened One Night,' and 'Sullivan's Travels' as variants.

    That idea of the poor man suddenly being rich (Beverly Hillbillies anyone?) or the rich man playing poor is bred in our bones in a capitalist world! Usually building to The Great Reveal when he (usually a 'he') reveals to the girl he's fallen in love with that he really is not Joe Schmoe but actually Richie Rich! Very satisfying! She loves him anyway!

    Well, Tom, I haven't written about your writing but, instead, am just letting it spin my mind along into various channels you stimulate--and that's a compliment. Really the highest compliment I can have dealing with student material is that it's interesting to me.

    Let me put that slightly differently: student writing as writing is always interesting to me, but student topics sometimes are not. If I have to ever read another essay about video games, I might cry.

    But, as a fellow fan of some of the obscurer corners of genre fiction, I am interested here.

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  2. Still thinking--maybe the original premise and its attraction are a Christian thing as much as a capitalist one.

    After all, God came to earth in human flesh at Jesus the carpenter, living not as a king but as a humble and poor worker, though he could have had the wealth of the world laid out before him. And he too had a Great Reveal--what a disappointment when so many turned away, disbelieving!

    So, I wonder how the trading-places idea plays in different cultures and with different understandings of the divine and supernatural.

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