Dickson Carr, John: The Hollow Man

This is one of the classic locked-room mysteries of detective fiction first published here in 1935.   The
action takes place in and around the Russell Square area of Bloomsbury in London even though the
author was American.   In fact, many of his works are set in England.   This particular one features
Dr Gideon Fell, one of Carr's two main protagonists, eccentric, large and highly intelligent, a great
friend with Inspector Hadley of Scotland Yard.   The latter is called to the scene of the crime while
visiting Fell who accompanies him on his investigation.   Despite the acclaim which the novel has
received, I found it a little on the tedious side with overmuch elaboration of the possible explanations
that are offered, particularly a rather long exposition by Fell of different ways of purportedly undetectable murders.   The solution is ingenious and unexpected though I confess I am not one of
those who claim to know who the murderer is almost before the corpse is cold!

Mozart: Die Zauberflote at La Monnaie

I have several dvd recordings of 'Die Zauberflote' from celebrated opera houses such as The Met in
New York and La Scala, Milan.   I have never reviewed any of them or any other opera I have recorded but this one is special.
Staged at La Monnaie (Die Munt in Flemish) in Brussels between 25 and 27 September 2018, this is
in some ways a stripped down performance.   There is minimal scenery and a competent cast though
Sabine Devieilhe is introduced in the programme note as a leading performer of the Queen of the Night' role.   What makes this so different from all other versions is the addition of 10 amateur non-singers.   In a moving sequence, five blind women recite their personal histories, one after the other with a matter of fact tone whether their blindness has been
from birth, later illness or accident.   This is followed by five men relating their experiences as victims of fire which has disfigured their bodies and faces though not grotesquely so.   There is then
interaction between them with the blind women feeling the naked upper bodies of the men in what
is decidedly non-erotic fashion.   Even with these sequences and earlier actions on stage, the length
of the opera is less than that of some I have and much the same as others.   Not having the language
skills to follow why what happened did happen in relation to the normal unfolding of the opera (the broadcast was on ARTE German channel), I found the inclusion very moving as I am sure those who
saw the live performances did.

London Film Festival 2018

As in previous years, we made a modest selection from the many films being shown, each year
bringing more than before.
Our first selection on Friday 12 October was 'They'll Love Me When I'm Dead', a documentary
about Orson Welles' attempts to finance and make 'The Other Side of the World' which remained
unfinished at his death though there is now a final cut being shown.   An interesting though somewhat
disjointed depiction of his efforts to raise funds to complete the film which starred John Huston as
the director whose last day on earth was the subject matter of the film.   Susan Strasberg plays an
acerbic critic (possibly modelled on Pauline Kael, with cameos from numerous  directors and a larger
role for Peter Bogdanovich.   Welles' then current companion, Oja Kodar, is also prominent.   With
its reliance on footage shot at the time, there is not quite the coherence expected in documentaries
but what is there tells the story effectively and leave one wondering whether the film, if finished by
Welles himself, would have lived up to his earlier masterpieces.
The following day we saw the latest Coen Brothers film, 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs', an episodic
film in six parts, the underlying theme being death.   The framing is the use of the eponymous book
of tales whose pages intersperse the sections.   The first and title tale has Tim Brook Nelson as a
famed gunslinging singer who gets his come-uppance after some lively and humorous moments.
'Near Algodones' has James Franco trying to rob and bank and paying the penalty, again humorously
done.  'Meal Ticket' has Liam Neeson as a travelling showman with a legless and armless reciter of
Shakespeare and other works which went on too long and was singularly unfunny.   "' All Gold Canyon' tells of a prospector who finds gold, is attacked but kills his attacker.   Zoe Kazan in 'The
Girl who Got Rattled' is travelling on a wagon train with her brother who is killed by Red Indians;
she stays with the wagon train and accepts a proposal of marriage from one of the wagon masters
only for her to meet the same fate as her brother.   The final episode, ' The Mortal Remains' has
a varied set of passengers in a stagecoach which is obviously bound for Purgatory or worse.   As
with most such films, the episodes are of varying quality, length and content with the first being
definitely the most amusing and the Liam Neeson segment the most tedious.
Our next visit took us back to the South Bank to see 'Lights of Old Broadway', a charming silent
film from 1925.   Marion Davis plays twins separated at birth, one raised by a wealthy family, the
other in an Irish shanty area of New York.   The latter has most of the screen time and Davis again
shows how good she was at both comedy and drama.   The climax of the film is a colour sequence
showing the inauguration of electric lighting with Davis helping to save the day when the lights
fail to work.
Then a long day with two films of which the first was the remake of 'Suspiria'.   Very long and very
glossily produced, this was a great disappointment.   Chloe Grace Moretz in a brief opening sequence
was probably the best thing in it, Tilda Swinton's triple parts being something of a gimmick.   The film's location has been moved to 1970s Berlin which makes one wonder why a cutting edge dance
academy would appear in skimpy costumes spoilt by the granny pants noticeably on show.   A
sequence with a dancer being contorted and broken by unseen forces in time with the music from the
practice dance next door is effective but, this apart, there was no tension nor any thrills.   The later
film was 'The Man Who Killed Don Quixote', the one Terry Gilliam had tried to make for decades
losing Jean Rochefort and John Hurt along the way.   Adam Driver is a director making a film of
Don Quixote following up an earlier short black and white version set in the same location.   Quixote
is played by Jonathan Pryce and, as one would expect, he is the best thing in what is something of a
mess of a film.   Further viewing may change my mind about it and I can see it becoming a cult
favourite.
'The Favourite' is a well-acted potential box-office hit about the lesbian activities of Queen Anne,
played by Olivia Coleman with Rachel Weisz playing Sarah Churchill whose favours lose out to
thos of her conniving cousin, Emma Stone.   This is an enjoyable film which could be looked on as
an historical rom-com with a difference.    The male roles provide excellent support but the joy of
the film is a quick interchanges between the three leading ladies.
Our final visit took us to see 'Shadow', a Chinese martial arts film in which Zhang Yimou again shows his cinematic mastery.   The story of adjoining kingdoms, Pei and Jing, in an uneasy peace broken by the Pei Great Commander who objects to his nation's subservience to Jing, turns on the
fact that he is actually a shadow of the real leader, a role often held in ancient China to avert the
assassination of the true ruler.   In some ways this is irrelevant as the delights of the film are the
gloriously filmed scenery and the brilliantly filmed fighting.   Wth the latter, the highlight is possibly
the use of umbrella-like weapons with the spokes opening out as deadly swords while, in one sequence they are used like mobile one person tanks careering down a muddy street with the soldier
sitting on the inside having little control over where he is going.   I think this was the film of the
Festival for me.

 

Frightfest 2018

Having failed to make my comments immediately after the Frightfest weekend, I have been less than
speedy in dealing with this.   We saw only fewer films this year apart from the year at Shepherd's Bush.
24 August Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich.   A nazi-style puppet is found in his dead brother's
room by a man who has returned home after a divorce.   He decides to sell it at a small town convention which is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the infamous Andre Toulon murders.   His
boss and the girl next door go with him to the convention where the spirit of Toulon somehow brings
both his and other puppets to life.   The puppets embark on a killing spree which leads to lots of
bloody mayhem until the lead actor works out that he has to deal with Toulon's malevolent spirit.
Enjoyable hokum with no real merit.
24 August The Most Assassinated Woman In The World.   Paula Maxa was the headline star of the
Grand Guignol Theatre in Paris during the 1930s.   She was graphically murdered more than 10,000
times in over 60 different ways.   This fictional tale based on her life there is atmospheric and
evocative.   It combines real life murder and its investigation with the stage happenings in a very
real way.   The acting is sound and the cinematography excellent.
25 August The LaPlace's Demon refers to a mathematical theory that if someone knew the precise
loaction and movement of every atom in the universe they could predict everything down to the
smallest detail.   A group of scientists are invited to a remote island where the host who only appears
on video asks them to prove the theory.   He tells them they have become a part of his experiment
which requires them to work it out before being killed - which they are, one by one.   A very moody
Italian drama which failed to hold my attention.
26 August The Man Who Killed Hitler and then Bigfoot.   Sam Elliot plays an unsung hero who
decades before, assassinated Hitler in an undercover operation that was so secret that no records
of it exist.   Decades later he is approached to find and kill Bigfoot which is the carrier of a deadly
disease that could wipe out mankind.   After a leisurely build-up showing his regular quiet life, he
agrees and does hunt Bigfoot down.   Elliot is, as ever, first-rate and the elegiac tone of the film
makes for anything but a scaring film: it is almost a gentle evocation of life in the Canadian wilds.
We might have seen more films but a determination not to overload the weekend coupled with the
necessary omission of some possibles because of their timing, e.g. `Gaspar Noe's 'Climax' which
closed the weekend, kept our viewing to these four.   The last was by far the best of the four, the
first the worst though an enjoyable worst, the second the most stylish and the third possibly one
that I am under-rating.

Black, Benjamin: The Black-Eyed Blonde

Written by John Banville under the pen-name he uses for thrillers, this is one of several attempts to
update Raymond Chandler by continuing the Philip Marlowe story.   Marlowe has a new client, the
blonde of the title, who wants him to find her former lover, Nico Peterson.   This is just the start as
he tangles with hoodlums and gang bosses as well as bedding his client.   An old friend who was
obliged to relocate in Mexico to escape prosecution is also involved.   After being beaten up more
than once ( this does raise the question of why he is not simply killed though this would end the
book), Marlowe works things out with the denouement seeing his old friend who is the real
villain killed and the blonde taken into custody.   Black captures the world-weariness that came to
pervade the Chandler books and does turn some Chandleresque phrases effectively.  Well written
as would be expected of the author and a fine salute to the originals.

Fuller, Samuel: Brainquake

I had not known that Samuel Fuller had been a novelist in the 1930s before turning to film after the
Second World War.   He then returned to writing novels later in life and this 'lost' novel was written
at the start of the 1990s.   In some ways this is a classic noir with a beautiful woman leading a man
astray but it is rather more than that.   The opening with a baby shooting its father startles and is an
unusual introduction to the two main characters.   Paul who suffers from blackouts, hence the title
of 'Brainquake' witnesses the shooting from the park bench where he has been in the habit of
watching the beautiful woman who is the baby's mother.   He is a bagman while she, unbeknownst
to him, is having an affair with the dead man's brother.   He has been delivering flowers to her which
he bought himself and, on one delivery, saves the baby's life which leads to an apparently idyllic and
passionate affair.   This is against the bagman 'code' but he ignores this, steals a large delivery and
flies, with his love, Michelle, and the baby to France.   She was raised there and is able to find refuge
with an old friend.   The mob, however, are after them with a Father Flanagan, their main enforcer
soon on their trail.   There are, however, many twists before the final chapter.   The writing is not
as spare and taut as that of some writers of noir but the additional words fill in the background an
the characters to make this a really fine example of the genre.

Fforde, Jasper: Shades of Grey

Set in an unspecified future on a planet where one's colour designation, which is set by the
colours one is able to see, determines one's rank in life though upward and downward
mobility is possible by marriage.   The story tells of a Red, Eddie Russett, who accompanies
his father to what is supposed to be a locum position in an area of the planet well away from
the civilised centre.   Here he meets and falls in love with a Grey called Jane who is rebellious
and anything but friendly at first.   However, a series of events including his volunteering for
what is expected to be a deadly expedition changes this.   This is a definitely eccentric world
with deadly trees, a self-mending road which absorbs anything left on the surface and a
single rather un-roadworthy van.   Quite enjoyable though I missed a lot of the satire, I am
sure.   it has made me interested in reading the two sequels should they still be available.

Izzo, Jean-Claude: Total Chaos

This is another book that I bought some years ago but have only just found the time to read.
It is the first book of the writer's Marseilles trilogy which the introductory eulogy describes
as Mediterranean noir.   The difference from other crime novels considered as noirs is that
it deals more with the general background of organised crime rather than the standard
concentration on a single event and its ramifications.   It is certainly different from most
crime novels, written in the first person singular by the police detective protagonist.   There
are several amorous dalliances to round out his character in the book which deals with his
relationship with two childhood friends who, unlike him, stayed on the criminal side of life.
Their separate deaths provide the impetus for the book which, even with the occasional
digression on the background, is pacy and interesting.   The translation reads well as I
suspect that the original may not have been in standard French in view of the setting.

Vargas, Fred: An Uncertain Place

Commissaire Adamsberg, together with Danglard and Estalere, attends a conference in London
when seventeen feet in shoes are found at the gates of Highgate Cemetery.   Returning to Paris,
the three are immediately involved in the violent killing of a rich old man whose body has been
completely dismembered.   The man's gardener is a suspect as he is the prime beneficiary but
Adamsberg hides him away as he believes him innocent.   Similar deaths have occured in
Germany with the link being that of distant relationship to a Serbian forebear.   Adamsberg
goes to the ancestral village where he narrowly escapes death.   His career is at risk as one of
those involved is a senior magistrate who has the power to get him dismissed but he does have
the help of others.   The plot is very complicated but it does eventually make sense with the
perpetrator finally being unmasked, again with some risk to Adamsberg.   Well up to this
excellent writer's standard.

Carroll, Jonathan: Bathing the Lion

Five residents of a small New England town have exactly the same dream even though one of them is
many miles away on a flight to Europe.   Some of them know each other, some not.   The story
develops almost magically as they eventually learn they have been sent to Earth from elsewhere.
The plot development is anything but straightforward with a strong f surreality pervading it.   Though
as well written as all of Carroll's books have been, I did find this one less gripping and memorable.
It has actually been a few months since I read the novel and I confess its impact has not lasted.

Connolly, John: The Wrath of Angels

Two old friends out hunting in the forests of Maine come across a crashed plane in which they
find a large pile of cash which they divide and are then careful with how they spend it, often
anonymously giving cash to thosein need in their community.   Their secret is known only to
the brother of one and the daughter of another.   They ask Charlie Parker to find the plane
which has remained undiscovered to the present day.   He agrees and finds himself involved in
various event which bring in characters from previous books until the finale at the site of the
plane which involves supernatural happenings.   Again, the book is well written, almost too
much so for a thriller, the occasional digressions tending to slow down what is already a rather
leisurely exposition.  Connolly is, however, skilled enough to ensure that the reader's interest
is held.   With books like this, I do sometimes wonder how the book is written - is there a
simple abc plot which is then elaborated or is the plot developed almost chronologically with
diversions occuring almost by accident.

Fowler, Christopher: Bryant and May Strange Tide

A young woman's body is found chained to a post on the banks of the River Thames in a place
with very limited access.   The Peculiar Crimes Unit are given the case which seems insoluble.
It is discovered that the dead woman had been taking courses at a  life-style clinic  which seems
to be above board.   However, the clinic is owned by an Armenian refugee who somehow got
to London and set up a new identity for himself which he changed when it suited his plans.  His
female partner runs the clinic and knows about his background.   Bryant is technically off duty
through illness as he keeps having hallucinations about the past but it turns out later in the book
that he had been poisoning himself with fumes from the silver skull he kept on his desk.   This
discovery leads to his being cured but May is then suspected of murder, not only because he
was the last known person with the murdered woman but mainly because his scarf was used to
strangle her.   With the usual digressions into the byways ofLondon's history, especially the
more obscure elements, the story maintains a good pace until the final chapter.

Connolly, John: The Burning Soul

Set in the small Maine town of Pastor's Bay where a 14 year old girl has been abducted, the main
suspect is Randall Haight who lives alone and keeps apart from local affairs.   Charlie Parker is
asked by the lawyer representing him to investigate which he does even though he finds Haight a
dislikeable person.   He learns that Haight and another had previously killed a black girl when all
were in their early teens with both the murderers being released and given new identities.   In a
rather convoluted story it turns out that the other killer has also moved to Maine, well away from
the scene of the original crime.   The denouement comes as a surprise but not a far-fetched one.
The writing is denser than in most thrillers but none the worse for it.