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Post by dem bones on Dec 3, 2008 23:22:41 GMT
 The Phantom FootstepsA popular novella in its day and not without reason, Michael Arlen's The Gentleman From America tells the funny but ultimately horrible and tragic story of how tourist Howard Cornelius Pile fell foul of Mayfair lushes Quiller and Keir-Anderson when he took their Ā£500 bet. To win the money, Pile has to last a whole night in the haunted house belonging to Quiller's aunt with only a candle and his revolver for company. "I hope you have better luck than the last man who spent a night in that room. He was strangled." Quiller has thoughtfully provided a book for him should he get bored - Ivor Pelham Morley's Tales Of Terror For Tiny Tots (don't bother looking for it on Amazon). Despite himself - for he is not a superstitious man - Pile settles down to read a pleasant little something called The Phantom Footsteps, a delightful penny dreadful detailing the appalling fate of two sisters when a homicidal maniac breaks into their Belgrade home. The gentleman from America is badly affected by the gory story so isn't at his best when the apparition with long arms appears at the foot of his bed ... Seven years later and shortly after the Great War the trio are reunited. Pile is in a genial mood, but he's sure they played a trick on him and would appreciate an explanation of what happened that night after he shot the ghost. So Quiller tells him ...
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Dec 4, 2008 11:29:08 GMT
I remember this one so well...except the ending.
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Post by pulphack on Dec 7, 2008 20:33:49 GMT
Arlen suffered because of his one bestseller - it was SO huge that it fostered critial discontent, and his mannered style is not for everyone. which is probably why it didn't catch on long-term. but he did create the Falcon, detective hero of a whole series of B's with Tom Conway. and his tales of Mayfair life with Shelmerdene and her friends as a recurrent cast have a charm that has perhaps grown with time. certainly, the late Peter Tinniswood (comedy writer best remembered for his cricketing Brigadier, and the I Didn't Know You Cared series) was a fan - his seventies novel Shemerelda is very different to most of his books, and this puzzled me for years until i stumbled on Arlen. in truth, it's a beautifully observed homage. do check out any Arlen if you get the chance.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 7, 2008 21:23:05 GMT
I'm going to give some of his other stories another try because i'm sure my problem with them was that i was expecting A Gentleman From America every time and, of course, that was a one-off. It puts me in mind of something R. Chetwynd-Hayes might have written on those occasions when he toned down the idiosyncratic *ahem* humour and went for a relatively straight horror story (and yes, that did happen). Are the majority of the Mayfair/ Shemerelda stories more crime orientated?
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Post by pulphack on Dec 10, 2008 14:04:39 GMT
i think that part of arlen's problem in asessing him these days is that he touched on mnay genres, but only in brief and oblique ways. in the same way that ghoul of golders green is horror but only sort of, so his forays into crime are similarly angled. his main concern was chronicling the lives and relationships of the world he created, so it falls to some stories to be involved in crime, or the apparently weird, but only really as a backdrop. what he does have with the passage of time is a uniqueness that attracts you because of the way in which he tells the story, rather than the story itself. so if you like one, then you may like others even though they may ostensibly be about subjects that you'd usually swerve.
(ps - you're safe, he never went near sf!)
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Post by timothymayer on Oct 12, 2010 13:09:02 GMT
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 16, 2021 14:33:28 GMT
"The Gentleman from America" was adapted for the screen as THE FATAL NIGHT (1948), a film that now seems to be lost. (It is not even on YouTube!) Everyone who has seen it thinks it is the most terrifying film ever made, although it must be noted that they were very young when they saw it. |
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Sept 16, 2021 14:41:47 GMT
"The Gentleman from America" was adapted for the screen as THE FATAL NIGHT (1948), a film that now seems to be lost. (It is not even on YouTube!) Everyone who has seen it thinks it is the most terrifying film ever made, although it must be noted that they were very young when they saw it. Did they ever discover a lost film or TV show that was thought to be a classic, and discover it was actually rubbish? A lot of BBC shows from the 1960s and 1970s are lost. It's a pity as they should swap with today's reality shows. it would be nice if they lost most of these. |
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Sept 16, 2021 15:03:32 GMT
"The Gentleman from America" was adapted for the screen as THE FATAL NIGHT (1948), a film that now seems to be lost. (It is not even on YouTube!) Everyone who has seen it thinks it is the most terrifying film ever made, although it must be noted that they were very young when they saw it. Did they ever discover a lost film or TV show that was thought to be a classic, and discover it was actually rubbish? A lot of BBC shows from the 1960s and 1970s are lost. It's a pity as they should swap with today's reality shows. it would be nice if they lost most of these. I just discovered from looking for missing TV shows, and this is amazing, that there is a black market in missing Doctor Who episodes! Apparently The Web of Fear episode two was stolen in transit from Nigeria. It's all very bizarre. I have no idea what the Web of Fear is, but it involves Yetis in the London Underground, which isn't like an alligator, I can't imagine you can flush a Yeti down a loo. Fandom is so odd. They keep things all to themselves, but it seems pointless, as who can you boast to? Jojo, do you have it? |
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Post by helrunar on Sept 16, 2021 15:37:53 GMT
Fandom can be beautiful and terrible. Dem Bones made some astute comments about the psychodynamics of genre fandom conventions years ago on a thread here, and I concur from my occasional attendance of Dark Shadows clambakes a couple of decades ago.
Some people who have various stripes of paranoid narcissistic personality disorder also happen to be "big name" genre fans. I don't think being a fan necessarily means you're compulsive, addictive and possessive but all of that can definitely go with the terrain.
Princess, if you've never read The Aspern Papers by that elegant Boston lady Henry James, you should take a look. There was a film version in 2018 or thereabouts that I quite liked, but almost nobody else did. The film added a prominent gay/bisexual slant to the proceedings which was not in the novel--I think the filmmakers were playing on things that have been written about Henry James' personal life.
H.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Sept 16, 2021 15:59:13 GMT
Princess, if you've never read The Aspern Papers by that elegant Boston lady Henry James, you should take a look. There was a film version in 2018 or thereabouts that I quite liked, but almost nobody else did. The film added a prominent gay/bisexual slant to the proceedings which was not in the novel--I think the filmmakers were playing on things that have been written about Henry James' personal life. H. When Middoth mentioned Colin Wilson I watched most of an interview. And Wilson said when he was young he thought Henry James was one of the great English novelists. But he later changed his mind. Do you understand why he might have thought this? |
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Post by dem bones on Sept 16, 2021 16:19:13 GMT
When Middoth mentioned Colin Wilson I watched most of an interview. And Wilson said when he was young he thought Henry James was one of the great English novelists. But he later changed his mind. Do you understand why he might have thought this? Because he was American? Sorry, misread it. |
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Sept 16, 2021 16:21:10 GMT
When Middoth mentioned Colin Wilson I watched most of an interview. And Wilson said when he was young he thought Henry James was one of the great English novelists. But he later changed his mind. Do you understand why he might have thought this? Because he was American? Bah! Guess what? You Are A Monster! |
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Post by dem bones on Sept 16, 2021 16:22:41 GMT
No, seriously, I misread it. I've no idea why Wilson would have changed his mind about the guy's writing.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Sept 16, 2021 16:23:57 GMT
When Middoth mentioned Colin Wilson I watched most of an interview. And Wilson said when he was young he thought Henry James was one of the great English novelists. But he later changed his mind. Do you understand why he might have thought this? Because he was American? Sorry, misread it. I've decided not to speak to you again. Unless you send me virtual flowers. |
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