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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Massey’s ‘The Speckled Band’

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Massey’s ‘The Speckled Band’

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Massey_IntroI’ve posted about the stage play that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, based on his Holmes short story, “The Speckled Band.” In 1931, it was brought to the screen (though it had been filmed a few times before), with Canadian actor Raymond Massey in his first credited role.

Band was only the third Holmes “talkie,” following Clive Brook’s The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929) and Arthur Wontner’s The Sleeping Cardinal (also 1931).

The film incorporates several of the play’s variations, including the name changes (Roylott to Rylott; Julia to Violet), the inquest, adding an Indian manservant, etc. One significant change from the original story is that Watson is a friend of the girl’s dead mother and is the one who brings the case to Holmes. This gives Athole (yep: that’s really his first name) Stewart’s Watson a meatier part in the story.

Stewart plays a more Doyle-like Watson, as compared to Ian Fleming, who played a doofus Doctor in Wontner’s Cardinal: the type of portrayal that, sadly, would be all to common in the coming decades. It’s nice to see a black and white era Watson who wasn’t there for comic relief.

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Belated Movie Review #1: 10,000 B.C.

Belated Movie Review #1: 10,000 B.C.

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10,000 BC poster-smallI was interested in 10,000 BC (10KBC) when it first came out, but somehow never got around to seeing it. Finally rented it. I am going to RECOMMEND it — with the caveat that if you go in with an understanding that this is a pulp fantasy lost-world adventure.

As we all surely know, some movies are good, some are bad, and some are okay but hampered by their advertising campaign (or lack thereof, in the case of John Carter). 10KBC fits in the latter category. Here’s the thing. If you’re going in anticipating something kinda historically accurate, like say Quest for Fire*, you’ll be disappointed.

Framing is what this movie needed! It needed to start with a couple of archeologists unearthing a golden pyramid topper and their elation being clouded by the fact that it is 5,000 years older than the oldest pyramid. Dum dum duuum! Or, alternately, a 1940s guy pacing in his room next to a typewriter, wracking his brain for ideas — baby needs a new pair of shoes and all that — taking a big drink of something brown and boozy then snapping his fingers. “Ice Age Atlantean adventure!” he shouts, then starts typing.

Did I mention the Atlantean influence? See, that’s what the ads should have communicated. Once you realize that the there is an Atlantean lost-world/we-are-the-gods tie-in, all is good! It’s as if you’ve had something brown and boozy, and can thus forgive a lot in a movie. Had I been in charge of the movie, much less its advertising, I would have mentioned it waaaay earlier.

Anyway, if you want your stone-age adventures (and at HFQ we most certainly do as, exemplified by Last Free Bear and Living Totem), then 10K BC is for you!

* Yes, I realize that “Quest for Fire” isn’t actually that historically accurate.

Adrian Simmons is an editor for Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. His last article for us was Frodo Baggins, Lady Galadriel, and the Games of the Mighty. See more of his thoughts as the HFQ Facebook page.

Goth Chick News: Eli Roth Goes from Hemlock Grove to South of Hell and Makes Bank with Knock Knock

Goth Chick News: Eli Roth Goes from Hemlock Grove to South of Hell and Makes Bank with Knock Knock

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Eli Roth
Eli Roth

Goth Chick News fav, director Eli Roth, has been a very busy gent lately. And even if he didn’t look like that, we still wouldn’t be able to tear our eyes away from his latest lineup of projects.

First off, there the third and final season of the supernatural, hottie-monster-ridden joy ride that is Roth’s Netflix series Hemlock Grove. If you haven’t caught up with this yet, there is still time to binge watch Famke Janssen, Bill Skarsgard and Landon Liboiron tear through a small, New England town that is home to everything from vampires and werewolves to witches and mad doctors – and still have time to pine away that the next ten episodes will be the last.

Says the man himself:

We are so grateful to the fans of Hemlock Grove who have championed the series so intensely over two seasons. We are looking forward to taking the last and final season into some dark and unexpected places, and to giving viewers the killer finale.

Oh Eli, you know just what to say to a girl.  But when exactly?

Season 1 premiered in April and season two showed up in July.  A January 1st post on the HG Twitter feed said only that season three was “so close you could almost feel it” which means who-knows-what, but could indicate another full season landing in the early spring.

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See the Teaser Trailer for the Fantastic Four Reboot

See the Teaser Trailer for the Fantastic Four Reboot

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I’m a big fan of what Marvel has accomplished with their movie properties, but I didn’t enjoy the two Fantastic Four films. And I really wanted to — Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s FF was my favorite comic growing up, and I thrilled to the cosmic adventures of Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm as they explored the Negative Zone and uncovered countless ancient mysteries (not to mention giant robots, weird alien races, and noble heralds on surf boards.)

But love of the source material only goes so far, and I don’t think the two films were well cast, or captured the true spirit of the comic. As Matthew David Surridge wisely pointed out in his lengthy look at Stan and Jack’s amazing 104-issue run, “The FF are explorers, not crime-fighters or warriors.” So I was pleased to see that — from what little I can puzzle out from the Teaser trailer released yesterday for the new reboot — the new version seems to focus on the explorer aspect of the team. This is from Marvel’s description:

Fantastic Four, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

And here’s peek at the trailer itself. See what you think. Worth looking forward to?

My Love/Hate Romance With Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit

My Love/Hate Romance With Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit

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GandalfLet me state for the record that I am a fan of the film adaptation of The Lord Of the Rings. Jack Nicholson can complain all he likes about “too many endings,” but that celluloid trilogy managed the impossible: it successfully imbued a made-up world not only with turmoil and action but with genuine emotional gravitas. The Lord Of the Rings (2001 – 2003), against all odds, mattered.

Having just seen the third of The Hobbit installments (2012 – 2014), I fear I cannot say the same for these sequel-prequels. I want to. At certain moments, I’m convinced. At others?

Yes, the task of adapting a book to the screen is arduous, full of perils, and the fact that Jackson’s scriptwriting team of Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and (for these films) Guillermo del Toro have had any success at all is remarkable. Tolkien, let’s face it, was not an efficient story-teller. Given characters like Tom Bombadil, it would not be unfair to crown him as King Of All Digressions.

So let’s take it as a given that adaptation involves violence toward the source material. Additions will be made, and subtractions, too. So be it. The goal, typically, is to preserve the spirit of the original.

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Goth Chick News: M. Night Shyamalan’s Secret Project Revealed

Goth Chick News: M. Night Shyamalan’s Secret Project Revealed

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SundowningIt’s been nearly a year since we wrote about M. Night Shyamalan leaking a few cryptic Tweets about his double-secret “micro-budget” film called Sundowning – or at least that was what it was titled on the clapboards.

To clarify, “micro-budget” is the latest, sexier term Hollywood has assigned to “indy” films, or rather films made outside of the studio system and without their financial backing. Then all you have to do it take a quick look back at M. Night’s last few outings to know that making a film inside the studio system is probably not a viable option for him at the moment (see After Earth and The Last Airbender: though personally I had a ton of fun with Devil).

Back in February, 2013 M. Night was sequestered somewhere in snowy Pennsylvania with a paltry crew of ten, cast included. Considering the setting, the title and the fact that some fairly significant horror movies have been filmed on shoestring budgets, we here at Goth Chick News along with our favorite fan boys had our money on a vampire movie.

I mean even a good set of fangs are fairly reasonable cost-wise, and everyone in New England is pasty this time of year anyway…

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Star Trek Continues With a Kirkstarter

Star Trek Continues With a Kirkstarter

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Itrek continues crew‘ve raved about Star Trek Continues to anyone I could find. It is, simply, a wonderful take on Star Trek and may be the closest we’ll ever get to seeing new original episodes of the quality of the best of the original series.

Here’s what I said about the second episode, “Lolani,” on this very web site, although it holds true for all three of the episodes made thus far: “… it feels like a lost episode. It’s not just the sets and the effects, which are truly astonishing in their faithfulness, it’s the pacing, and the music cues, and the fadeouts, and the story beats, and the writing — and the actors. These people understand who the original characters were and inhabit them — and I swear that this script could stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the finest entries in the original run.”

trek scottyThe staff and crew involved want to launch new episodes and they need help. They’re not getting paid for their work, you see. It’s a labor of love done in their free time. Hours and hours and hours of their free time.

I hope you’ll join me in swinging by to donate money to their new Kickstarter, which you can find here. One of their stretch goals is to raise funding for an engineering set, and another is to raise funding for a planet set!

Most importantly, of course, is the funding of two new episodes (and possibly more, depending upon hitting stretch goals). If you’ve seen the first three, you’ll understand how fabulous that is.

If you’re skeptical about the sound of any of this, I invite you to visit the site and try out these three fine episodes for yourself. If you’re a fan of the original show, you’re likely to be astonished.

Live long, and prosper.

Smart Guy, Huh?

Smart Guy, Huh?

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ScorpionIt used to be okay to be the smartest person in the room – at least on paper, real life isn’t my area of expertise. Sherlock Holmes was definitely a loner, and eccentric, no question. But when he left Baker Street, he was appropriately dressed, even, or perhaps especially, when in disguise. He knew, understood and used all the social conventions, and could converse easily with everyone and anyone, from any walk of life. He may not have been interested in women romantically, but he had no trouble interacting with them.

This facility used to be part of being the smartest person in the room. Now, we see more examples of this extremity of genius than ever before, including two versions of Holmes. It might have been CSI that started this off – what was Grissom but the smartest guy in the room? – and since then we’ve had House MD bringing in the medical side, and The Mentalist for the con artist in all of us, and this season alone we’ve got Forever, and Scorpion, plus, I believe, a couple more coming along soon.

And let’s not forget, that for as long as most of us have been alive, we’ve had Dr. Who.

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James Bond is in the Public Domain in Canada

James Bond is in the Public Domain in Canada

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James Bond 007-smallNews that the character of James Bond entered the public domain in several countries around the world, including Canada, on January 1st 2015, has stirred considerable excitement among small press publishers.

As io9 reported on Thursday, for many countries who signed the international Berne Convention governing copyright, an author’s works are protected until 50 years after her death. Ian Fleming died in 1964, which means his work entered the public domain this year. Fleming’s original novels can now be published by anyone in Canada, and new film adaptions of those works are fair game.

Canadian publishers such as Neil Baker’s April Moon Books, who recently produced the popular anthologies The Dark Rites of Cthulhu and Amok!, are exploring what this means to those interested in producing new Bond-related books and anthologies. Here’s Neil:

Here is what I know so far. The name James Bond is currently not trademarked, and it wouldn’t be an issue if it was. However, James Bond OO7 is trademarked, and would cause a kerfuffle. The movies are off-limits, so no fluffy white cats or Q. Movie versions of James are off-limits, as is SPECTRE and, to some extent, villains using nuclear threats. It’s all a bit murky, but I’m still digging.

I’m trying to clarify the position of writers outside of Canada, bear with me on this.

Keep up with developments on the April Moon Facebook page.

Goth Chick News: From Comics to Film, Bad Kids Go (Back) To Hell

Goth Chick News: From Comics to Film, Bad Kids Go (Back) To Hell

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Bad_Kids_Go_To_Hell-smallBack in 2010 at the Chicago Comic Con, we had a chance meeting with the creators of what was then a new comic series entitled Bad Kids Go to Hell. This was mainly due to their booth being manned by several young ladies in skimpy Catholic school uniforms, which Black Gate photographer Chris Z seemed to find immensely camera-worthy.

However, after speaking with creators Matthew Spradlin and Barry (Bazz) Wernick, who came up with this idea during the 2007 Hollywood writer’s strike, I had to admit they were onto something. Four years on, I was clearly not the only one who thought the Bad Kids Go To Hell graphic novel was disturbing and hysterical in equal measure.

What was created during the pair’s relentless promotional tour of comic-fan conventions and in-store signings during the next year, was nothing short of a juggernaut cult following. The touring allowed Spradlin and Wernick to improve their pitch and ultimately gave them their shot at turning the comic into a movie.

Which is precisely what they did in 2012.

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