Beyond the Roundels

I found this sitting in my posts in progress from March, about what I'd been watching at the time, or some of it. I obtained the two small pieces of info it was lacking and have otherwise posted as-is, so it's probably fairly babbly, but I feel it is better to post than not to post. (At least with random mostly-complete media posts, that is.)

The Ghost Camera (1933) This was recced to me ages ago by sovay and I managed to snag it in passing on TalkingPictures TV, but then failed to watch it. (I have issues with watching all sorts of things still for reasons that are too stupid and annoying to go into, but they are all basically the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome being a pain.) But then, liadt sent me it on DVD as well! So having been recced it twice by two people who know what's what when it comes to elderly film and suchlike, I had to eventually consider putting it in the dvd player and watching it.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I really enjoyed it! It was sweet and fun. The internet tells me it was an unexpectedly good 'Quota Quickie' and it is. A nerdy scientist accidentally acquires a camera with a dangerous set of photos inside it, develops them and sets out, while being dogged by the criminals who want it, to find out whose camera it is - starting with finding the woman in one of the photos. It's engaging, the hero is charmingly atypical and shy, and it really does do some cool things with experimental camera angles and techniques, some of which almost even come across like handheld camera in places.

It's very early UK film, so it doesn't have the polish that a lot of the US ones had acquired by even this point, but if you like old films, this is a fun and interesting one.


Dope Girls (BBC) s1 I've only watched half of this because it was too much for me, but I neverthless watched that much, because it looked fascinating and different and the sort of thing I would be all over if it wasn't so much about crime. I'm hopeless when people in fictonal things are routinely committing crimes, and this is very violent, lots of 'rave' type shooting of scenes, none of which I can cope with. Saying I watched it, given how much I used the skip 10s button is probably an exaggeration BUT it's really beautifully made and it's about women immediately post WWI, based on a true story of a woman who set up a Soho nightclub (given value of 'true' no doubt varies in the show). The series also follows her illegitimate mixed race daughter Billie, a dancer, her legitimate teenage daughter who's getting into spiritualism following her father's death, and Violet, one of the very first women in the police, who's sent undercover into the nightclub.

Warnings for pretty much everything ever: dodgy accents, murder, suicide, meat & butchery, drugs, sex, 'rave' type scenes, beatings etc. It seems to be trying to be the new Peaky Blinders but since PB happened while I was ill and also contains characters who routinely commit crimes, I can't comment on accuracy of media's "the new x" pronouncements.

In short, it looks great if only I weren't me. I might still finish it, unwisely, anyway. It's about women immediately post WWI! /o\


They Came To A City (1944) This is one I happened to catch on TalkingPictures TV just as sovay was talking about John Clements, and I realised I had accidentally snagged this, featuring him. It's adapted from a play by J. B. Priestley, who actually turns up in a little prologue with a wee Ralph Michael & Brenda Bruce to tell the story of the film as a fable to prove a point to them. The story within a story is of nine ordinary British people from different walks of life who find themselves transported to a mysterious city run by an apparently perfect sort of socialist ideal. Some of them hate it, some of them stay, and some of them return to their regular lives to try and make their own cities more like the City. It's very static and talky and we don't see the city, but they pretty much lifted the original play's cast into the film and the performances are great all round and always raise it when it gets too close to being too much just talking about the ideas. It's slow but I found it utterly fascinating and loved it. I had to leave it on the DVR, so I couldn't even delete it as watched!

Also it gave me all the feels about the Beveridge Report and I've never said that about a piece of fiction before.


The Ghost Train (1941) wiki tells me there are actually about nine different versions of this, originally a play by Arnold Ridley who I know as Godfrey in Dad's Army. This is the most comic version, I gather, but also the one that has villainous Nazis instead of unlikely Cornish communists. It was another one I snagged recently from TPTV and, encouraged by current watching ability, I gave it a try and enjoyed it very much indeed! It does occasionally veer towards becoming a vehicle for Arthur Askey but it recovers itself in time, although I would definitely be interested in seeing some of the other versions. But his role as comedian was written in very well (he's a seaside vaudeville performer, his antics cause the stranding & solve it, and everyone gets annoyed with him) and I liked everyone else very much. Another mixed group of strangers get stranded in a remote Cornish railway station - with a story about a ghost train that runs through the station.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun, and I'd definitely be curious to see a version played more straight, but like I said, this is the one that sends a bunch of Nazis off a railway bridge, so I don't feel that it was the worst place to start!


[May comment: still didn't go back to Dope Girls; the state of my brain when employing the iPlayer can be easily illustrated by explaining that what I did was to watch a series and a half of Malory Towers instead. XD]

I started this on 27th Feb 2021 for 100fandomicons and have finally completed it, after taking longer than anybody else ever has, which I suppose is one claim to fame. (You can see the fandoms if you hover over the icons.)

( 100fandoms table under here )

sovay asked me some more film meme questions when I complained about the questions in the other film meme making me talk about my A-Level film watching. I have managed to post my answers to these in less than a month after being asked them, so go me. And thank you sovay! <3

1. A film you watched for a favorite actor (of any gender) which you would not have sought out otherwise?

I wasn't really watching film for a long while, because I couldn't, so only my faves forced me back to it, and made it possible again, so it would be true to say nearly everything I've watched since about 2011. But here is one for each of my faves that have sufficient films in their cv to make it worth nominating one:

a. Dean Spanley (2008), because it's so obscure, and even if I'd stumbled over it in some other context, the very quality of the cast would only have been a warning sign, because it'd have to be terrible to still not ever have pinged my radar, or, afaict, anyone else's that I knew. But the Jeremy Northam tumblrs were enthusiastic, as were the 2-3 others who had actually seen it, so I sought it out, and I'm so glad I was finally able to snag a DVD because they were right - it's an oddity, but it's also a gem.

b. Girl On Approval (1962), which is a lesser New Wave/Kitchen Sink installment that starred Rachel Roberts with my man James Maxwell in the supporting role as her husband. I have a fascination with New Wave, brought on my Media Studies tutor who haunted the other post - we watched Look Back In Anger, Man at the Top & Saturday Night, Sunday Morning (& I also, long before, watched half of A Taste of Honey in my first year at secondary school. Only half was because that was when I first had ME/CFS). This gave me a deep, enduring and entirely grudging fascination with this brand of TV/Film, but also an appreciation of Rachel Roberts, who is amazing.

This is written by a female writer, about two main female characters, and it was the first UK attempt at a realistic film about fostering/social care etc, and I find it fascinating and well done, and worth a look if you have a similar interest in these kinds of films, social history of the era, or Rachel Roberts. (I can also attest it is well worth it for some of the earliest surviving non-fake-hair-assaulted James Maxwell, even if he is not in Rachel Roberts's league.)

c. If I had ever looked at The Lady Vanishes (1938) properly, I would no doubt have always have been taken with the summary, but I'd not got on with old films before then, so it was only watching Margaret Lockwood in 1970s TV, loving her in that and looking her up, that made me actually try it. It was a complete delight, and I've really enjoyed trying lots of 1930s & early 40s films I've watched off the back of that since, whether with or without Margaret Lockwood. I've still got a mixed track record with all-time Hollywood classics, but at least I know there are some things out there I do like!


2. A film you wish had been made with one of your favorites?

I'm not sure whether this is a role swap - this film would have been better with James Maxwell in it! - or a non-existent film they should have made with a favourite actor. I shall answer with something that is simultaneously both, in a way.

BBC Radio's 1991 'Christmas at the Wells' season of Victorian plays was great, but of all radio things I've listened to, the one that most made me pine for a live-action version was their London Assurance with Jeremy Northam as Dazzle. Someone should instantly have grabbed all the cast that could reprise their roles in visual format, or at least Jeremy Northam, and made them do it in a film, or a one-off TV thing. There is no film version of London Assurance, so it'd have been a general service to humanity anyway. I need to relisten to this, because I was new to it, but Dazzle wanders through it, idly bluffing and obliviously causing plot to ensue for everyone else, and I really really wanted to see him. It's set in the 18th C, so there would also have been excellent costumes. I am glad we had the radio, though.

(I loved The Schoolmistress even more but while I would enjoy a live-action version of that, too, it couldn't have Jeremy Northam as he was too old to play a 17 yr old even in 1991, except on radio, lol. Besides, it worked perfectly in that format, so I can just relisten to it anytime I wanted and be quite happy. Although it's such fun, someone should give it a go sometime. The world is always in need of an extra cheerful thing.)


3. A film it surprises people that you love?

See my below answer about me maybe not being the person to judge this - I feel most films I love are obviously films I would love, but then I would. I suppose, to go back to my previous film meme post, people are understandably surprised when I tell them that Schindler's List is probably my favourite film. (I prevaricate unless I feel like explaining my whole totalitarian regimes history story yet again, which I don't always.)

People do get surprised sometimes about that anybody likes the Star Wars Prequel trilogy best, I suppose; and I do! (I'm not alone by any means. ;-p)


4. A film you feel it should be completely obvious that you love?

All my films I love seem pretty obvious choices - to me, at least! But I read the description of The Lady Vanishes (1938) and went "that sounds like almost everything I like in one film" and it really was. The Winslow Boy (1999) was so obviously catered to me that I've been nearly watching it for years and it was first on my list of Jeremy Northam films to get, even if dodgy DVDs delayed it. Gosford Park was super-inevitable in so many ways. Watching The Mummy (1999) in a cinema in Aberystwyth (with wet feet, because I forgot you don't mess with the sea in Aber) was insta-love for multiple reasons, chief of which was A Librarian Heroine. *heart eyes*

idk, all my likes seem painfully obvious to me, but no doubt I'm more inexplicable to other people. Well. Occasionally, perhaps?

Have YOU been shocked by me liking a film??? Do I need to explain myself? I expect I will be very happy to do so.


5. A film you wish had been a television show?

A lot of book adaptations really need a TV serial format to do the book justice. I've been blanking on a particular example for 2-3 weeks now, though. But it'll definitely be some frustratingly over-lite classic lit book adaptation that missed something vital. I think lots of us round here know that feeling!

I've been meaning to carry on catching up with my reading posts, so maybe one day I can do the regular ones again, or more probably, regular media-consuming ones. And then I looked and found the one catch up post I actually made was in March 2023, which is not a speedy rate at which to catch anything up. HAVE ANOTHER POST.

[ETA: I started drafting this post out on 4th Jan, so you can see I'm keeping up with the speedy part.]

(Last time, in March 2023, I had caught up as far as early 2020, when I fell into a Star Wars Prequel hole and wrote ridiculous amounts of fic and read a whole bunch of SW novels, where I mostly liked the Legends ones and resented the new canon ones, but not always.)

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers, and while I am not at all at hamsterwoman's level of (what is it? frustration? love to hate? affectionate and deeply invested loathing? lol), these have proved to be fine but only sometimes for me - the second one, where it was more contained, really worked for me. This one didn't really. But I gave it a star and a smile in the margin in my Book Diary, which isn't bad, either! (I think therefore the disappointment is just because I hoped they would be so much more my thing than they've turned out to be, rather than me not liking them or anything. Just, easy to read, fine, I appreciate lots of the world-building, no great feelings, alas.)

Anyway, next up I read The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells, the first in the Raksura books, and I loved it! I had to swiftly follow it up with The Serpent Sea and The Siren Depths (presumably with b'day cash), oh, and The Edge of Worlds and since have read through the rest at a slow rate of waiting (im)patiently for birthdays and Christmases and continued to love the world-building and characters and the whole thing, and, although sometimes I get exhausted when she gets all fast-paced, that is merely a compliment to her skill and testament to my general lack of everything.

Murder on the Flying Scotsman, The Black Ship and Heirs of the Body by Carola Dunn, which at this date is now making me all nostalgic for lack of Daisy, Murder Magnet Supreme, and the long-suffering Alec in my life for AGES. Anyway, Daisy went on a train and there was murder, she went out for dinner in the suburbs and there was murder and, um, I forget the plot of the last one, but there was definitely murder.

(I must re-read them. I just need to pick up more of the first few, which at the time I got from the library and now the library does not have them, and I am less good at getting to the library anyway.) Anyway, these are fun and well done cosy detective stories set in the 1920s, which I enjoyed a lot, and were easy-going enough to help me back into reading when I was so unwell.

Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens, which was great fun (a children's book mash-up of boarding schools and golden age murder), although I have STILL not stumbled over any of the sequels in charity shops; a grave injustice.

I also read a few more Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire books, which generally enjoyed, and some much more than others, and occasionaly where they suddebly mid-20th C attitudes at me in the middle of the souffle of delight (inevitable, but also ALAS) but at this stage I can't remember them individually without going to look at the and read the blurb to remind me which was which, as they sort of merge in my head rapidly. Although, unlike Wodehouse, I can remember which ones I read by reading the blurb, so I can do that if people want to know.

Then, for family history reasons, I took notes from Paupers and Pigkillers: The Diary of William Holland 1799-1818. William Holland was the vicar of a tiny Quantock parish called Overstowey, close to where I grew up and where a lot of my ancestors come from. He was sometimes, inevitably, much as you would expect from an 18th/19th C Vicar, but his diary entries were fascinating and never dull. He was Welsh and took a long time to adapt to the "stupid, slow" Somerset people (worse in every way than Welsh common people). He had opinions about all his fellow vicars, and a local Non-Conformist bigwig (Thomas Poole) was his Nemesis ("Satan himself cannot be more false and hypocritical") and he gets very gleeful if he feels he is one up on the Nemesis. He also got to correspond to an Earl about face-science and was involved in some coincidences that you wouldn't have put in a novel because it would have been too unrealistic, but rl can get away with these things.

His diary was written in multiple notebooks over the period and for whatever reason, only around every other one has survived, so there are a lot of gaps, and we also do not know what made him start writing a diary, because the first one is among the lost. The first entry we do have, though, is him being very disapproving of the Coleridge party who'd arrived at Nether Stowey, invited by the Nemesis himself: "Saw that Democratic hoyden Mrs Coleridge who looked so like a friskey girl or something worse that I was not surprised that a Democratic Libertine should choose her for a wife."( More from William )

Anyway, in short, it's great stuff if you have ancestors from the Quantocks or are interested in that sort of thing generally.

I followed that up with note-taking from another diary by another Somerset vicar who lived around the same time, although not so near the places I was interested in - John Skinner's Journal of a Somerset Rector 1803-1834. This was also interesting, but a much harder read as became increasingly mentally ill and depressed as it continued, often alienating those around him with his paranoia, and eventually committed suicide. He, too, hated Methodists, lived in his parish and visited his parisioners (and Shepton Mallet Gaol), but he and William Holland had very little in common beyond that. It's another very useful resource and interesting for local and micro-history, though.


* hamsterwoman won't mind me mentioning that!

So, I've been meaning to share some of this here for ages, and here goes. I've been giffing my way through the Dracula adaptations I've seen so far (6 currently) and have completed five, with Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) still to go. (I got stopped by people spoiling my fun by suddenly making a new Dracula in the middle of all this, which meant people were taking notice of my posts and it was too much. Also now I'm not up to date! Damn them. Couldn't they have waited? ;-p)

Anyway, I'm not a visual person, or not without prompting, which is one of the things I really enjoy about screencapping, iconing and giffing, because it makes me look at visual media in ways I never do otherwise. So this isn't anything profound, but in the process, I noticed some interesting visual nods from one production to one or more of the others, so here is a post about that.

( Cut for giffage and vampires feat. 1931, Hammer, TV 1968, TV 1977 & TV 2006 )

It's going to be interesting doing BSD in this light, because, though this blows my mind, the previous version it seems to be most obviously referencing is... my much-loved shaky old 1968 TV version. How very dare. 0_o

[I started this post in July 2018. I feel perhaps I should finish it before I have no memory of anything I watched any more. I already couldn't remember the things I watched in June when I wrote it, so expect even less sensible comments than usual.]


... or some of it, anyway. I have been recording films off the TV a lot lately, especially since I discovered Talking Pictures, which is a good enabler is you're into old British films (and TV). Some modern things may get in, too. I do watch them. I just don't always talk about them.

( Films under the cut before I forget them all )

I have been watching various things that I probably should mention but I seem to be getting worse at posting even halfway serious thoughts on things (and I have a post on the BBC 1980 Borgias from January still unposted), but I'm going to start with the Ealing Rarities I got for my birthday, mainly because I was moved to gif things.

(The Ealing Studios Rarities are a series of DVDs released by Network DVD containing lesser known films from Ealing & Associated Talking Pictures from the 1930s-1950s. I try to get mainly 1930s ones because me and the 1950s don't always get on so well. (I blame Meet Mr Lucifer.))

Vol 14 contained Lonely Road (1936) with Victoria Hopper and Clive Brook, The Water Gipsies (1932), The Sign of Four (1932), and Feather Your Nest (1937) with George Formby.

( Lonely Road, The Water Gipsies, The Sign of Four & Feather Your Nest )

I find this post has been lurking in draft since the end of June, so I think it's about time I posted it, really. I've watched a fair bit in summer and posted less than usual. Anyway, this is a post of various Old Films.

I got another Ealing Rarities collection (Vol 2) for my birthday, and this one was a bit of a disappointment compared to the previous installments. It contained Midshipman Easy (1935), Brief Ecstasy (1937), The Big Blockade (1942), and The Four Just Men (1939), and this post has been lurking mainly because I couldn't think what to say about Midshipman Easy, but I shall solve that by not bothering. The rest of this post I wrote two and half months ago, as is:

Brief Ecstasy was... well. Couple meet for one evening, the guy is a pilot and v stalkery (because he only has one evening), then he flies off somewhere round the world and sends a telegram asking her to marry him (it was a really great evening, okay), which she doesn't get. So, she gets a science degree, but then marries her science professor, who persuades her to go stay at home, because men are basically rubbish, possibly, I'm not sure what else it was trying to say. ( More under here )

Disc 2 contained a WWII propaganda film (Big Blockade), which I didn't feel like watching, so I moved onto The Four Just Men, which was really enjoyable until the last twenty minutes when suddenly it broke into an unexpected burst of rabid patriotism. I can't blame them too much, because 1939, obviously, but it does feel so off in tone from the rest of it that I can't help wondering if war was declared when they were halfway through making it and they felt obliged to suddenly alter the ending to be properly supporting the war effort. It's all: la la la shenanigans shenanigans WAIT NO I LOVE THE LITTLE COUNTRY LANES GOD SAVE THE KING AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE THE END and Anna's Lee's reporter character fades away in the blast of it. (The first 2/3s are fun, though.)

However, I was particularly amused when one of the four just men (who was an actor) decided to impersonate the evil MP and give a speech in Parliament. It was all v well done, but the MP in question was played by Alan Napier, who was nearly twice the height of everyone else in the 1930s. (IMBD says he was 6"6 and I see no reason to doubt it in this case). It wasn't quite as excellent as that time Patrick McGoohan decided that of all the random impoverished artists in 60s London he was going to impersonate, he should pick David Collings, but it was pretty close.

(Nobody noticed in either case. You have to worry about TV/film people sometimes.)


I also finally got The Stars Look Down (1940) film starring Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood and directed by Carol Reed, set in a small mining community in the north east. What could possibly go wrong? ( More under here )

Happily, in between all this, I recorded Pride & Prejudice (1940) off the telly, and this was pretty much an unmitigated delight, although I was rather taken aback by the ending where it suddenly veers sharply away from the book into blink-inducing crack. My least favourite part of this being that Lizzy neither has a letter from Mr Darcy, nor visits Pemberley and thus changes her mind after... er... well, Mr Darcy does get to say some of the letter's content in their argument? Plus, she fancies him. (Fair enough, I suppose.) AND THEN LADY CATHERINE WAS IN CAHOOTS WITH MR DARCY AND EVERYONE GOT MARRIED AT ONCE. EVERYONE. Well, not Lady Catherine but if they'd had one more minute, probably.

However, it truly was a delightful thing and now it's joined the ranks of films that I recorded off the TV to save buying but now clearly need my own copy of anyway. Also I said nobody would ever displace Benjamin Whitrow's Mr Bennet in my heart (the true reason P&P 1995 is forever my favourite) but this one had a very good go at dislodging him by casting Edmund Gwenn (frequently one of the best things about any given 30s film he's in, as far as I'm concerned).

I am a bit tired for proper posts (partly for good reasons, too!) so have some gifs of a young Margaret Lockwood in The Beloved Vagabond (1936) with Maurice Chevalier. She was probably still 19 when they filmed it.

( Gifs under here )

Do you know what The Lady Vanishes is? Apart from a film I should have seen years ago; I feel deprived on behalf of a teenaged me who would have loved it to death. And apart from the oldest thing I have ever watched in my life (as far as I can think); the flickering was a culture shock to start with. Anyway, it's a perfect Yule-fandom discovered just too late and way too early, that's what it is.

( Cut for brief comments and gifs )