Haunted Hearts Society

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Media Necromancy: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Hello Haunted Hearts Society Members

Welcome back to another intsallment of the strange, obscure and bygone.

Though this certainly falls more into the bygone category as The Hound of the Baskervilles is among the most famous stories written about the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. In fact, there were enough Sherlock Holmes films made during the silent era with original stories and adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work, if they all still existed we could probably spend a year just on them. But, for the sake of not drowning in the mire, this will be the last installment on Sherlock Holmes, and the selection concerns the most gothic of the Holmes mysteries which is on brand here.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the Holmes full novels, and was published in 1902 following the publication of “The Final Problem” (the one where Holmes confronts Moriarty and “dies”), but takes before that (logically, as Conan Doyle had not officially brought him back yet). There were three film adaptations in the silent era. The first, a German film written by Richard Oswald and released in 1914, did not follow the novel particularly closely. The second, a 1921 British film starring Ellie Norwood as Holmes. Norwood played Holmes in a number of feature length films and shorts, and his portrayal was praised by Conan Doyle. The third was again a German film, Richard Oswald as the director this time, and was released in 1929.

Despite all three films still being extant I was unable to get my eyes on the 1921 Norwood film, but this gives us the very interesting perspective of being able to discuss the first Baskervilles adaptation, as well as the very last silent Sherlock Holmes film made (the 1929 film is very close to the novel, and it’s unfortunate that several scenes are missing).

Both films start off on the right track. The Baskerville family is haunted by a demonic hound that hunts them down on the Devonshire moors where they live. The current head of the family, Sir Charles, is one night killed, apparently by the hound. Neither film gives the reason for the curse however, which was part of the legend in the story, involving a wicked ancestor known as Hugo Baskerville:

“It chanced that this Hugo came to love (if, indeed, so dark a passion may be known under so bright a name) the daughter of a yeoman who held lands near the Baskerville estate. But the young maiden, being discreet and of good repute, would ever avoid him, for she feared his evil name. So it came to pass that one Michaelmas this Hugo, with five or six of his idle and wicked companions, stole down upon the farm and carried off the maiden, her father and brothers being from home, as he well knew...

It chanced that some little time later Hugo left his guests to carry food and drink—with other worse things, perchance—to his captive, and so found the cage empty and the bird escaped... And while the revellers stood aghast at the fury of the man, one more wicked or, it may be, more drunken than the rest, cried out that they should put the hounds upon her. Whereat Hugo ran from the house, crying to his grooms that they should saddle his mare and unkennel the pack, and giving the hounds a kerchief of the maid’s, he swung them to the line, and so off full cry in the moonlight over the moor...

The moon was shining bright upon the clearing, and there in the centre lay the unhappy maid where she had fallen, dead of fear and of fatigue. But it was not the sight of her body, nor yet was it that of the body of Hugo Baskerville lying near her, which raised the hair upon the heads of these three dare-devil roysterers, but it was that, standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon. And even as they looked the thing tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws upon them, the three shrieked with fear and rode for dear life, still screaming, across the moor.”

Sir Charles appears to become the latest victim of the Hound, and the estate passes to his nephew, Henry. They all include the detail that Henry has been living abroad, though the 1914 film puts him in New York, the 1929 film vaguely states “the colonies”, and the book has him farming in Canada. Henry is also warned in every version against going back to Baskerville Hall, and the 1929 version has this in the form of a note with letters cut out of a newspaper, which is the same as the book.

While the 1914 film is going to continue using elements that are from the original story, the plot is going to veer off here, so much so that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is not credited at all for the creation of this story.

Sir Henry goes straight to Baskerville Hall, and not to see Sherlock Holmes in an attempt to discover the origin and meaning of the ominous warning, and he’s introduced to Stapleton, a “close friend” of his late uncle. Sir Charles’s will is read, and it quite specifically mentions that Henry is to inherit everything and not his greedy nephew Rodger. Rodger is a character from the story, in fact his role is going to end up playing out the same, but very importantly, at this point in the book, no one knows he exists.

Sir Charles was the last of three brothers. One brother is meant to be similar to Hugo in character, and Holmes reveals the identity of the nephew Rodger as part of the solution to the mystery.

“He was a son of that Rodger Baskerville, the younger brother of Sir Charles, who fled with a sinister reputation to South America, where he was said to have died unmarried. He did, as a matter of fact, marry, and had one child, this fellow, whose real name is the same as his father’s.”

Rodger (calling himself Stapleton) then embarks on a cartoonish quest to get rid of Sir Henry (as he had Sir Charles) and take the inheritance for himself, and we learn he keeps the Hound in a secret underground lair. The Hound is naturally just a very large dog who’s supposed to be starved and abused to make him vicious, but this dog is quite clearly a very good boy.

So scary.

This is nearly 20 minutes into the film and I was honestly starting to question if Sherlock Holmes was going to appear at all, but after a failed attack by the vicious puppy hound, Sir Henry decides to send for the famous detective and informs Stapleton of this plan. Rodger (Stapleton) destroys the letter bound for London by setting a fire in the post box, and then disguises himself as Sherlock Holmes in order to continue his evil scheme.

The real Sherlock Holmes becomes involves not at the request of anyone in the Baskerville household, but because he reads in the newspaper that he’s arrived at Baskerville Hall in order to finally solve the mystery of the Hound. He decides to investigate the fake Sherlock and goes on to Baskerville Hall alone.

Dr Watson: exists.

Sherlock proves to be a real sharpshooter when he blasts the end off a bomb fuse that Rodger set up in the middle of a party; he saves Sir Henry from Rodger’s attempt to poison him by shooting the glass, and somehow immediately figures out the fake Sherlock is Stapleton, while Henry doesn’t recognize the man without a beard.

Rodger’s house is full of traps, hidden trap doors and a whole tunnel that sends Holmes down into the lair of the beast. The 1929 film also featured trick doors, secret passages, and false windows in the Stapleton house, and places from which Stapleton watched Holmes unseen until forcing him underground to confront the Hound. Sadly for the dog, there’s no version of the story where the poor hound has a happy ending, but Sherlock is able to escape and pulls an Uno reverse by disguising himself as “Stapleton”. This also completely fools Sir Henry. With the help of the butler Barrymore, they’re able to corner Stapleton, reveal his true identity and his schemes, and he’s arrested. This is actually a more fortunate ending for Rodger than the other versions, but all in all, Ende gut, alles gut.

The 1929 film follows the novel so closely it’d be easier to mention the few things that were changed than to write out a whole comparison. The film starts which some real gothic shots of the moors on a stormy night; Sir Charles is lured out of his home by a letter from Laura Lyons (who in the 1914 film became Sir Henry’s love interest), and meets his end at the jaws of the Hound (allegedly). Sherlock is approached by the Sir Charles’s physician Dr. Mortimer, and he sends Watson to Baskerville Hall.

Finally, Dr. Watson gets to have an actual role in the story, though he’s a bit of a dunce and Sherlock scolds him for fetching the police after being tricked by a message left by someone else. This hardly seems fair as in the book, they do get Inspector Lestrade involved in the Baskerville case, and Lestrade by name didn’t make an appearance in either of these movies.

Jack Stapleton is a butterfly collector as in the novel, but Beryl isn’t portrayed as his sister, but rather some sort of adopted daughter. Holmes reveals in the book she was actually Rodger’s wife, but the romance between Sir Henry and Beryl in this film is authentic and they end up together in the end. Beryl was omitted from the 1914 version.

““I am giving you some information now, in return for all that you have given me. The lady who has passed here as Miss Stapleton is in reality his wife.”

“Good heavens, Holmes! Are you sure of what you say? How could he have permitted Sir Henry to fall in love with her?”

“Sir Henry’s falling in love could do no harm to anyone except Sir Henry. He took particular care that Sir Henry did not make love to her, as you have yourself observed. I repeat that the lady is his wife and not his sister.”

“But why this elaborate deception?”

“Because he foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in the character of a free woman.”

All my unspoken instincts, my vague suspicions, suddenly took shape and centred upon the naturalist. In that impassive colourless man, with his straw hat and his butterfly-net, I seemed to see something terrible—a creature of infinite patience and craft, with a smiling face and a murderous heart.”

An additional bit of information which the films do not include is more of the Stapletons’s backstory. The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders (2011) suggests that this history would have tipped readers off to the hidden vileness of the character, being based on a true incident.

“I had a school,” said Stapleton. “It was in the north country. The work to a man of my temperament was mechanical and uninteresting, but the privilege of living with youth, of helping to mould those young minds, and of impressing them with one’s own character and ideals was very dear to me. However, the fates were against us. A serious epidemic broke out in the school and three of the boys died...”

“He was once a schoolmaster in the north of England. Now, there is no one more easy to trace than a schoolmaster. There are scholastic agencies by which one may identify any man who has been in the profession. A little investigation showed me that a school had come to grief under atrocious circumstances, and that the man who had owned it—the name was different—had disappeared with his wife. The descriptions agreed. When I learned that the missing man was devoted to entomology the identification was complete.””

The real school in question was known as Mr. Drouet’s Establishment for Pauper Children, where a cholera epidemic broke out in 1849. Mr. Drouet was tried for manslaughter following the death of 180 children, and the result of an investigation finding the medical care, food and general living conditions of the children horribly inadequate. Though Drouet was acquitted, public sentiment considered him guilty and people remained wary of similar institutions.

Otherwise, this film does include the escaped convict subplot (ultimately a red herring), both the Barrymores and their relationship to the convict, Stapleton’s abuse of Beryl and attempt to imprison her in their house; Sherlock hiding out in the moor and frightening Watson with a mysterious sighting, and even details down to Sir Henry’s stolen shoe. True to the novel as well, Stapleton meets his end in the Grimpen Mire.

Other sources: https://workhouses.org.uk/Drouet/

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Sherlock Holmes: From Page to Stage to Screen

Hello Haunted Hearts Society Members

Welcome back to another intsallment of the strange, obscure and bygone.

Not so much obscure this time as Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is very likely the most portrayed and adapted fictional character in the history of media. The detective debuted in the 1887 novel A Study In Scarlet, and by 1893 was on stage in a play entitled Under the Clock. A second play followed, Sherlock Holmes: Private Detective, in 1894, neither of which Conan Doyle was involved with writing. After Conan Doyle’s own attempts at script writing failed to pan out, the attempt was handed off to American William Gillette, who was already an accomplished playwright and actor.

Gillette’s play ended up based on a combination of the original stories, most notably “A Scandal in Bohemia” (the one with Irene Adler) and “The Final Problem” (the one with Dr. Moriarty). While not a direct adaptation of any single story and more or less an original work, Conan Doyle is listed as a co-author, and the play is considered the first “authorized” adaptation.

A copyright performance which Conan Doyle attended was held in London, and the play opened to the public in 1899 at the Star Theater in Buffalo, NY.

The play was popular with the public and elements Gillette introduced to the character would go on to be staples in Sherlock portrayals, such as the curved pipe and cloak. Gillette’s script also included the origin of the catchphrase “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

WATSON

Ha! Ha! Of course. But how the deuce did you know my wife was away?

HOLMES

Where the deuce is your second waistcoat button, and what the deuce is yesterday’s carnation doing in today’s lapel? This is elementary! Child’s play of deduction.

Sherlock’s moving picture debut would be in 1900 with a short trick film called “Sherlock Holmes Baffled” by Arthur Marvin, in which Holmes is unable to stop a thief who magically appears and disappears. The first serious attempt to adapt one of the stories was an American film called Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom in 1905, based on The Sign of the Four (now lost). The third film, Sherlock Holmes in the Great Murder Mystery (1908, also lost), was not based on Conan Doyle’s work at all, but the Edgar Allan Poe mystery “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”. This is particularly amusing, as in A Study in Scarlet, Watson compares Poe’s detective C. Auguste Dupin to Holmes, to which Holmes responds by calling Dupin a “rather inferior fellow”.

William Gillette’s Sherlock Holmes was itself adapted into a film (twice!). Though it may not be the first, third or even the tenth time Sherlock graced film, it is unique in that the first version, released in 1916, starred the cast of the stage play, including Gillette. It was thought to be lost until it was discovered in 2014 as a negative in the Cinémathèque Française’s collection, and was restored by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and the Cinémathèque Française. The second film, released in 1922 and starring John Barrymore (who also appeared Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde), also still exists as part of the George Eastman Foundation collection.

The plot is mostly based on “A Scandal in Bohemia”, but the role of Irene is split between the Faulkner sisters: Alice, who is in possession of letters that were sent to her now-deceased sister Rose from a certain prince. As the letters can be used as blackmail, the prince wishes to recover them, and Alice refuses to give them up.

The 1922 gives us a lot more set-up than the 1916 film. In the first version, the story starts right off with Alice and the letters, and we never see Rose. 1922 is going to spend the beginning of the movie building relationships including between Rose and the prince, who are engaged until the death of the prince’s two elder brothers and he suddenly becomes first in line for the throne. As he’s no longer able to wed a commoner, he is forced to call off the engagement and Rose leaps off a cliff during a mountain hike.

Though the plot aspects are clearly derived from Irene Adler, save for the jumping, the characters do not resemble each other in personality or capability. Irene remains in control of every situation, and holds the photograph of herself with the Bohemian king during their relationship more as personal security than any sentimental reason.

“As to the photograph, your client may rest in peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may do what he will without hinderance from one whom he has cruelly wronged. I keep it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a weapon which will always secure me from any steps which he might take in the future.”

Alice isn’t quite as clever as Irene Adler either, though she is able to hide the letters from everyone including Holmes, she falls victim to a gang-leading couple called the Larrabees, who overhear that she has the letters and convince her to come with them to a country home where they hold her prisoner. She also needs to Sherlock to rescue her again when Dr. Moriarty becomes involved. The largest character deviation though is that Gillette added a romantic subplot.

Interpretations through the years have added much romantic tension between Irene and Sherlock, but the original text makes a point of saying, in the first paragraph, this is not the case and should not be taken as such. Conan Doyle was overall reluctant to give Holmes a romantic aspect.

“To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer... And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.”

Along with the development of the relationship between Rose and the prince, the 1922 film is going to give Sherlock more of a backstory with Alice, in which she comes to his aid after he falls while trying to observe a bird’s nest. In fact, Sherlock at the opening of this film is nothing like the cold, calculating man Conan Doyle wrote, but a young student who, while testing his powers of observation, contemplates such topics as “what is love?”

And while Gillette’s Holmes dreams of Alice after meeting her at the Larrabee’s, he at least stays on track and ultimately does recover the letters from her, the endgame for Barrymore’s Holmes is a relationship with Alice, and after the scuffle with Moriarty, the letters are forgotten.

Meanwhile, Dr. Watson is not a terribly important person in the plot. The final confrontation takes place in his office, but he doesn’t accompany Holmes on most of the adventure. In the 1916 film, he enters the scene only for Holmes to tell him to hang out and read a book while he goes to the Larrabee’s. Considering Watson is the narrator of all the stories, and the character through whom the readers see Holmes, the fact he’s largely omitted from these films suggests he is only included at all due to obligation because of his importance in the original stories.

Instead, Holmes has two different characters as assistants. The first, a butler for the Larrabees called Forman. It’s revealled in the 1922 film that Holmes met him during their university days, and he now works as Holmes’s agent. The other in the 1916 film is a young boy called Billy, possibly a reference to the street children Holmes employed in the stories to gather information for him around London.

Forman takes Watson’s place even in actions that are similar to the original story. In “A Scandal In Bohemia”, Holmes wishes to look for the letters in Irene Adler’s home, and fakes an injury to gain access. Outside, Watson creates a diversion.

“Slowly and solemnly he was borne into Briony Lodge and laid out in the principal room, while I still observed the proceedings from my post by the window. The lamps had been lit, but the blinds had not been drawn, so that I could see Holmes as he lay upon the couch. I do not know whether he was seized with compunction at that moment for the part he was playing, but I know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life than when I saw the beautiful creature against whom I was conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she waited upon the injured man. And yet it would be the blackest treachery to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had intrusted to me. I hardened my heart, and took the smoke-rocket from under my ulster. After all, I thought, we are not injuring her. We are but preventing her from injuring another.

Holmes had sat up upon the couch, and I saw him motion like a man who is in need of air. A maid rushed across and threw open the window. At the same instant I saw him raise his hand, and at the signal I tossed my rocket into the room with a cry of "Fire!" The word was no sooner out of my mouth than the whole crowd of spectators, well dressed and ill—gentlemen, ostlers, and servant-maids—joined in a general shriek of "Fire!" Thick clouds of smoke curled through the room and out at the open window. I caught a glimpse of rushing figures, and a moment later the voice of Holmes from within assuring them that it was a false alarm. Slipping through the shouting crowd I made my way to the corner of the street, and in ten minutes was rejoiced to find my friend's arm in mine, and to get away from the scene of uproar. He walked swiftly and in silence for some few minutes, until we had turned down one of the quiet streets which lead towards the Edgware Road.

"You did it very nicely, doctor," he remarked. "Nothing could have been better. It is all right."

"You have the photograph?"

"I know where it is."”

In the films, Holmes has Forman start a fire in the Larrabee’s kitchen in order to distract them and trick Alice into running to save the letters, thus revealling where they are hidden. Though he succeeds, Holmes in both films refuses to take the letters from Alice and instead decides she should turn them over by her own decision, another deviation from the original Holmes who later attempts to take the photograph only to find Irene has already removed it.

The influence of “The Final Problem” is also evident on the plot. Holmes and Moriarty finally meet, and meet their end, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s attempt to put the Sherlock Holmes series to rest so he could focus on writing other things. This did not work and he was bullied into bringing Holmes back from the dead for more stories. Fortunately for Sherlock’s film versions, there is no tumble off the Reichenbach Falls, but the film does incorporate the dastardly Dr. Moriarty as the main and final villain.

In the 1916 film, Dr. Moriarty is called in by the Larrabees after their own attempts to secure Rose Faulkner’s letters are thwarted, but once again the 1922 film is going to expand his role, introduce him earlier and shift his involvement into being the mastermind behind the evildoing in the plot.

Holmes and the prince first meet during their university days as the prince is accused of theft. The actual thief is another young man who is attempting to find some way to escape Moriarty’s control. Holmes even meets Moriarty early in the story, and becomes dedicated to stopping him at that point. Moriarty is the one who has the Larrabees hold Alice as he’s after the letters for himself, reducing the Larrabees from being criminal leaders in their own right to henchmen. The original plot doesn’t actually pick up in the 1922 film until over half an hour in, from which point it clips along much faster than in the 1916 version.

One of the more direct adaptions from the original story include a scene where Moriarty comes to Holmes’s apartment, and they have a bit of a stand-off.

““My nerves are fairly proof, Watson, but I must confess to a start when I saw the very man who had been so much in my thoughts standing there on my threshhold. His appearance was quite familiar to me. He is extremely tall and thin, his forehead domes out in a white curve, and his two eyes are deeply sunken in his head. He is clean-shaven, pale, and ascetic-looking, retaining something of the professor in his features. His shoulders are rounded from much study, and his face protrudes forward, and is forever slowly oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion. He peered at me with great curiosity in his puckered eyes.

“‘You have less frontal development than I should have expected,’ said he, at last. ‘It is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one’s dressing-gown.’

“The fact is that upon his entrance I had instantly recognised the extreme personal danger in which I lay. The only conceivable escape for him lay in silencing my tongue. In an instant I had slipped the revolver from the drawer into my pocket, and was covering him through the cloth. At his remark I drew the weapon out and laid it cocked upon the table. He still smiled and blinked, but there was something about his eyes which made me feel very glad that I had it there.

“‘You evidently don’t know me,’ said he.

“‘On the contrary,’ I answered, ‘I think it is fairly evident that I do. Pray take a chair. I can spare you five minutes if you have anything to say.’

“‘All that I have to say has already crossed your mind,’ said he.

“‘Then possibly my answer has crossed yours,’ I replied.

“‘Absolutely.’”

Moriarty and his henchmen, as in the short story, make other attempts on Holmes’s life, and both films have a scene in which Alice is used to lure Holmes to a gas chamber. In every iteration, Holmes is able to save the day and stop Moriarty. Film Sherlock also gets the girl, however out of character as it may be.

Other Sources: https://connecticuthistory.org/holmes-at-home-the-life-of-william-gillette/

https://wnyhistory.org/portfolios/more/LEGITIMATE_THEATERS/star_theater/star_theater.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_in_the_Great_Murder_Mystery

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Announcing a new gaming channel hosted by Haunting Hettie starting this Saturday on twitch!

Join them 11 July, 2pm ET for Mystery Legends: The Phantom of the Opera

https://www.twitch.tv/haunted_hearts_society

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Summer issue is now available~

Free PDF

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Anna Katharine Green (1846 - 1935) "the mother of the detective novel" was a bestseller in her time, but today is widely forgotten. Her novels were notable for being some of the first to portray accurate legal procedure, create a series featuring the same recurring detective and character tropes common in the detective mystery genre.

As with many of the other "firsts", Green's popular novels were preceded by Seeley Regester and her dime novel The Dead Letter, but she can still be counted among the earliest influences in the genre.

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"I do like a man that tells you right out he’s looking out for himself. Don’t we all? I don’t trust a man that says he’s not. And the man that’s telling the truth when he says he’s not I distrust most of all, because he’s an ass and an ass that’s going contrary to the laws of nature.”

The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett, 1930

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Media Necromancy: The Unholy Three

Hello Haunted Hearts Society Members

Welcome back to another installment of the strange, obscure and bygone.

Tonight I will be taking a look at a novel published in 1917, and subsequent film adaptations, all entitled The Unholy Three. The one we will focus on is a 1925 silent film directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney, both of whom we’ve seen before. Tod Browning’s most important contribution to pop culture is as the director of the 1931 Universal version of Dracula. His second most notable work would be the 1932 film Freaks. You may notice Browning’s name on a number of circus themed films from this era, which would make sense as in his real life he ran away at 16 to join a circus before getting into film acting at the age of 29.

However the Tod of the hour for our purposes is author Tod Robbins. Robbins’s story “Spurs” was the basis for Freaks which had been introduced to Browning by Unholy Three star Harry Earles, who also starred in Freaks, and can also be seen in the Wizard of Oz.

Robbins is also the author of The Unholy Three, which was again published in 1917. The 1930 talkie remake is the only film in which you can hear Lon Chaney’s voice. The talkie was nearly an exact replica of the silent film, including some of the same actors in the same roles, which is interesting as the remake was not directed by Browning.

We start off on all counts on a hot day meeting the performers in a sideshow tent. There’s the Illustrated Woman, Conjoined Twins, the Strongman, and the first major deviation from the novel

In the novel we start right off in the point of view of Tweedledee, a man with dwarfism. His role as the ringleader of everything that follows is handed over to Chaney which is of course because he’s the lead actor and star, but in doing so we’ve already lost an important point. Tweedledee is an angry man, a result not necessarily because of his physical condition, but the way he’s treated because of it. To quote:

“All that he asked – all that he had ever asked – was be be taken seriously; and yet no one had granted him this simple wish. Most had laughed, some had pitied, but none had understood – none had looked upon him as a human being like themselves.”

His intelligence and ambition is constantly thwarted, and sure, he does desire praise and admiration, he wanted it to be for doing good and instead he’s laughed at and infantilized. He wishes for a “commanding body and commanding voice”, and that is how we’re introduced to the other members of the trio, Hercules and Echo. Hercules is a pretty standard strongman across all versions, but Echo’s character is changed drastically.

Echo the ventriloquist is played by Lon Chaney, and in the films is the one who comes up with the plans and crimes. Novel Echo is quite different. He’s described as “beautiful” and “girlish”; he carries a demon puppet on his shoulder with the head of a man and body of a goat, which he tells Tweedledee has stolen his brain. He’s obedient to Tweedledee and even shows evidence of being afraid of him at times. You can see already how this character might not exactly be leading man material in the 20s. Film Echo is even given a girlfriend, a pickpocket named Rosie.

But while film Echo is already engaged in petty crime, novel Tweedledee is complete with the Body, that is Hercules, and the Voice in Echo, while he can be the Mind pulling the strings and directing the other two. After being heckled by the audience and kicking a kid right in the face and starting a brawl, which happens in every version, they are forced to leave the circus and Tweedledee begins to formulate his plans for revenge on the world, and a life of villainy and crime.

While in the novel this means starting right off with a murder where they leave the body of another circus member in place of dummy in a shop window display, the films are going to omit this entirely, I imagine because it’s quite a shocking turn of events, and it also spares us the disparaging commentary about the Jewish store owner who is more concerned about ruined merchandise than the literal corpse in the window.

We will continue not following the novel at all but in all versions we will be introduced to Hector, in the films, an employee at O’Grady’s Bird Shop.

Robbins’s Hector McDonald is a struggling author, who refuses to give up his craft even after his wealthy uncle cuts him off. He’s sort of involved with Dorothy Arlington, who hails from a rich family but her father is not impressed by him at all. In order to try and win the good graces of the Arlington family, Hector decides to try and grant the wish of Dorothy’s young nephew, which was for a parrot.

He’s introduced to the Unholy Three in the parrot shop, where Echo is posing as a sweet old lady, Tweedledee as her baby nephew and Hercules as a cousin.

We get an astonishing scene in which Hector gets a full demonstration of a pirate parrot, a philosopher parrot, and a talking raven, which are all of course Echo’s ventriloquist skills, but Hector is impressed enough anyway to purchase a parrot and have it sent to the Arlingtons. You may be wondering at this point how we went from murder to parrots, in the same way the novel’s narrative has gone from carnies to failed writers. While Hector is making friends with who be believes to be an elderly lady, the parrots are actually a front to enter the houses of the wealthy customers. Of course the birds don’t talk, so Echo, as his grandma character, is called back to see what’s wrong.

In the novel, Tweedledee tries another tactic, which is to pose as an abandoned baby on the doorstep of the Arlingtons. They take him in, and as it’s pretty late at night put him in the same room as the little boy, Tommy, the same boy Hector bought the pirate parrot for. This is probably the best scene of the juxtaposition we see in the novel, which has been removed from the films, of Tweedledee, who is not a child but treated like one, and actual children. Tweedledee is a mean, vindictive violent man and he has no problems inflicting violence on children. During the night, he strangles Tommy, who is nearly dead when discovered in the morning. Fortunately, he lives but that can’t be said for some of the other Unholy Three’s parrot scam victims.

The Arlingtons are mentioned in the film, when Echo mentions to Rosie that they’re set to go pull something at their house. Rosie, you may have noticed, has not been mentioned in the book and she’s taken the place of Dorothy, Hector’s love interest. Meanwhile the rest of the Arlingtons have been combined with Hector’s wealthy uncle, and indeed it is Mr. Arlington who next winds up dead and his rubies stolen in the film instead of Hector’s uncle like in the book. Film Echo is also very angry when Tweedledee and Hercules pull off the robbery on their own, and end up committing the murder. We’ve already seen that the novel trio are no strangers to murder; even before Uncle Tobias there was the display window incident and another parrot customer. Making Echo assertively opposed to killing is a big difference from the original incarnation, the passive, obedient, and as he believes, brainless, almost servant of Tweedledee. We can only assume this higher sense of morality attached to the main hero is setting us off on the track to allow him to be redeemed in the end, while the murderers are not, and have a clearer black and white reason for this to be the case.

Novel Echo does have an outburst, but for a very different reason.

“Yes, Tweedledee,” she cried, “you have lied to me – you always have you lied! Once you told me that we would go out into the world as to a dance; that we would take Adventure by the hand; that I would be free – free like the wind. But has it come to pass? Ah no! I am forced to sit here day after day – an old woman, knitting! I did not leave the circus for this. There I had more liberty; there I had the kind wooden demon who told me what to do...Yes, you have lied to me. You have taken advantage of poor Echo who has never wished you any harm. At night you have shown him drops of blood; before the morning they have crystallised into precious stones.”

Of course because they had been in the Arlington house and had seen the rubies while checking in on the parrot, a combination of the Tobias murder and another crime mentioned in the novel, the film directly implicates them as having knowledge about the crime, not poor Hector who had delivered the bird in the first place. In order to frame him, Tweedledee plants the rubies in this room. In the novel, however, the natural first suspect is the disowned and broke nephew.

Hector ends up in prison either way and his book version decides to do something absolutely unhinged, which is to lean into the idea of being a murderer in order to sell his writing.

“He had many interviews with reporters – and at these times he dressed himself with the greatest care – interviews in which he was witty, philosophic, and altogether bewildering... After an hour or so spent in this manner, the reporters had invariably hurried back to their papers, resolved to make the most of the prisoner’s frankness. Consequently he had sold more and more stories – and his name had grown up like a mushroom in a single night.”

His friend, a lawyer shows up and though Hector tries to tell him about the bird store, which is sure to have witnesses in his favour to attest to his having been there, the Unholy Three have closed shop and fled.

This is the last time we’ll see Tweedledee and Hercules in the novel until the very end, as they go to hide while Hector faces his doom in a jail cell.

The film version shows us their hideout, where they have an ape for circus related reasons that did not exist in the novel at all, and will also spell the end for Tweedledee and Hercules. The 1930 film does a bit better of a job foreshadowing this part by having the ape in the beginning and Echo commenting that it’ll be the death of Hercules if he keeps tormenting it. Of course because we’ve had to involve Lon Chaney’s character in a weird love triangle, it’s going to be Rosie who pleads for him to help Hector. Film Tweedledee and Hercules do each other in, but Echo has a change of heart.

While film Echo confesses in the courtroom, novel Echo, on the theme of doing unhinged things, has Hector’s lawyer friend step up to the witness stand and pray, while Echo uses his ventriloquism skills to give the full account but like as if it’s the voice of God. Tweedledee and Hercules are arrested and eventually executed, Echo is free and tries to reach for the moon in the reflection of a lake. Hector and Dorothy are finally together, talking about how they hope Echo was able to escape when they find his wooden demon washed up on the lake’s shores.

“For some time he lay motionless in the soft grass; till finally the moon, rising over the treetops, seemed floating like a golden goblet on the surface of the water beneath his eyes. Then, very slowly and cautiously, a thin shadowy arm reached out above this disc of steady light; groping nervous fingers tried to seize it, but could not quite reach the glittering prize.”

Film Echo has a happier ending, by which I mean he’s still alive and goes back to the circus, but bittersweet as he lets go of Rosie and tells her to go to Hector. And that’s the end! Lon Chaney making it out of this film alive, as he frequently meets his demise, is kind of ironic in this case, as the character he portrays did not survive the finale of the book, though he was free at the end. His novel version is more sympathetic, as he’s also a victim of Tweedledee, who scares him, and for good reason, as Tweedledee has no problem getting the strongman Hercules to take people out. Film Echo is more assertive, and though he holds on to a sense of morality that the others don’t have in his refusal to stoop to murder, he’s still the leader of the group and the mastermind of the crimes.

[hauntedheartssociety]

While attempting to make a list of hardboiled and noir tropes, everyone online seemed to have their own idea of what was necessary, but these three are the ones that all seemed to agree on. Of course there should be a crime, a detective to solve the crime, and a beautiful lady. Everyone is varying degrees of bad. The overarching atmosphere is one of cynicism, and justice may or may not be served. The ending seems to be one of the big things that distinguishes hardboiled from noir; a hardboiled detective should do what's right in the end, even if it's his own definition of right. A noir ending is even more pessimistic.

[hauntedheartssociety]

Media Necromancy: The Day of Souls

Hello Haunted Hearts Society Members

Welcome back to another installment of the strange, obscure and bygone.

Tonight we will be comparing a piece of media most people don’t care about to another piece of media most people have never heard of, as in this series I will be dragging books and movies from the crypt of time and performing acts of media necromancy.

This time we will be talking about a Tod Browning film, The Show, starring John Gilbert and Renée Adorée from 1927. This film is based on a novel by Charles Tenney Jackson called The Day of Souls ,as you can see here in the credits, published in 1910. However, as I was reading I started to question if this was in fact the correct book. The ways that the book and the film are similar are few, and in fact it will probably be easier to name the things that are the same, than to go through the extensive list of ways they don’t resemble each other at all.

In fact these two stories are so different I was kind of struggling with where to start and how to do this, so I’m just going to start at the beginning.

Our film begins with the shepherds of Hungary. We’re introduced to Konrad Driskai, who’s made a big sale on some sheep, and his daughter, Lena, who’s enjoying her first time in the city with this swell date called Cock Robin, played by John Gilbert.

Cock Robin if you did not know is from a nursery rhyme called Who Killed Cock Robin? Wherein a robin is murdered and all the other birds and animals hold a funeral.

The nursery rhyme is not terribly important, and I’m not entirely sure why someone would want to be named after such a sad tale, aside from the fact maybe it has to do with him fake losing his head as part of The Show’s show, and nearly actually losing it as a jealousy plot unfolds.

Jumping over to the novel for a moment, we have our first similarity. A young lady from the country is in the big city for the first time with what she believes to be a swell man, in this case her fiance. Sounds like a good start right? What could possibly be so different?

Well first of all, we find ourselves not in Hungary, not even in Europe, but in San Francisco.

Jumping over to the novel for a moment, we have our first similarity. A young lady from the country is in the big city for the first time with what she believes to be a swell man, in this case her fiance. Sounds like a good start right? What could possibly be so different?

Well first of all, we find ourselves not in Hungary, not even in Europe, but in San Francisco.

Surely the names could still be similar? No! The couple we are introduced to here are named Sylvia Spring and John Hamilton Arnold, who is called Ham or Hammy at various points.

So I guess on the point of silly nicknames we can mark another similarity.

Sylvia and Lena are both portrayed as naive and innocent due to their being from the country. Most of The Day of Souls takes place in Chinatown, and unfortunately includes a lot of stereotyped caricatures of Asian people, and Sylvia is mostly uncomfortable around them. The title of the book comes from a conversation John has with a Japanese man, who speaks in pretty broken English, but tells John that he is returning to Japan for what is described as a “great samurai festival” called the Day of Souls. This passage will pretty much highlight how this book treats its Asian characters:

“The hard-faced American looked again at the little, brown, spectacled man, wondering idly why this unmoral, scientifically materialistic heathen, spending his days in books, his nights in whirling lusts of the town, smiling and serene, should go back across five thousand miles of water to sit on night before the armor of the Samurai, awaiting their judgment.”

The closest thing I can come up with is that they’re supposed to be referring to o-bon, but that’s not specifically for warriors or samurai.

In any event, John also will have to embark on a quest to square up and make right with the world, and that theme is what we’re going to take from the exchange because Frank Arasaka is never mentioned again.

For you see, both John and Robin are less than good men. Robin is a carnival barker which of course there’s nothing criminal about, even though all the amazing feats and sights of the show are stage tricks and fakes, but Robin only cares about money, and manipulates the women around him into paying for his meals and whatever else he fancies, as we see with poor Lena.

I should probably also mention here that the novel has nothing to do with carnivals at all.

John is instead a technically senate clerk, but he only holds that position in order to assist a corrupt police commissioner in falsifying records and perjuring himself in order to protect certain people as the commissioner needs, in the hopes that it will eventually lead to his imprisoned father being pardoned. He doesn’t actually seem to do this job very often, as it’s remarked he hadn’t been back to the office since being sworn in. He’s also a gambler and grifter, much to Sylvia’s shock.

“Sylvia, so you know what you’re doing? Do you know what I am? I’m a rounder in the tenderloin – nothing else. I’m a desperate failure. I had a chance to study law in the biggest firm in this town – I studied it just ten months; I had a chance to go to college – I went just eighteen months; I had a chance to stick at music with this voice of mine – and I threw it away; I went in the army and all I did was to get shot in the leg... I came back to this town, and what have I been since? A grafter, a hanger-on of the worst crowd under God’s sun. Do you realize it?”

Lena and Sylvia have another important similarity, which is that they find themselves in possession of a large sum of money.

If you remember from the beginning of the film when the shepherd Konrad made a large sale of sheep, which was overheard by unsavoury carnival members which leads to his murder and attempted robbery. They don’t know, however, that Lena has all the cash from the sale.

Sylvia’s fortune comes from the sale of some land she owned before leaving for San Francisco with John, or to be more precise a portion of forest that contained redwood trees to be used for lumber.

Eventually John’s conscience gets the better of him, and he confesses to Sylvia that he doesn’t love her. She leaves the money with him and disappears.

Lena’s attempt to give Robin the money takes a very different turn, and he continues to lie and try to take advantage of her, thinking only of the financial gain he could make from the rest of the sheep. They’re interrupted by Salome, who was first introduced to us as another carnival performer.

She, like Robin doesn’t appear to have a real name, as she’s referred to as the character she plays in their performance, which seems to be a rendition of the Oscar Wilde tragedy also called Salome, which is in turn a dramatization of the Biblical story concerning the death of John the Baptist. Robin also takes part as the role of John, and during this whole scene we not only learn about some of the stage tricks used to create the illusion of decapitation, but that Salome and Robin have a history together, and Salome is still interested in him. This creates a whole new web of drama.

But while trying to figure out just who is the role of Salome in the novel, my best conclusion is that she’s a combination of a couple different characters. The first being Nella, who is another resident at the boarding house where John lives. She is someone who has known John for a while, looks after him, and is familiar with the other people in his life as well. The other would be Grace Wayne, who is described as a street minister. She gets involved with John when he’s caught up in the commotion of a drunken brawl and arrested. John is able to convince the police to let her go. While they’re driven home, John drops the envelope with Sylvia’s money, and Grace picks it up but later loses it. He lies to her about the amount it contained, not eager to make her pay back the full ten thousand dollars, as she insists on recovering the money. It looked like, for quite a large portion of the book, they would end up together but Miss Wayne not only learns about Sylvia, but finds out that Sylvia hadn’t gone home as assumed. Instead, she’s been wasting away in a textile factory. Grace is able to help Sylvia, and she also learns the true value of the lost cash, and the relationship between her and John is effectively over.

Salome similarly saves Lena from Robin’s scheme, and we see Robin become violent with her, which is making it much more difficult to see how exactly his character is going to end up in a good light at the end.

Unlike Grace, Salome is still willing to forgive and continues to help Robin after Lena reports him to the police, as he still has the money which rightfully belongs to her from her murdered father.

John Arnold’s story isn’t free from death, but he’s somewhat more involved in the incident. As mentioned before he’s a gambler and he uses the bribe money from the commissioner to bet on fights and races. He goes to a race one day with said bribe money, and of course nothing about this is described in a flattering light

“As the minute of the start approached, the shuffling crowd thickened below the high, board counter and the husky-throated, stunted clerks bawled louder, while the months dribbled up to their hands. The patrons had one common facial characteristic – a weak show of wisdom; they would nod their heads and mutter and shove, cunningly penciling their racing forms and newspapers. The protruding lips, watery eyes, weak chins above grimy, collarless shirts, the sordid front of the beaten people all were there; and among these off-scourings were small clerks, dray-men, mechanics at their nooning, high-school boys, laborers, cigarette-sucking weaklings – every cheap class of the town poured its pitiful earnings into the coffers of the rich men behind the races, into the pockets of the gamblers who ruled the city, who used the newspapers to advertise their business and glorify their deeds in the sporting columns, the courts to protect it, and the government to give it dignity.”

He happens to run into a friend from high school who’s already lost a lot on the races. Though John tries to convince his friend Eddie not to place any bets, he offhandedly gives what turns out to be a bad prediction. Eddie loses his money, and ultimately decides to also remove himself from the mortal coil, leaving a note for John that basically blames him for the bad advice.

Now, even though we have Robin and John playing the same role in the story as far as plot, their characters are very, very different. Robin continues to blame everyone else for his problems, even growing impatient and angry with Salome as she hides him. He has a short temper and becomes visibly frustrated and aggressive.

John, on the other hand, recognizes his role in Eddie’s death and feels a sense of responsibility. He very early on decided not to continue to string Sylvia on in a loveless marriage. He understands that the things he does and the choices he makes are wrong, but of course his folly lies in continuing to do them anyway. Eddie’s death and Grace’s discovery of Sylvia mark the turning point in his life where he finally decides to try and earn an honest living, and these attempts basically make up the third act of the book.

Meanwhile the film is going to introduce us to someone who is probably the most direct thing that was adapted from the book, which is an older man who barges in on Salome and Robin

He is blind and asks Salome to read a letter to him, which we learn is from his son who’s in the army, earning medals and promotions and overall having a successful military career. But, it turns out that this is all a lie. Salome writes the letters, and the man’s son is imprisoned and soon to be executed.

So you might expect that this character’s book equivalent is in some way connected to Sylvia, or even better, Grace, but that’s not the case at all. In fact, the film makes this character more prominent, as we meet the book’s old Captain very early on. He’s another boarder where John lives, and while John was in his lying era, he was the one who gave the Captain false news about his son’s accomplishments. The truth this time though is that the son, named Larry, was John’s bunky in the army and he’s already dead.

“His mind went back to his dead bunky; to the moonlight night on the Lunetta – to Inez and Joséfa and that Tagalog girl at Santa Ysabel. He had loved in many ports and byways; he thought of his days of youth, of the price he had paid for them; of the dead trooper sleeping in Samar – a bit of his own life was bound up in the moonlight on the island shores. Maybe Larry was the happier man!”

The Captain is a pretty minor character whose importance doesn’t really come into play until the end, where in both stories he believes his son is finally coming home, which puts the other characters into quite the pickle. This has been a huge lie to keep up, and the truth could only break the old man’s heart.

As it turns out, in both versions it’s not going to matter because the poor man dies first.

The Show, Robin is subjected to a very uncomfortable scene in which the Captain believes he’s the son come home. As the actual son faces his execution, the poor father also expires. Robin then learns that the Captain is Salome’s father, the executed man her brother, and this is going to serve as the turning point in his character that finally teaches him empathy and gets him to change his ways.

John doesn’t go through quite the same scene, though there is a moment where the regiment returns to port and the Captain still goes out, waiting and waiting for his son to return. He ends up passing away peacefully in the night. At the same time, Grace bring Sylvia and they have their closure and this is also going to tie us back to the conversation with Frank Arasaka about the samurai festival that gave us the title of the book. “This is the night the fighting men come back,” Arnold smiled to her. “No man dares face them with his soul unclean. See here – we’ve waited and Nel has even slept – and no sign has come. It’s been all night just as she said – just peace.”

So, that wraps up the ordeal with Sylvia’s money, John is going to get an honest job, he and Nel are going to marry, everyone gets closure and all’s well that ends well.

Meanwhile the film still has us hanging with the unresolved murder plot since it introduced a new villain whose role is just to be villainous. He’s still after the money and steals this very venomous lizard from one of the carnival acts, which of course backfires when he and Robin finally come face to face.

Though Robin turns himself in for having taken Lena’s money, his honesty gets him let go and he and Salome return to the carnival, get back together as a couple, and all’s well that ends well.

So there you have it! The Show from 1927 and the 1910 novel The Day of Souls that it’s quite loosely based on, though ultimately I think I may have proved they’re more similar than I originally thought. Both deal with this sort of redemption of the main character, from a money-centric liar to a more honourable and honest person. All the comparisons actually are in the characters, aside from John and Robin you also have Sylvia and Lena occupying the same role, and of course the Captain being probably the strongest element are far as similarity.

Aside from this being a Tod Browning film and his familiarity with circus and carnival themes, and the quantity of films he produced with those settings, it would be reasonable to guess that using a carnival where the main grift is a “freak show” or sort of magic show, was both easier and faster to show the audience in the film format. We can just show the different illusions, and then also how it’s done. It’s also less complicated than the many scenes we take in the novel to build up the evidence of John’s pitfalls, from the conversation with the corrupt police commissioner and bribery, and also the gambling scenes. Also, the carnival scenes are just really fun and gave us some really striking images.

[hauntedheartssociety]

Strange Happenings Under the Opera House

The events and inhabitants of the opera house cellars during the Phantom incident.

Descriptions from Gaston Leroux's novel. Movie stills are from the 1925 Universal film.

[hauntedheartssociety]

Media Necromancy: Strange Happenings Under the Opera House

Hello Haunted Hearts Society Members

Welcome back to another intsallment of the strange, obscure and bygone.

Tonight’s selection might only qualify as two of those descriptions, as The Phantom of the Opera is certainly a recognized and popular story. Known mostly to modern audiences from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical, Phantom originates with a novel published in 1910 by Gaston Leroux. The first film adaption was a 1916 German film which is so lost the only traces of its existence are advertisements and a written summary. In 1925 Universal released their version starring Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin and Norman Kerry, which has since gone on to become a classic of gothic film.

Universal’s film follows the novel pretty closely, and certainly more closely than the famous musical – Webber’s iteration focuses more on the romance, removes most of the events leading to the ending, as well as the investigative aspects through the novel’s narrator trying to uncover the truth of the strange events, and the Persian who has followed the Phantom (whose name we learn to be Erik) in order to apprehend him for crimes.

That being said, the two mentioned adaptations pretty much tell the same story, so we are going to focus instead on the elements that may be unfamiliar to fans of the musical, and the descriptions from the novel and how the film brought them to the screen.

The Phantom himself

"But imagine, if you can, Red Death's mask suddenly coming to life in order to express, with the four black holes of its eyes, its nose, and its mouth, the extreme anger, the mighty fury of a demon; and not a ray of light from the sockets, for, as I learned later, you can not see his blazing eyes except in the dark."

Erik’s grotesque appearance goes well beyond what a half-mask can cover; he’s consistently described in macabre terms, compared to corpses and skeletons. His unreal and seemingly inhuman face contributes to his legend, and the characters describe sightings of him in increasingly supernatural ways. Erik embraces this, besides calling himself the “Opera Ghost”, and “Phantom”, he’s an apparition that appears and disappears in the opera house, speaks to people from places they can’t see and seems omnipresent due to his astute ability to use slight of hand tricks and navigate the secret passages of the building.

Lon Chaney’s make up captures this wonderfully, transforming him into a skull-like monster. Universal also recreated the Phantom’s costume at the masquerade as described in the novel, which is also recognizable as a reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Masque of the Red Death.”

"It was a man dressed all in scarlet, with a huge hat and feathers on the top of a wonderful death's head. From his shoulders hung an immense red-velvet cloak, which trailed along the floor like a king's train; and on this cloak was embroidered, in gold letters, which every one read and repeated aloud, "Don't touch me! I am Red Death stalking abroad!""

(Note the colour in the film!)

Don Juan Triumphant

Erik is a genius, not just of blackmail and trickery, but of music. Though the musical shows him presenting his completed score Don Juan Triumphant at the masquerade to be performed, in the novel and film he does no such thing. The opera performed in both is instead Faust, with the conflict with Carlotta stemming from Erik’s desire to have Christine replace her in the role of Marguerite.

The Cellars

The Paris Opera house in the novel is as strange and unbelievable as the Phantom, and hides other secrets. It rises up and up into attics inhabited by unseen and forgotten people, and the cellars descend deep into the earth and are full of multiple entities that startle and terrify the opera workers. One would think they are also employees of the opera house, but have apparently transformed into something that the “above-ground” staff no longer recognize.

When Christine returns from Erik’s home the first time, she describes to Raoul some of the things she witnessed in the cellars, such as demons working the opera house’s furnaces – a sight that Raoul also sees in his later pursuit of Christine and the Phantom.

"There are demons down there, quite black, standing in front of boilers, and they wield shovels and pitchforks and poke up fires and stir up flames and, if you come too near them, they frighten you by suddenly opening the red mouths of their furnaces... Well, while Cesar was quietly carrying me on his back, I saw those black demons in the distance, looking quite small, in front of the red fires of their furnaces: they came into sight, disappeared and came into sight again, as we went on our winding way."

As in the musical, Erik abducts Christine in the middle of a performance, and Raoul enters the cellars to find her. Unlike musical however, which greatly expands on the role Madame Giry played, Raoul is approached by the Persian, who offers his aid. Universal replaces the Persian with a man named Ledoux who claims to be a member of the Secret Police. He appears every so often throughout the movie, and we had also learned that Erik is an escapee from Devil’s Island, a penal colony which really existed.

Raoul and the Persian have a couple strange encounters in the cellars, and the Persian is interestingly familiar with all the workings and characters of the opera house.

"A shade, this time carrying no light, just a shade in the shade, passed. It passed close to them, near enough to touch them.

They felt the warmth of its cloak upon them. For they could distinguish the shade sufficiently to see that it wore a cloak which shrouded it from head to foot. On its head it had a soft felt hat...

It moved away, drawing its feet against the walls and sometimes giving a kick into a corner.

"Whew!" said the Persian. "We've had a narrow escape; that shade knows me and has twice taken me to the managers' office."

"Is it some one belonging to the theatre police?" asked Raoul.

"It's some one much worse than that!" replied the Persian, without giving any further explanation."

One of this encounters is included in the Universal film, which is the appearance of a “fiery head.” In the novel this was mentioned earlier as everyone is trying to figure out who – or what – the Phantom is, and the face of fire had frightened another man. Though we learn this particular figure is hired to lure rats, Universal has him call himself a “messenger from the shadows”, perhaps to combine him with the aforementioned cloaked man who is never actually explained.

"Yes, a head of fire came toward them, at a man's height, but with no body attached to it. The face shed fire, looked in the darkness like a flame shaped as a man's face.

They continued to retreat, but the fiery face came on, came on, gaining on them. They could see its features clearly now. The eyes were round and staring, the nose a little crooked and the mouth large, with a hanging lower lip, very like the eyes, nose and lip of the moon, when the moon is quite red, bright red.

Yes, Raoul and the Persian were ready to faint, like Pampin the fireman. But the head of fire turned round in answer to their cries, and spoke to them:

"Don't move! Don't move! Whatever you do, don't come after me! I am the rat-catcher! Let me pass, with my rats!

And the head of fire disappeared, vanished in the darkness, while the passage in front of it lit up, as the result of the change which the rat-catcher had made in his dark lantern. Before, so as not to scare the rats in front of him, he had turned his dark lantern on himself, lighting up his own head; now, to hasten their flight, he lit the dark space in front of him. And he jumped along, dragging with him the waves of scratching rats, all the thousand sounds."

The novel and film also place more importance on Raoul’s brother, Count Philippe. Though the novel relays the unfortunate man’s fate in a second hand account and the event leading to his death to be assumed, the film includes a particularly creepy scene where Erik goes out to meet Philippe as he attempts to cross the underground lake, while using a breathing tube to hide himself underwater. Likely meant as another example of Erik’s ingenuity, the sequence leaves no doubt to the extent of his evil in his intentions to keep Christine imprisoned and kill anyone who interferes.

"Knowing Erik as he did, he easily reconstructed the tragedy. Thinking that his brother had run away with Christine Daae, Philippe had dashed in pursuit of him along the Brussels Road, where he knew that everything was prepared for the elopement. Failing to find the pair, he hurried back to the Opera, remembered Raoul's strange confidence about his fantastic rival and learned that the viscount had made every effort to enter the cellars of the theatre and that he had disappeared, leaving his hat in the prima donna's dressing-room beside an empty pistol-case. And the count, who no longer entertained any doubt of his brother's madness, in his turn darted into that infernal underground maze. This was enough, in the Persian's eyes, to explain the discovery of the Comte de Chagny's corpse on the shore of the lake, where the siren, Erik's siren, kept watch."

The House on the Lake

Erik lives on the lake under the opera house in a home of his own construction, which means of course this isn’t just an ordinary house. As Raoul and the Persian discover, it includes a torture chamber, which the Persian has knowledge of as he had seen it used before Erik installed it in Paris. The chamber is a room with mirrors on the walls, and in the middle is a metal tree on which hangs a noose. Erik can control the temperature, make the sounds of dangerous animals, and otherwise attempt to drive the victim inside to using the noose to end things.

"Because of the smallness of the luminous disk, it was difficult at first to make out the appearance of things: they saw a corner of a branch... and a leaf... and another leaf... and, next to it, nothing at all, nothing but the ray of light that seemed to reflect itself... Raoul passed his hand over that nothing, over that reflection.

"Hullo!" he said. "The wall is a looking-glass!"

"Yes, a looking-glass!" said the Persian, in a tone of deep emotion. And, passing the hand that held the pistol over his moist forehead, he added, "We have dropped into the torture-chamber!""

That’s not the only insidious feature of Erik’s house. Raoul and the Persian discover another chamber filled with barrels.

"Indeed, there was quite a number of them, symmetrically arranged in two rows, one on either side of us. They were small barrels and I thought that Erik must have selected them of that size to facilitate their carriage to the house on the lake.

We examined them successively, to see if one of them had not a funnel, showing that it had been tapped at some time or another. But all the barrels were hermetically closed.

Then, after half lifting one to make sure it was full, we went on our knees and, with the blade of a small knife which I carried, I prepared to stave in the bung-hole.

"What's this?" cried the viscount. "This isn't water!"

The viscount put his two full hands close to my lantern ... I stooped to look ... and at once threw away the lantern with such violence that it broke and went out, leaving us in utter darkness.

What I had seen in M. de Chagny's hands ... was gun-powder!"

Meanwhile, Erik is inflicting psychological torture on Christine, presenting her with a choice between two knobs in the shape of the scorpion and a grasshopper. Choose the scorpion, and she agrees to stay with Erik, but if she chooses to leave him, Erik plans to blow the opera house and everyone in to oblivion.

"In one of the caskets, you will find a scorpion, in the other, a grasshopper, both very cleverly imitated in Japanese bronze: they will say yes or no for you. If you turn the scorpion round, that will mean to me, when I return, that you have said yes. The grasshopper will mean no.' And he laughed like a drunken demon. I did nothing but beg and entreat him to give me the key of the torture-chamber, promising to be his wife if he granted me that request... But he told me that there was no future need for that key and that he was going to throw it into the lake! And he again laughed like a drunken demon and left me. Oh, his last words were, 'The grasshopper! Be careful of the grasshopper! A grasshopper does not only turn: it hops! It hops! And it hops jolly high!'"

As can be expected from Hollywood, a villain must be a villain and it would be a shame if justice wasn’t served in the most dramatic and spectacular fashion, and the ending is a major deviation from the book. Erik is chased by an angry mob and faces his end at their hands. Christine is rescued by Raoul, and that’s the end.

The novel has a bit more of a nuanced approach to Erik’s character. Though he is definitely a bad person, it gives us at least one aspect worthy of pity: the desire to just live like anyone else, made impossible by the horrific nature of his face.

"Then, tired of his adventurous, formidable and monstrous life, he longed to be some one "like everybody else." And he became a contractor, like any ordinary contractor, building ordinary houses with ordinary bricks. He tendered for part of the foundations in the Opera. His estimate was accepted. When he found himself in the cellars of the enormous playhouse, his artistic, fantastic, wizard nature resumed the upper hand. Besides, was he not as ugly as ever? He dreamed of creating for his own use a dwelling unknown to the rest of the earth, where he could hide from men's eyes for all time."

The ending of the musical is more like the novel in this sense. Raoul and Christine are let go, and never seen again (we believe they return to Christine’s home country of Sweden), and the Phantom remains alone in the opera house to the natural end of his days.

""I went and released the young man," Erik continued, "and told him to come with me to Christine ... They kissed before me in the Louis-Philippe room... Christine had my ring... I made Christine swear to come back, one night, when I was dead, crossing the lake from the Rue-Scribe side, and bury me in the greatest secrecy with the gold ring, which she was to wear until that moment. I told her where she would find my body and what to do with it... Then Christine kissed me, for the first time, herself, here, on the forehead—don't look, daroga!—here, on the forehead... on my forehead, mine—don't look, daroga!—and they went off together... Christine had stopped crying... I alone cried... if Christine keeps her promise, she will come back soon! ..."

The Persian asked him no questions. He was quite reassured as to the fate of Raoul Chagny and Christine Daae; no one could have doubted the word of the weeping Erik that night.

The monster resumed his mask and collected his strength to leave the daroga. He told him that, when he felt his end to be very near at hand, he would send him, in gratitude for the kindness which the Persian had once shown him, that which he held dearest in the world: all Christine Daae's papers, which she had written for Raoul's benefit and left with Erik, together with a few objects belonging to her, such as a pair of gloves, a shoe-buckle and two pocket-handkerchiefs. In reply to the Persian's questions, Erik told him that the two young people, at soon as they found themselves free, had resolved to go and look for a priest in some lonely spot where they could hide their happiness and that, with this object in view, they had started from "the northern railway station of the world." Lastly, Erik relied on the Persian, as soon as he received the promised relics and papers, to inform the young couple of his death and to advertise it in the EPOQUE.

That was all. The Persian saw Erik to the door of his flat, and Darius helped him down to the street. A cab was waiting for him. Erik stepped in; and the Persian, who had gone back to the window, heard him say to the driver:

"Go to the Opera."

And the cab drove off into the night.

The Persian had seen the poor, unfortunate Erik for the last time. Three weeks later, the Epoque published this advertisement:

"Erik is dead.""

"I have prayed over his mortal remains, that God might show him mercy notwithstanding his crimes. Yes, I am sure, quite sure that I prayed beside his body, the other day, when they took it from the spot where they were burying the phonographic records. It was his skeleton. I did not recognize it by the ugliness of the head, for all men are ugly when they have been dead as long as that, but by the plain gold ring which he wore and which Christine Daae had certainly slipped on his finger, when she came to bury him in accordance with her promise.

The skeleton was lying near the little well, in the place where the Angel of Music first held Christine Daae fainting in his trembling arms, on the night when he carried her down to the cellars of the opera-house."

[hauntedheartssociety]

gothic longing

with @haunting-hettie

[hauntedheartssociety]

The Bodysnatchers - Burke and Hare in Poem

I've been thinking a lot about the trash fiction of the 19th century for two reasons: the first, a couple posts which I believe were originally from tumblr, one asking what would be the historical trash fiction equivalent of Wattpad (penny dreadfuls and dime novels), and another exploring the idea that the "firsts" of literature usually aren't the first at all, but simply the first Good and Famous example. It was specifically talking about Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue and went on to discuss the aforementioned penny dreadfuls as the true firsts of detective fiction.

The second reason is that I am leisurely making my way through The Invention Of Murder by Judith Flanders, which led me to the subject of the broadside, which predate the 19th century even and go back as far as the 17th century.

Broadsides were a single sheet of news print meant to be produced quickly and sold very cheaply, relating the hot issues of the moment. Naturally this included many reports of horrible crimes, and as the goal was to sell copies, they were written with exciting language, adorned with illustrations of the crimes, and often even included a poem or ballad recounting the deed, or, some fictitious "lament" of the prisoner meant to serve as a warning. Some of these ballads included the name of a tune that the story could be sung to. They were frequently sold at executions so the public could read the account of the condemned's crime.

The sensationalized format, horrid contents, and cheap nature of the broadsheet and their popularity appear to make them a forerunner to penny dreadfuls, tabloid reporting, and true crime literature, though the broadside itself fell out of fashion as full newspapers became cheaper to produce.

There are a number of available collections online through various libraries and universities, but I ended up on the National Library of Scotland’s collection because they not only have a very fun website showcasing their broadsides, but they have a number of issues relating to the crimes committed by William Burke and William Hare, the infamous body snatchers.

Body snatching was the practice of stealing corpses from their graves for the purpose of use in dissections at surgical schools. Burke and Hare were Irishmen living in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Hare ran a lodging house. In 1827, after one of his lodgers passed away still owing rent money, he and his friend Burke came up with the scheme to snatch his body before burial and sell it to local surgeon Dr. Knox, who performed human dissection as part of his anatomy lectures. After realizing there was money to be made, they turned to the business of creating cadavers.

The case of Burke and Hare is the basis of Robert Louis Stevenson’s story “The Body Snatcher”, published in 1884, in which the characters sell bodies to a Dr. K. The story was adapted in a 1945 film starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

So what I was thinking we could do was to go through some of these broadsides and see how the murders, trial and then execution of William Burke were reported at the time it was all happening, or how people in 1829 got their news.

The first, a broadside entitled “Confessions Made by William Burke” is printed with a poem on one side and a regular news column on the other. It reads as follows:

CONFESSIONS MADE BY William Burke,

New under Sentence of Death, in the Calton jail, for the Horrid Murder of Mrs Campbell, frankly detailing several other atrocious Murders, in which he was concerned along, with Hare....Extracted from the Caledonian Mercury, 5th January, 1829.

AFTER some conversation of a religious nature he was asked how long he had been engaged in this murderous traffic.

To which he answered, from Christmas 1827 till the murder of the woman Docherty in October last.   

How many persons have you murdered, or been concerned in murdering, during that time? Were they thirty in all ?   

No, not so many ; not so many, I assure you.   

How many ?

He answered the question ; but the answer was, for a reason satisfactory, not communicated to us, and reserved for a different quarter.

(the answer is 16)

Had you any accomplices ?

None but Hare. We always took cure, when we were going to commit a murder, that no one else should be present...that no one else should swear he saw the deed done. The women might suspect what we were about, but we always put them out of the way when we were going to do it. They never saw us commit any of the murders One of the murders was done in Broggan's house, while he was out, but before he returned the thing was finished, and the body put into a box. Broggan evidently suspected something, for he appeared much agitated, and entreated us ' to take away that box,' which we accordingly did. But he was not in any way concerned in it.

You have already told me that you were engaged in those atrocities from Christmas 1827 till the end of October 1828; Were you associated with Hare during all that time ?

Yes We began with selling to Dr. ---- the body of a woman who had died a natural death in Hare's house, We got ten pounds for it. After this we began the murders, and all the rest of the bodies we sold to him we murdered.

In what place were there murders generally committed ?

They were mostly committed in Hare's house, which was very convenient for the purpose, as it consisted of a room and a kitchen. Daft Jamie was murdered there. The story told of this murder is incorrect, Hare began the struggle with him, and they fell and rolled together on the ground ; then I went to Hare's assistance, and we at length finished him, though with much difficulty. I committed one murder in the country by myself. It was in last harvest. All the rest were done in conjunction with Hare.

By what means were these fearful atrocities perpetrated ?

By suffocation. We made the persons drunk, and then suffocated them by holding the nostrils and mouth, and getting on the body. Sometimes I held the mouth and nose, while Hare went upon the body ; and sometimes Hare held the mouth and nose, while I placed myself on the body. Hare has perjured himself by what he said at the trial about the murder of Docherty. He did not sit by while I did it, as he says. He was on the body assisting me with all his might, while I held the nostrils and mouth with one hand, choked her under the throat with the other. We sometimes used a pillow, but did not in this case.

Now, Burke, answer me this question - you tutored and instructed, or did you receive hints from any one as to the mode of committing murder ?

No, except from Hare. We often spoke about it, and we agreed that suffocation was the best way. Hare said so, and I agreed with him. We generally did it by suffocation.

Did you receive any encouragement to commit or persevere in committing these atrocities ?

Yes ; we were frequently told by Paterson that he would take as many bodies as we could get for him. When we got one, he always told us to get more. There was commonly another person with him of the name of Falconer. They generally pressed us to get more bodies for them.

To whom were the bodies so murdered sold ? To Dr --?

We took the bodies to his rooms in ---------, and then went to his house to receive the money for them. Sometimes he paid us himself; sometimes we were paid by his assistants. No questions were ever asked as to the mode in which we had come by the bodies. We had nothing to do but to leave a body at the rooms, and go and get the money.

Did you ever, upon any occasion, sell a body or bodies to any other lecturer in this place ?

Never. We knew no other.

You have been a resurrectionist (as it is called) I understand ?

No. Neither Hare nor myself ever got a body from a church-yard. All we sold were murdered save the first one, which was that of the woman who died a natural death in Hare's house. We began with that: our crimes then commenced. The victims we selected were generally elderly persons. They could be more easily disposed of than persons in the vigour of health.

Lamentations, Confessions, & Reflections OF WILLIAM  BURKE, late of Portsburgh, who is to be Executed at Edinburgh, on the 28th January, 1829, for Murder, and his body given for Public Dissection.

[The writer of the following Lines, at the solitary hour of one o'clock the other morning, took a walk to the Calton Hill, and laid himself down on the south side, opposite the Jail, rolled up in hit mantle, reflecting on the vicissitudes of life, and on the scene before him, when he heard, or imagined he heard, the following Effusions from the cell at the wretched Burke.]

Good people all, both great and small, I pray you lend an ear, Unto these lines that I have penn'd, Which quickly you shall hear.

O, if my days were to begin, I to the world would show, That I would shun the paths of sin, Wherein destroyers go.

But ah ! these days are past and gone, In fetters here I lie, Confined in a dungeon strong, By men condemned to die.

Because God's law I did transgress. And would not walk therein, But fled the paths of righteousness, And trod the paths of sin,

These shocking murders harrass my soul, Which cruelly I've committed, For paltry gain, which ne'er lasts long, With those who basely get it.

When first I began this wild career, 'Twas with the old pensioner, Who died a natural death last year, But did not obtain a sepulchre.

The body we brought to Surgeons Square Soon got a ready market for't, And encourag'd thus to bring some more, The rest soon followed after it.

Four were chok'd in Broggan s house, Though Broggan did not know, And four were murder'd in my house, Which caused my overthrow.

Six victims more in Hare's house, Were suffocated too; Besides two other victims in his stable, Which I most sincerely rue.

My sentence, therefore, must be just, For God's commandment says, He that sheddeth another's blood,    His blood must it appease.

O, therefore, holy son of God, Do thou my soul relieve, From God's wrath and afflicting rod, That now my soul doth grieve ;

On thy redemption I depend, O, cast me not away ; But shield my soul, and me defend Against the evil day.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

You may have noticed a couple details here – Hare clearly is an accomplice in the crimes, yet it’s only Burke making the confession. The reason is, Hare agreed to be the King’s witness, or testify against Burke in exchange for immunity. Pretty wild considering they were both equally guilty and the murders took place in Hare’s house. Hare ended up having to flee from Scotland as he could not go anywhere without inciting an angry mob.

Then after the given date of execution, another little detail is slipping in, that Burke’s body is going to be publicly dissected. At the time and place, it was lawful for corpses for these anatomy classes to be obtained from the gallows, but here we’re going a step further than obtaining a body for the purposes of science, but that this is meant to be part of the punishment, like retribution by having done to his body what he ensured had been done to others. It was not carried out by Knox, who though he never asked from where the bodies had been procured, insisted he never suspected they were murder victims, but by a Professor Munro at the University of Edinburgh. His skeleton was given to the Medical School where it is/was display in their anatomy museum and supposedly a book was bound in his skin.

In the event you had thought this whole story couldn’t get any more macabre.

Now we can’t say that the reporting in unbiased, but the poetry does get more creative as they incorporated more details, such as in this one called “William Burke’s Confession”, which is also one in the style “warning to others on the cost of crime” :

WILLIAM BURKE'S CONFESSION.

Ye people of this nation, come listen unto me To young and old I will unfold this horrid tragedy, Now at the age of thirty-six sentenced must undergo, For these murders, we done in the west port of Edinbro'. William Burke it is my name, in Ireland I was bred, I serv'd some time its well known to the shoe-making trade. Before I left my native land I took to me a wife, I left her behind. I was inclin'd to my a roving life. In 1813 to Glasgow town I came.

I took up with a married wife, M'Dougall was her name, She did advise me to leave town, and go to Edinbro', Now of my whole transactions, I'll give you all to know. For 11 months in the West Port, I think we did live there, I here I became acquainted with a man call'd William Hare, He said he'd put me on a plan that I would money make, But Oh I was a foolish man, that did his council take. Our houses being convenient to trade we did begin, Any fit subject I could spy I did invite them in ; We did entice them for to drink, until quite drunk they lay, So then by suffocation we took their lives away. Mary Peterson's the first they too our charge did lay, But many a life before hers its true we took away ; James Wilson too poor lad its true we treated most severe, I never could his strength subdue till assisted by Hare. But as for Widow Campbell, who came her son to seek, I did invite unto my house on last Hallowe'en week, Great friendship I did seem to shew to her for country sake, But when I got her head laid low, her life I then did take. Another woman and her son we murdered I declare, The woman's life was ta'en by me, the lad was kill'd by Hare. All the murders I did commit Hare was present with me, Only one that I done myself while in the country. A wife we kill'd in Broggan's, but he knew of it not, And a poor washer woman, L.29 for them we got; Like lambs unto the slaughter, these creatures we did lead, Its for nine months and better, we carried on this trade. There's one atrocious murder lies heavy on my mind, And when I do think on the same no rest here can I find, A lovely child in my face smil'd as on my knee it lay, But wretched man now that I am, I took it's life away. Its above twenty bodies now unto one man we gave, Not one of them I'm certain has been raised from a grave; This traffick long we've carried on, but now it is all by, For Hare in jail he may bewail, and I am doom'd to die. With Helen M'Dougall ten years I liv'd in adultery, I took delight to rake at night and keep bad company, [ ]t young and old ta'e warning and strive this fate to shun, [ ]hoy can I now think to die far crimes that I have done.

One name you may have caught in the first account that was mentioned again in the second one was James Wilson, or, as he was called Daft Jamie. He apparently had a couple different disabilities, hence the moniker “daft” which is their word, not mine, but there are multiple broadsides dealing specifically with Jamie – as it seems he was well-known, if not also well-liked, and as the story goes, when his body arrived in Dr. Knox’s care, he was recognized by some of the students and people noticed he was missing, resulting in the formal dissection being carried out excluding Jamie’s head.

ELEGIAC LINES ON THE Tragical Murder OF POOR DAFT JAMIE.

Gude people all, I pray give ear, to what I now do say, And buy a copy o' this Poem before I gang away; It can't but melt the hardest heart, whoe'er d' read it o'er, How poor daft Jamie met his death, the like was ne'er before.

ATTENDANCE give, whilst I relate How poor Daft Jamie met his fate; 'Twill make your hair stand on your head, As I unfold the horrid deed :--

That hellish monster, William Burke, Like Reynard sneaking on the lurk, Coyduck'd his prey into his den, And then the woeful work began :--

" Come, Jamie, drink a glass wi' me, And I'll gang wi' ye in a wee, To seek yer mither i' the town- Come drink, man, drink, an' sit ye down."

" Nae, I'll no' drink wi' ye the nou, For if I div 'twill mak' me fou;" " Tush, man, a wee will do ye guid, 'Twill cheer yer heart, an' warm yer bluid."

At last he took the fatal glass, Not dreaming what would come to pass ; When once he drank, he wanted more-- Till drunk he fell upon the floor.

" Now," said th' assassin, "now we may Seize on him as our lawful prey." " Wait, wait," said Hare, " ye stupid ass, He's yet too strong--let's tak' a glass."

Like some unguarded gem he lies-- The vulture waits to seize its prize; Nor does he dream he's in its power, Till it has seized him to devour.

The ruffian dogs,--the hellish pair,-- The villain Burke,--the meagre Hare,-- Impatient were the prize to win, So to their smothering pranks begin :--

Burke cast himself on Jamie's face, And clasp'd him in his foul embrace; But Jamie waking in surprise, Writhed in an agony to rise.

At last, with nerves unstrung before, He threw the villain on the floor ; And though alarm'd, and weaken'd too, He would have soon o'ercome the foe :

But help was near--for it Burke cried, And soon his friend was at his side; Hare tripp'd up Jamie's heels, and o'er He fell, alas! to rise no more !

Now both these blood-hounds him engage, As hungry tygers fill'd with rage, Nor did they handle axe or knife, To take away Daft Jamie's life.

No sooner done, than in a chest They cramm'd this lately welcom'd guest, And bore him into Surgeons' Square-- A subject fresh--a victim rare !

And soon he's on the table laid, Expos'd to the dissecting blade; But where his members now may lay Is not for me--or you--to say.

But this I'll say--some thoughts did rise : It fill'd the Students with surprise, That so short time should intervene Since Jamie on the streets was seen.

But though his body is destroy'd, His soul can never be decoy'd From that celestial state of rest, Where he, I trust, is with the bless'd.

Written by J. P.

Second Edition.

N. B.--There is published by the same Editor, (the second Edition with alterations,) a LACONIC NARRATIVE of the LIFE and DEATH of POOR JAMIE ; in which are interspersed, several Anecdotes relative to him, and his old friend BOBY AWL :--PRICE THREE PENCE.    The work will be embellished with a striking Portrait of Jamie. Published by W. SMITH, No. 3, Bristo Port

Reynard was a trickster fox character popular in stories from the as far back as the 12th century. The character was so popular in fact that “renard” became French word for fox. And though it may seem a bit trite to recall the events of someone’s death in the form of a cheap and somewhat bad poem, I also cannot ignore the fact that the top of this sheet has an illustration of a barrel upon which it says “Alas! Jamie’s pickled”

On the subject of the illustrations, often times they were woodcuts that were recycled, and grabbing people’s attention or increasing the worth of the sheet was more important than accuracy as you can see on another broadside concerning Jamie Wilson, where they have included the Seal of the United States, for some reason.

This one is also interesting as we’ve gotten laments from the point of view of the criminal, but now we also get an imagined scenario involving Jamie’s mother, which is entitled “Jamie Wilson’s Mother’s Dream”.

DARK, dark, and drizzly was the night, And lang, lang, after gloamin', When Jamie's Mother lonely sat, His absence sair bemoanin'.

What keeps ye Jamie out so late, In this unwholesome weather ? O haste ye home, and ease the mind Of your auld anxious Mother.

Dim gleams the lamp of this late hour, The embers faintly burning, Before your Mother, lone and poor, Wha waits on your returning.

One night I dream'd a dreary dream, To think on't makes me shiver,- I thought I heard my Jamie scream, O help me, help me, Mother !

Methought I ran to help my bairn, But never could win near him,- Methought his voice still weaker grew, Till I could scarcely hear him ;

And as he vanish'd from my view, Methought I heard him crying, Farewell! ye cannot help me now, Your Jamie Wilson's dying.

I wander'd to your Father's grave, A place I visit often ; Methought I saw a corseless shroud, Beside an empty coffin.

I saw stern Justice fast approach, Dire judgment seem'd to follow ; I woke, and found my aching head, Reclin'd on my lone pillow.

Since then, my nights have sleepless been, My days are spent in mourning; Nae longer hopes I entertain Of Jamie e'er returning.

My bark is on life's ocean toss'd,- My Jamie's safely landed ; I'll meet him on yon peaceful coast, His powers of mind expanded.

His vacant eye, his temper mild,- His unobtrusive silence ; A general fav'rite made my child, And yet he fell by violence.

No curse I on yon fiends invoke, Reflections will torment them ; From giving others such a shock, Good Lord of Heaven prevent them.

A. GOWRIE.

This isn’t the only one presented as the sentiments of Mrs Wilson either and we’re definitely going fast away from journalism into exploitation of tragedy in order to make a pound.

And while as I mentioned Hare escaped the gallows, he was not left alone by the public or in the ballads, as we can see in this broadside ballad called “Hare’s Dream”.

Describing the Apparitions of Burke and others, which appeared to him while in the Calton Jail.

Good people all give ear to what I say, 'Twill make your very blood run cold, And fill you with dread dismay, When the truth to you I've told. The cries of sixteen murdered souls Does still ring in my ears, And through my cell one voice it rolls, Which haunts my mind with fears. Crying, William Hare, I pray beware Of the approaching day, When earthly joys and earthly care Must then be thrown away. It is for near a long long year, You have led a murdering life, Without either dread or fear, "Midst rioting and strife. Last night as I lay on my bed, And sleeping I was sound, Strange fancies then came in my head, Which much did me confound. Me thought I wander'd on the street, And singing very crouse, Till with a man I chanc'd to meet, And led him to my house. When to the house I led him in, To him I seem'd a brother, To give him whisky did begin,-- When drunk I did him smother. I dragg'd him by the lint white locks, While Burke was standing by, And put him in to a large box, Then for the Doctor Burke did fly. I thought the flesh fell off his bones, Then as a skeleton he did appear, It vanish'd in its dying groans, Which fill'd me with great fear. Then I awoke but sleep'd again, O horror ! what a sight, The child that I one night had slain, In an angel's form shone bright. You've come, sweet angel, heavenly bright, To tell me of my crime, Why thus disturb me here to-night, And at no other time. Next Burke appear'd within my cell, Chain'd with the murderer's fetter, "Hear, Hare, hear, what I've to tell, Try change your life for better. O William Hare with me bewail, Turn from your evil ways, I say this from my lips in jail, Hark what a murderer says. " I thought my liberty I had got, But with sorrow was deceiv'd, For when in jail that I awoke, Still was there unrelieved. O cruel and bloody that I was, To think on killing men, And that without the slightest cause, Decoyed them to my den. Such thoughts as these were what I made, After that I had awoke, But let it ne'er again be said, That there lives such a rogue. O silent sleep,--I'll ne'er sleep again, To think on't makes me shiver ; What tortures and what cruel pain,-- Forget it shall I never. And whether in night's silent hour, Or in the sun shine day, Still will remain at my mind's door, Till I the debt of nature pay.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

National Library of Scotland. Broadsides printed in Scotland 1650-1910. National Library of Scotland, 2020. https://digital.nls.uk/broadsides/index.html

[hauntedheartssociety]

Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had attempted a script to bring Holmes to the stage, William Gillette’s adaptation would be the one to bring the character fully realized off the page. Sherlock Holmes opened at the Star Theater in Buffalo, NY in 1899. Gillette also starred as the famed detective, and his portrayal became the template for all Sherlocks who followed. Even Conan Doyle, upon meeting Gillette in London, considered him the character come to life.

Inspired heavily by “A Scandal in Bohemia” with elements of other stories, the stage play was made into a film released in 1916, and also starred the play’s cast. Gillette can be seen with all the familiar accessories: the long coat, curved pipe, and deerstalker hat.

The movie, once thought to be lost, was discovered as a film negative in France (this seems to be a theme), was restored and can be watched here: https://youtu.be/W7A03NkJNzQ?si=yYx3cgtFWy6-k8Xb

Source: https://connecticuthistory.org/holmes-at-home-the-life-of-william-gillette/

[hauntedheartssociety]

Media Necromancy: The Man Who Laughs Book to Film

Hello Haunted Hearts Society Members

Welcome back to another installment of the strange, obscure, and bygone.

This selection isn’t quite as obscure as the some of the other films I’ve covered in the past, as the source material is the work of Victor Hugo, who of course is most famous for Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, or as the novel is called, Notre-Dame de Paris. But this particular novel, The Man Who Laughs, published in 1869, despite not being as famous as some of his other work, was made into a movie by Universal Studios in 1928. And believe it or not this was not the first film version. It wasn’t even the second. In fact the Universal rendition of The Man Who Laughs is the third known version.

The first was a 1909 French film which unfortunately is lost, and it’s really too bad considering this is a French novel, albeit about England, but we don’t have a French film take on the story from this era.

The next and the first feature length version is a low-budget Austrian film from 1921 called Das Grinsende Gesicht. This version has been uploaded onto YouTube and can be watched, but interestingly the intertitles were in Dutch.

And then of course there is the 1928 Universal film which was directed by Paul Leni, a German Expressionist filmmaker and starred Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, who played Cesare in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. The influence of German expressionism here is probably a large part of why this film is as good as it is. This film is also in the public domain and available on YouTube.

Interestingly the posters from each film depict the same scene, being Gwynplaine with Duchess Josiana.

Universal is a big and successful film studio, and even with the 7 year gap between the films, the quality between the two film examples are not comparable. The Universal The Man Who Laughs is head and shoulders above Das Grinsende Gesicht in just about every way, so this will focus on the different narrative approaches they took to the same story.

Naturally the simple thing to do would be to just discuss one of these films, but interestingly if you put both of them together you’ll be closer to what Hugo wrote than just talking about one or the other.

Starting right off, both movies are going to just tell us who Gwynplaine is, why he’s known as the “Laughing Man”, and how his face came to be in the state it is. Hugo won’t reveal this until quite deep into the book, instead just starts with a little hint of a clue in the first part, which are a couple chapters describing Ursus and Homo, who are a man and a wolf, respectively. Ursus has notes about the current lords and what he considers necessary to know about them. It’s not particularly necessary for us to know every single member of the House of Lords to understand the story, but for our purposes the important bit is the very last entry:

“In the margin, opposite the last name (that of Linnæus, Lord Clancharlie), there was a note in the handwriting of Ursus: Rebel; in exile; houses, lands, and chattels sequestrated. It is well.”

Again this is going to be important later, but for now let’s start with the older of the two films. What I appreciate about this version is that it’s going to keep the political motivations for most of the story, but we do get the characters shuffled around a bit.

Lord Clancharlie is in exile, and upon his death leaves his young son to the care of his sister, Lady Dirry-Moir. Because Lady Dirry-Moir wants her son David to inherit both estates, she sells the boy to the comprachicos – people who bought children with the intention of deforming them, so they can be used to work in carnivals, freaks shows, or as Hugo describes in the chapters dedicated to the history of these people, for the whims and fancies of the ruling class. We’ll learn in the novel much later on that Lord David Dirry-Moir is a cousin to Gwynplaine.

“The Comprachicos traded in children. They bought and sold them. They did not steal them. The kidnapping of children is another branch of industry. And what did they make of these children?

Monsters.

Why monsters?

To laugh at.

The populace must need to laugh, and kings too. The mountebank is wanted in the streets, the jester at the Louvre. The one is called a Clown, the other a Fool.

The efforts of man to procure himself pleasure are at times worthy of the attention of the philosopher.

What are we sketching in these few preliminary pages? A chapter in the most terrible of books; a book which might be entitled—The farming of the unhappy by the happy.”

The emphasis that the children were bought, not stolen, and that Hugo goes on to condemn kings, sultans and even the Pope of trading in these manufactured “monsters” is telling. He also goes on to say that this was eventually outlawed following the end of King James II’s rule, which is the eventual reason Gwynplaine is abandoned, but this is still a matter of child trafficking, and the use of so-called deformities and disabilities continued to be a source of “entertainment” in circus freak shows, well after this novel was written. Even if the people being displayed weren’t artificially made into monsters, or were even simply people of a different race from the English circus-goer, the result of a “human oddity” is the same. It’s also known that Queen Victoria viewed freak shows.

The Universal film is again going to just tell us straight off how Gwynplaine came to be the laughing man, but with a more dramatic scene with the villain himself, King James II, and this jester character Barkilphedro. The king is woken from his sleep surrounded by either Saints, past Kings or other variety of clearly religious men, with a zoomed in shot on the cross one is holding, who bear witness to his state-sanctioned evil and taken to confront Lord Clancharlie directly. Barkilphedro is just as scheming here as in the novel, but he again doesn’t appear in the book until much later when he tries to get himself in positions of power with Queen Anne.

You can already see the level of drama in this version is vastly increased, there’s a lot of tension as the cruelty of King James II is highlighted, and poor Lord Clancharlie is sent to his end in an iron maiden, which was apparently a 19th century invention for shock value even though this story at this point is set in the 1690s. History points to people in the 19th century just making up stuff about the middle ages to make them seem worse, and that our idea of people in that time period being perpetually dirty and violent is largely because Victorians really hated them for some reason, which I did see evidence of in a 19th century book I read about witchcraft entitled Magic in the Middle Ages.

In the novel Lord Clancharlie’s young son was sold after his death in exile, but it was still at the order of the King that the son was sold to the Comprachicos. We learn this towards the middle of the novel, when a letter is read to Gwynplaine penned by the very Comprachicos who had abandoned him on the snowy shores of England.

"This present day, the twenty-ninth of January, one thousand six hundred and ninetieth year of our Lord.

Has been wickedly deserted on the desert coast of Portland, with the intention of allowing him to perish of hunger, of cold, and of solitude, a child ten years old.

That child was sold at the age of two years, by order of his most gracious Majesty, King James the Second.

That child is Lord Fermain Clancharlie, the only legitimate son of Lord Linnæus Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and Hunkerville, Marquis of Corleone in Sicily, a peer of England, and of Ann Bradshaw, his wife, both deceased. That child is the inheritor of the estates and titles of his father. For this reason he was sold, mutilated, disfigured, and put out of the way by desire of his most gracious Majesty.

That child was brought up, and trained to be a mountebank at markets and fairs.

He was sold at the age of two, after the death of the peer, his father, and ten pounds sterling were given to the king as his purchase-money, as well as for divers concessions, tolerations, and immunities.

Lord Fermain Clancharlie, at the age of two years, was bought by me, the undersigned, who write these lines, and mutilated and disfigured by a Fleming of Flanders, called Hardquanonne, who alone is acquainted with the secrets and modes of treatment of Doctor Conquest.

The child was destined by us to be a laughing mask (masca ridens).

With this intention Hardquanonne performed on him the operation, Bucca fissa usque ad aures, which stamps an everlasting laugh upon the face.

The child, by means known only to Hardquanonne, was put to sleep and made insensible during its performance, knowing nothing of the operation which he underwent.

He does not know that he is Lord Clancharlie.

He answers to the name of Gwynplaine.”

As M. Hugo is giving us the history of all this child trafficking and the practice finally being outlawed in England, the Comprachicos pack up ship, leave behind their unhappy product, and cast off to sea.

At least this is also what happens in the Universal version, though the movie gives James credit for ending this terrible practice. In Hugo’s story it was William and Mary, the monarchs who followed King James II. Additionally, their rendition of the boat has significantly more people, including the surgeon Hardquanonne. Naturally when you’re making a film you don’t have all day to spend on one scene, but when you’re Victor Hugo writing a book you can take as many pages are you want, and most of the first volume of the novel consisted of the last voyage of this ship.

It was indeed the last voyage as it goes into a very exciting account of how they sail into a snowstorm at sea, which is infinitely worse than a regular storm. The skipper gets washed overboard at one point, and eventually as the remaining passengers realize they are sinking, they write the confession above, seal it into a bottle and hope that it washes to shore as they just disappear into the depths. It was amusing as it felt like ages reading about this ship in the storm before it got back to what was going on with the kid, and in the movie the whole scene is over in a couple minutes. It’s also worth noting that by the time the message is found, the throne has changed hands twice and Queen Anne is not aware of this whole transaction.

If Hardequanonne wasn’t supposed to go down with the ship, then where is he supposed to be? Well Das Grinsende Gesicht has this scene the same as in the novel, in which he’s arrested and sent to a prison in Chatham.

Unfortunately that means we also don’t get the scene with the gibbet, which can also be described as “M. Hugo’s commentary on the use of torture and intimidation in the English judicial system”, which will also come up again later, but is also one of the most gothic scenes in the novel. This is portrayed in the Universal film, even if it doesn’t quite have the same effect without the political statement, but it is quite a striking and terrifying scene nonetheless. It’s also something that only lasts a few seconds, while in the book it’s an entire chapter entitled “STRUGGLE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH”.

“The gibbet was old, worm-eaten, although strong, and had been in use many years.

It was an immemorial custom in England to tar smugglers. They were hanged on the seaboard, coated over with pitch and left swinging. Examples must be made in public, and tarred examples last longest. The tar was mercy: by renewing it they were spared making too many fresh examples. They placed gibbets from point to point along the coast, as nowadays they do beacons. The hanged man did duty as a lantern. After his fashion, he guided his comrades, the smugglers. The smugglers from far out at sea perceived the gibbets. There is one, first warning; another, second warning. It did not stop smuggling; but public order is made up of such things. The fashion lasted in England up to the beginning of this century. In 1822 three men were still to be seen hanging in front of Dover Castle. But, for that matter, the preserving process was employed not only with smugglers. England turned robbers, incendiaries, and murderers to the same account. Jack Painter, who set fire to the government storehouses at Portsmouth, was hanged and tarred in 1776. L'Abbé Coyer, who describes him as Jean le Peintre, saw him again in 1777. Jack Painter was hanging above the ruin he had made, and was re-tarred from time to time. His corpse lasted—I had almost said lived—nearly fourteen years. It was still doing good service in 1788; in 1790, however, they were obliged to replace it by another. The Egyptians used to value the mummy of the king; a plebeian mummy can also, it appears, be of service.

The wind, having great power on the hill, had swept it of all its snow. Herbage reappeared on it, interspersed here and there with a few thistles; the hill was covered by that close short grass which grows by the sea, and causes the tops of cliffs to resemble green cloth. Under the gibbet, on the very spot over which hung the feet of the executed criminal, was a long and thick tuft, uncommon on such poor soil. Corpses, crumbling there for centuries past, accounted for the beauty of the grass. Earth feeds on man.

The corpse at the end of the chain, pushed by the invisible gust, took an oblique attitude; rose to the left, then fell back, reascended to the right, and fell and rose with slow and mournful precision. A weird game of see-saw. It seemed as though one saw in the darkness the pendulum of the clock of Eternity.”

Every version is going to have Gwynplaine finding a baby in her dead mother’s arms, and then going on to be taken in by Ursus. Neither film shows how he went from door to door in the town and no one was either awake or would let them in, and the hero is the most unlikely character. Ursus, the philosopher, something of a travelling jack-of-all-trades, who describes himself as a misanthrope. His actions don’t align with the cruelness of his words but he really becomes a caring father to the children. He names the baby Dea, and continues to care for her after discovering she is blind.

That gets us about 15 minutes into the movies, and all those 15 minutes were almost an entire novel, as this book was divided into 2 volumes. If you’re familiar with Les Mis and that fact it’s called the “Brick”, it should not at all be a surprise at how little action there was in so many words, but rather long descriptions and all sorts of background information and commentary. All of it is relevant to the story, and you’re not going to get any of that watching movies, especially considering so far we’ve only had a little bit of the politics involved.

There is one more thing from the first volume that is covered in both films, and that is going to be the Duchess Josiana.

Both films portray her as a bored aristocrat, someone who’s a bit rebellious and looking for something more freeing than the stiff and ordered life of royalty. The Universal film does keep the sexualized portrayal of Josiana’s character, by inserting a bath scene where Barkilphedro enters. To be sure, neither of these situations are ones she asked these men to be looking at her in, but she doesn’t really shy away either. She’s a pretty interesting character who can also be considered a bad person for other more compelling reasons. She asks Barkilphedro for the latest scandals, which gets us closer to her intended personality. In the novel, she’s engaged to Lord David, but doesn’t apparently wish to actually marry him. She seems to find pleasure in doing things she’s not supposed to, and is entertained by things that ought to be shocking or horrific. She doesn’t think much of a boxing match that ends in one of the participants seriously and permanently injured, and is directed to the Laughing Man’s show, because of the promise of a new and grotesque figure, that being Gwynplaine’s face.

The portrait of Lord David she has in the bath scene is pretty goofy, but she clearly doesn’t take him seriously so neither should we.

Following there is a scene with the Queen, Lord David looks exactly like the goofy portrait, and this part looks like it should be out of a comedy.

Barkilphedro is still scheming, but Josiana is off at the fair and honestly living her best life, blending in with the peasantry and snubbing the queen, as you do.

Her later presence at Gwynplaine and Dea’s performance is very intentional, and this is done in all three versions. Everyone knows who she is, she gets her own special seat and she’s almost as much as a spectacle as the show. The reason she’s there isn’t by chance as she sought out the Laughing Man with the promise that his face will be the grotesque horror she’s looking for after seeing the boxing match. This leads to a weird sort of infatuation between the two of them, on Gwynplaine’s part because she’s the grandest most woman he’s ever seen, and for her because she’s something of a thrill-seeker, or as she describes in the book:

"I love you, not only because you are deformed, but because you are low. I love monsters, and I love mountebanks. A lover despised, mocked, grotesque, hideous, exposed to laughter on that pillory called a theatre, has for me an extraordinary attraction. It is tasting the fruit of hell. An infamous lover, how exquisite! To taste the apple, not of Paradise, but of hell—such is my temptation. It is for that I hunger and thirst. I am that Eve, the Eve of the depths. Probably you are, unknown to yourself, a devil. I am in love with a nightmare. You are a moving puppet, of which the strings are pulled by a spectre. You are the incarnation of infernal mirth. You are the master I require. I wanted a lover such as those of Medea and Canidia. I felt sure that some night would bring me such a one. You are all that I want.”

To be on the radar of royalty your show has probably reached London, which is indeed the case for Gwynplaine and company, as their little production has become quite famous throughout the countryside, and Ursus is eager to cash in on the big city. In Das Grinsende Gesicht, they decide money is needed in order for Gwynplaine and Dea to wed, but either way, they go to London and of course pride goeth before a fall.

The differences in the way the laughing face is shown is also kind of funny in its own way. Das Grinsende Gesicht has the actor’s face in this sort of grimace which really doesn’t resemble a laugh at all and it just looks like he’s in pain, and then we have Veidt who was actually in pain apparently from having his face held in place in this expression that’s somewhat more of a smile.

If this face looks familiar that would be because the inspiration for the appearance of the Joker from the original Batman comics was from Veidt’s portrayal of Gwynplaine in this film. The characters of course are nothing alike as far as personality, but you can see the resemblance otherwise.

Hugo’s description is somewhat more grotesque.

“Nature had been prodigal of her kindness to Gwynplaine. She had bestowed on him a mouth opening to his ears, ears folding over to his eyes, a shapeless nose to support the spectacles of the grimace maker, and a face that no one could look upon without laughing.

We have just said that nature had loaded Gwynplaine with her gifts. But was it nature? Had she not been assisted?

Two slits for eyes, a hiatus for a mouth, a snub protuberance with two holes for nostrils, a flattened face, all having for the result an appearance of laughter; it is certain that nature never produces such perfection single-handed.

But is laughter a synonym of joy?”

For most of the important parts going forward, the films will follow the original novel pretty closely. Das Grinsende Gesicht even manages to work in the message in the bottle floating up out of the sea even though the comprachicos made their escape on land.

While the Queen is learning the truth of things, Josiana is having her twisted infatuation and sending Gwynplaine notes to come meet her, which he actually does in the films.

The 1928 film’s scene where he finds her sleeping and not quite fully dressed, especially after we see Dea rather distraught about the whole situation is again highlighting her sexuality makes her to be this kinda overwhelming presence, then finding out that Gwynplaine is actually Lord Clancharlie is actually closer to how this happened in the novel, but it’s still in the wrong place as far as events go. Novel Josiana is also colder and by far more cruel, telling Gwynplaine to be gone upon becoming something that she can have, instead of the forbidden thing. Now that they’re on the same level, she’s not interested, there’s nothing fun or novel about him anymore.

Then as the story goes, Gwynplaine is taken away by the wapentake, or this rather shady police-like figure, which, if the gibbet scene didn’t give you some insight on the attitude towards judicial matters in this story, there’s a conversation between Ursus and Gwynplaine on the subject:

" Gwynplaine?" "What?" "Look." "Do you see that passer-by?" "The man in black?" "Yes." "Who has a kind of mace in his hand?" "Well?" "Well, Gwynplaine, that man is a wapentake." "What is a wapentake?" "He is a terrible officer." "What has he got in his hand?" “The iron weapon." "What does he do with that?" "First of all, he swears upon it. It is for that reason that he is called the wapentake." "And then?" "Then he touches you with it." "What does that mean?" "That means, follow me." "And must you follow?" "Yes." "Whither?" "How should I know?" "But he tells you where he is going to take you?" "No." "How is that?" "He says nothing, and you say nothing." "But—" "He touches you with the iron weapon. All is over then. You must go." "But where?" "Wherever he likes, Gwynplaine." “And if you resist?" "You are hanged."

The next part is pretty much the same, they go to the prison where Gwynplaine is presented to Hardequanonne, who verifies his identity as a Lord and confesses to his crimes, but meanwhile Ursus thinks Gwynplaine has been executed.

In fact, Gwynplaine is restored to his lands and title, and sent right off to the House of Lords! You’d think things should be looking up from here and everything will work out in the end but if you’re familiar with the novel at all you’ll know that is not the case. In fact, the reason I wanted to include the Austrian film version is because the scene in the House of Lords actually follows the novel, where the Universal one takes a completely different direction from here on out.

On Gwynplaine’s first day in the House of Lords, they’re voting on raising the allowance of the Queen, or the Prince in the novel, all the Lords vote yay, but Gwynplaine votes nay, because having lived in poverty he understands that this is money that could be better spent. Since he’s not doing the thing everyone expected to protect the wealth and power of the wealthy and powerful, or as he says in the novel:

“Between those who oppress and those who are oppressed there is but a difference of place. Your feet tread on the heads of men. The fault is not yours; it is that of the social Babel. The building is faulty, and out of the perpendicular. One floor bears down the other. Listen, and I will tell you what to do. Oh! as you are powerful, be brotherly; as you are great, be tender. If you only knew what I have seen! Alas, what gloom is there beneath! The people are in a dungeon. How many are condemned who are innocent! No daylight, no air, no virtue! They are without hope, and yet—there is the danger—they expect something. Realize all this misery. There are beings who live in death.”

he’s laughed out of parliament.

The irony here being he’s still laughed at despite his permanently laughing face, and there’s not even anything he can do to change his expression to make others take him seriously.

Das Grinsende Gesicht also keeps the tragic ending of the novel, where Dea dies, even though she and Gwynplaine are reunited when he leaves aristocratic life behind, it was too late for her poor, weak, innocent heart. And while this film’s iteration of Gwynplaine decides to traumatize his audience and commit suicide onstage, Hugo just goes straight for the reader’s heart when Gwynplaine walks off the ship taking them off to exile while following Dea’s ghost. Either way is a depressing note to end on, but you can’t possibly have thought Hollywood would leave us with such a horrible fate for our heroes! Of course not. But first we have to go back to the House of Lords and get rid of all the pesky politics.

The point of contention here will have little to do with the poor, nothing to do with an extra 100,000 pounds for any member of the royal family, but rather merely the appearance of Gwynplaine’s face, and his opposition to Queen Anne’s decision that he will marry Duchess Josiana.

There’s then an extremely action packed escape scene. The novel does have a bit of a ruckus in the House of Lords after the whole debacle and Lord David challenges Gwynplaine to a duel to which he doesn’t go.

The whole sequence is actually pretty exciting, and we still end the story where we began except getting on the boat this time to head into exile, but this time it’s a happy reunion and the heroes live! Aside from simplifying the message about aristocracy being corrupt and self-serving, it’s hard to be mad about the changes Universal made to the ending. The novel could have been stopped at the penultimate chapter without changing the point of the story - we’ve still learned the lesson about the value of family and the pitfalls of power and material wealth, Gwynplaine has something more valuable than lordship in Dea, Ursus and Homo, and even though they’ve lost everything they still have each other.

[hauntedheartssociety]

"Incorruptible solutions are at hand: the talons which were cut are growing again; the tongues which were torn out are floating away, they are turning to tongues of fire, and, scattered by the breath of darkness, are shouting through infinity; those who hunger are showing their idle teeth; false heavens, built over real hells, are tottering."

The Man Who Laughs Victor Hugo, 1869

[can-of-w0rmz]

A very normal family.