Here’s something quite different – a short TV adaptation of Frankenstein, produced by Hammer Movies in conjunction with Screen Gems.
The film is directed by Kurt Siodmak and the screenplay is by none other than legendary C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner (here billed as “Catherine and Henry Kuttner”).
This was the pilot episode of a TV series that never happened.
Enjoy!
So today is the International Women’s Day.
Here’s our small contribution.
Enjoy!
Two nights back, in a bout of nostalgia, I spent two hours watching, yet again, The Assassination Bureau, Limited, a fun movie from 1969.
The movie, one of the many proto-steampunk flicks that were produced between the ’60s and the ’70s, was directed by Basil Dearden, and is based on a Jack London novel that was left unfinished at the author’s death.
Whereas London’s book was intended as a straight thriller with philosophical underpinnings, the Dearden movie plays as a comedy, and a wonderful comedy it is. Continue reading
As I often mentioned in the past, I use Pinterest as a tool for collecting visual references while writing.
I did so while working on The Ministry of Thunder, setting up a secret Pinboard to keep all my visual references in one place.
Now that the novel is out (both as an ebook and a paperback), I no longer need to keep my reference material secret – so here’s a selection from the aforementioned Pinboard.
Enjoy.
It all started with a photo – the photo you see here on the right.
I found it by chance on the web – it’s a portrait of actress Mary Nolan, a picture taken in the ’20s.
I find her achingly beautiful.
So I decided to learn more about her.
As Imogene “Bubbles” Wilson, Kentucky-born Nolan was a Ziegfeld girl that was kicked out of the show because of her scandalous affair with a married comedian.
To escape the scandal, Nolan moved to Germany, where she worked as an actress, using the name of Imogen Robertson, making seventeen movies in two years.
She returned in the USA in 1928, and in that same year she acted in Tod Browning‘s West of Zanzibar, that is a thoroughly wicked, evil little adventure movie.
If we can call little a movie produced and directed by Browning, and featuring Lon Chaney and Lionel Barrymore. Continue reading
A nice short production documentary on one of the movies that really marked my childhood – The Land that Time Forgot, based on a great Edgar Rice Burroughs book.
Enjoy!
So I decided to read a few books about India in 2015.
I’ve been trying to track a cheap copy of M.M. Kaye‘s The Far Pavilions for a while.
I was about to get me a paperback copy in English when I tracked a fine used copy of the Italian edition for about five bucks.
“Unknown binding” it said in the seller’s description… ah, the thrill of a small mystery.
Meanwhile, I found out a musical was made of this big romantic melodramatic adventure novel – after all, the theme was well suited to a stage adaptation with song and dance.
And here’s a few songs from the West End production – that despite what the poster said, did not last.
I usually find modern musicals weirdly disquieting – the adaptation of Hugo, Dickens and, indeed, Kaye, gives us people singing about pretty grim stuff.
And yet, Melodrama’s so much fun, as the poet said
Enjoy!
Karavansara 