Tuesday, December 26, 2023

"The great terror of Abercrombie Smith" - Lot No. 249: some thoughts

(Spoiler alert! Best read after watching.) 

"Out of the darkness he had a glimpse of a scraggy neck, and of two eyes that will ever haunt him in his dreams..."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Lot No. 249 has long been a favourite of mine, so when I heard that Mark Gatiss was making an adaptation of it as this year's Ghost Story for Christmas I was absolutely thrilled. I very much enjoyed his previous adaptations of M.R.James, especially Count Magnus, which I thought was really wonderful, maintaining as it did some of the key parts of the story such as the innkeeper's tale, but also adding some new layers to it. My feeling is that Mark Gatiss is a safe pair of hands but not too safe; none of the adaptations feel stale or too slavish to the original texts (which are texts after all, devised to be read rather than watched). Lot No. 249 is no exception.

If you know a story very, very well, you inevitably have a mental film of it, but I try to set that aside when watching an adaptation. In my mind's eye, for example, "Old College" is based on New College, Oxford, but Rothamstead Manor, where Lot No. 249 was shot, does very well, especially the interiors; I liked the detail of the "true son of Old Nile, a great, hanging-jawed crocodile" hanging from the ceiling in Bellingham's sitting-room.

One thing I was slightly sucking my teeth about before I actually saw the adaptation was the casting of Freddie Fox as Bellingham, since Fox is young and good-looking, and the Bellingham of the original story is "strange and most repellent" looking, as well as very wrinkled, which implies mature age. I'm generally not very fond of film versions prettying characters up for the sake of it (one of the reasons I love some older horror films like The Fog (1980) is that the people look like real, ordinary people). However, it is also the case that the original story equates unattractive looks (and fatness) with a villainous personality, and that is something I would like to think we are moving on from. Having now seen the adaptation, I feel it does a tremendous job of portraying Bellingham instead as a person of moral ugliness - someone prepared to murder on very slight grounds. His tempting good looks and charisma are simply a lure.

And now to the nitty-gritty: the mummy* itself. This worked superbly for me - as in the original story, the first glimpses of what is going on are oblique and indistinct: the mummy case which is empty one moment and filled with a grisly occupant the next; the mysterious tread on the staircase. I watched Lot No. 249 with my adult children and we all agreed that the chase scene, which is the high point of the story for me, was really frightening. "He was a famous runner, but never had he run as he ran that night" wrote Conan Doyle, and believe me, you would, if that thing were after you. The moments when Smith sees a distant silhouette were also deeply sinister and yet ambiguous; his friend's explanation  that "Some gaunt, half-famished tramp steals after you, and seeing you run, is emboldened to pursue you" might be right - except that we, like Smith, have seen every detail of the approaching horror.  

This brings me to the friend in question - "Peterson" in the original, and in the adaptation, very clearly Conan Doyle's most famous literary creation. I have seen some online objections to this, on the grounds that Conan Doyle came to resent the way Holmes's popularity overshadowed his other work and would not therefore have appreciated his trespassing upon it. This is certainly true, however his appearance does presuppose a Doylian universe in which all his creations co-exist, which I rather like. 

I was also delighted to see that the confrontation between Abercrombie Smith and Edward Bellingham towards the end of the story was perfectly recreated. It is rather jaw-dropping to think that an undergraduate could, at that period, go to a gunsmith and buy a heavy revolver and ammunition, and that is not to mention the amputating knife he adds to his armoury! Would Smith actually have shot Bellingham if he refused to destroy the mummy and papyrus? In spite of his asking his friend to sign and date an account of recent events "in case I am arrested" (for murder), I can't help thinking that his main object was to convince himself that he would do it, so that he could threaten it with utter conviction; in fact he was banking on Bellingham complying. Either way, it is a marvellously tense scene, as Smith marks the passing minutes with his watch, until Bellingham finally cracks at the last moment. 

This brings us to the final scene (and I re-iterate for the unwary, spoilers are incoming so look away now if you haven't watched). In the original story, a brief paragraph tells us that Bellingham leaves the university immediately after the events described, and is "last heard of in the Soudan", presumably looking in vain for a new copy of the burnt papyrus. This has always struck me as a perfectly adequate ending, especially since the existence of other copies of the papyrus would undermine its aura of sinister power. However, there may be other expectations from filmed horror - the final twist in which the evil forces suddenly retaliate is an established trope. I assume this is behind the new ending, with a new mummy and a new papyrus. I regret to say that we did rather chuckle over it - "Lot 250: this time it's personal" suggested my daughter. However, overall we thoroughly enjoyed the adaptation and look forward to watching it again. 

Finally, I am very sorry to read about the difficulties in obtaining funding for Ghost Stories for Christmas, and would like to add my voice to those pleading for them to continue. There are a great many BBC programmes throughout the year in which I have no interest, but the Ghost Story for Christmas is one single half hour for which I drop everything. Is that too much to ask?


Above and below: my copy of The Conan Doyle Stories, this edition published in 1949. 



* Some museums are now moving away from the term "mummy", preferring terms like "mummified remains" to avoid depersonalising the dead person. An article on the Museums Association website dated January 2023 and quoting a CNN report adds: "Institutions are also keen to distance their collections from popular culture depictions of mummies as supernatural monsters..." 


 

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Christmas trees for book characters

 

Christmas is nearly upon us and I am horribly disorganised - still driving around frantically picking up last minute presents and food and drink items. While I have been doing this, I have been pondering the back stories of some of my book characters. I am sure I am not the only author who does this. What, I ask myself, are they doing when they are not appearing in my book? My over active brain has sometimes concocted entire lives for my characters - lives which have never appeared in print nor ever will do. 

Anyway, just this morning I was thinking about Angus out of my latest book Jump Cut, and how he would celebrate Christmas. Clearly he would spend the day with his father, the peppery old Mr. Fraser, and I am fairly convinced that the pair of them would have a long running fiction that Mr. Fraser was going to cook the Christmas dinner. In the event, he would always forget things, start on it too late or generally mess it up, so Angus would end up cooking and then the pair of them would pretend it was all Mr. Fraser's work. They would also go to church, not because either of them is particularly religious, but because the late Mrs. Fraser always went at Christmas, so now Mr. Fraser goes in honour of her, and makes Angus go along too. Angus would have a Christmas tree too, and it would either be an outdoor one which he decorates with lights every year, or a real one which he drags in at the very last minute, having been occupied with other things; sometimes it would get decorated and occasionally it wouldn't. 

This led me to consider what the other characters in the book would have in the way of Christmas trees. (Have you nothing better to do, I hear you cry.) Well, here's what I came up with. 

Max would definitely have a huge, beautiful, "perfect" Christmas tree, probably a sparkling white artificial one, completely regular and decorated in a strict palette of colours and shapes. No tatty inherited baubles, purple tinsel or mismatched colours for him. 

Mary Arden would have an equally large tree, but probably a real one. It would be a Norway Spruce because she likes something traditional, but this would also mean a lot of needle drop. Mary wouldn't care two hoots about that, because it would be somebody else's problem. She'd probably also be incredibly fussy about how it was decorated (again, by someone else), and as soon as it was finished she'd lose interest. 

Lillian Velderkaust (the 1930s film director) would have something chic but not particularly Christmassy. I'm not sure whether arty Art Deco Christmas trees were ever a thing, but that's what she'd have. I imagine it as being something like the one in the pic (left) - colourful and minimalistic. I mean, she has other things to worry about; she can't be doing with sweeping up pine needles. 

Hugh Mason would definitely have something ultra traditional, so it would be a real tree - perhaps a Douglas fir, though my daughter suggested a Fraser fir with real candles on it: "a proper fire hazard", she said. That sounds about right. 

Richard Foster would have something low maintenance and modern for his city apartment - maybe one of those sets of pre-lit decorative cones with LED lights. 

And Mrs Harris? I think she'd have a mini tree in her housekeeper's quarters at Garthside. On Christmas Eve she'd eye it with disfavour, while allowing herself a single festive gin. You can't get drunk if you're always on call, after all...