Peter Haining - Buried Passions: Maria Marten & The Red Barn Murder (Neville Spearman, 1980)
Jacket design by Danny Levy Blurb
The story of the murder in the Red Barn is without doubt one of the most famous melodramas in the world.
The killing of the village beauty Maria Marten by the young squire William Corder in the charming, almost isolated village of Polstead in Suffolk May 1827 has become a legend over the past one hundred and fifty years, familiar to countless thousands of people.
Peter Haining has now, however, researched history and come up with some surprising new facts. Maria was just not the virtuous village beauty callously seduced and then murdered when she had served her purpose; nor was William Corder, her lover, the black-hearted local squire bent on debauchery and crime. Such simplifications have come about for several reasons, yet notwithstanding the real facts, Maria and Corder are now regarded – wherever the tale is told – as the archetypal demure, cruelly-wronged maiden and mustachioed, unscrupulous Squire of melodrama. Indeed, many differing dramatisations take them as their models; and not a few of these plays are unashamedly based on what their authors imagined had happened under the decaying roof of the Red Barn. The facts, in this new assessment of the murder, make rather different, and perhaps even more fascinating, reading.
What the author has set out to do is to show how a basically unpleasant village killing became the crime of the last century. The facts present an amazing and melodramatic story of buried passions....
Profusely illustrated with line drawings and half-tones
Not a 'latest find', but a 'latest loan'. I ordered this from the local library during the throes of Tod Slaughter-itis last spring and all but forgot it existed until - at last! - notification this morning that the
Buried Passions have landed in Watney Market!
Those who've had the good fortune to consult Haining's investigations into
The Legend & Bizarre Crimes Of Spring Heeled Jack and
The Mystery & Horrible Murders Of Sweeney Todd will be only too aware that the great man was at his most deadly when he was trying to convince you that he was giving you the pure, unembellished "facts". Truth is, the enduring appeal of these books owes much to Haining
never allowing "facts" to get within spitting distance of his intrepid research and if there wasn't a little snippet of info he could twist to fit his theories, then he'd cheerfully invent one. His updated edition of
Sweeney Todd is so audacious even Montague Summers would've been tempted to tone it down a little.
Anyway, I can't believe I'm about to write this, but the early signs are that PH adopted a different tack for
Buried Passions as Polstead was next door to his own long-time parish of Boxford and he seems to have had a little more respect for local history. At just 128 pages - many of these given over to illustrations - it looks like we'll find out soon enough ....
*****
Maria Marten, or The Murder In The Red Barn (1935)
Blurb:
Squire William Corder is a shallow, evil, loathsome man whose heart is as black as the night. Yet his lack of virtue is concealed beneath a facade that is charming enough to fool the simple people of his village and powerful enough to seduce the pretty young maiden Maria Marten. While at a country dance in the Red Barn, Maria casts aside the love of the gypsy Carlos, a young man whose ragged shirt conceals a heart of gold and finds herself hopelessly drawn to the villainous Squire Corder... and to her doom. Learning that the young girl has become pregnant, Corder brutally murders her in an attempt to conceal his foul deeds.
Murder in the Red Barn was the then fifty-year old British stage actor Tod Slaughter's first feature film. His delightfully mad portrayal of Squire Corder was the first in a long line of celluloid lunatics the actor would play with unparalleled enthusiasm. Slaughter enjoys a tremendous cult following that endures to this day. His performances are heavy-handed, maniacal, utterly captivating and uniquely at home in the period settings of his films. Slaughter followed this film with his most famous, Demon Barber of Fleet Street. In Murder in the Red Barn, look for a supporting role featuring Dennis Hoey (Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman), who later went on to play Inspector Lestrade in the 1940's Universal Sherlock Holmes series with Basil Rathbone. Right from the moment he ambles onstage in a bizarre opening which sees the main players take their bows and curtsies before the audience, it's Tod Slaughter's show. The rest of the cast most likely give their all, but, in truth, that really isn't very much. Eric Portman makes a decent fist of the much put-upon Carlos and Sophie Stewart is competent, if hardly sparkling, as the heroine, but the camera just doesn't love them as it does him, plus they don't have his vast range of boldly drawn persona's to draw on, and he treats us to his entire repertoire in
The Murder In The Red Barn.
Once the formalities are out of the way, we find ourselves at the Red Barn where a dance is in full swing and Squire William Corder and Carlos the Gypsy are completing for the favours of the belle Maria. Carlos has youth, an absence of beer-belly and a face that doesn't look like a demented Toby Jug on his side, but wily old Corder holds all the aces; he's rich, he's a well-respected pillar of the community and better still, Maria's father owes him money and is easily persuaded to send his daughter around to the farmhouse for a cosy little chat. Confident of his success, Corder permits a crone to read his future in her crystal ball but when she foresees him swinging from a rope, he throws a moody and already we get the first glimpse of the monster beneath the benign exterior. "Throw that old hag out!" he orders his serfs in a fit of rage. Carlos, himself quick to anger and handy with a knife, intervenes on her behalf and that only serves to make the Squire even more furious: "Keep out of Polstead unless you want me to set the dogs on you!"
After the fracas, Maria duly pays her admirer a visit. Corder has the good grace to act all surprised and lays on the charm with a trowel before slipping in the all-important "no-one knows [you're here], do they?" Assured that her parents think she's at choir practice, Corder sets about the serious business of getting her legless. Maria's resolve wilts in the face of his smooth patter and enticing promises - "how would you like to see the world! London!" - and, one marriage proposal later, he's had his wicked way with her (off-screen, of course; this is 1935 after all). Maria is all for telling about their impending nuptials but Corder advises her to keep everything secret for the time being. Confused and not a little concerned, she hurries home, but who should be waiting to intercept her but Carlos! When her father catches them enjoying a chaste snog (Carlos really does love her and like I said, she's all mixed up just now), he jumps to the wrong conclusion: He really must pay his great friend Squire Corder a visit in his capacity as magistrate to see if something can be done about this ruffian and his band of low-lives!
Corder, of course, is delighted that the old fool has it in for his rival and promises he'll turn a blind eye should Marten have cause to administer rough justice to protect his daughter's virtue although, as no one knows better than he, it's a bit late for that. Then he high-tails it to London to ruin himself be losing six thousand guineas at the table, necessitating a swift return to Polstead and a quick woo of some mad old Doris with a fortune so he can settle his gambling debts.
Maria is pregnant and her father has banished her as a wanton. When she learns of Squire Corder's impending betrothal, she pays him a visit, explaining that she has nowhere else to go, and hadn't he promised to help her? Corder has the perfect solution in an instant: Maria will marry Carlos while he fleeces the old biddy as planned! Of course, Corder will slip her husband-to-be a few bob to help him out, and as a bonus, once they're both wed, Maria and he can still get together whenever they fancy some no-strings-attached hanky panky!
Maria doesn't share this vision of their rosy future and threatens to tell all to her father, so Corder needs to think fast and does. He explains to her that he didn't really mean what he just said, he only wished to make certain that she would "risk all" for him. Now he knows that her love is true they can be wed at once! Well, not "at once" as in this second, he has much to prepare first, but if she'll meet him by the tree next to the Red Barn, they can elope and tie the knot in the morning.
It's a grim old night and Maria spends a miserable time of it getting soaked through as she waits for her wicked seducer to put in an appearance. And who should happen to be passing but Carlos! He rattles out his "I love you, Maria!" mantra yet again, but it's too late for any of that. As he trundles off in high dudgeon, Corder finally arrives and ushers her out of the rain. But when she realises their destination, she has a moment of reluctance. The place just doesn't hold good memories for her.
"Don't you trust me?", he enquires aghast.
"Yes, my life is yours" she concedes.
"Yes, that's what I mean."
Only when they're inside does he make his true plans known. And they don't include Maria:
"You'll never see London! Do you think I'd sacrifice everything for a common little wench like you? Don't be afraid, Maria. You
shall be a bride. A bride of Death!"
One blood curdling chuckle later and he's dragged the shrieking girl across the barn some and shot her dead!
As the storm rages outside Corder gets stuck in with his spade (an atypically grim sequence sees him violently battering down the earth over her corpse), challenging the Heavens "Wake her! Wake her now, if you can!" Then - tragedy! He realises he's buried his pistol beside her but can't summon up the courage to retrieve it! Never mind, though, because for now he's free to marry Maud Sennett, insufferable, simpering old trout that she is! Free to pay off his gambling debts and save his good name! Free!
Naturally, Maria's disappearance is blamed on the hapless Carlos, and Corder calls in the Bow Street Runners on behalf of the distraught Mr. Marten. The fugitive, who remembers that Corder was the last person to be seen with her, pays him a visit on his wedding day. Corder feigns innocence at his insinuations - "I went to help her out of kindness. I can't help it. I'm like that" - all the while wondering how he can manipulate his pistol from his desk and shoot the blighter where he stands! As it happens, Corder is saved by the fortuitous intervention of his gambling pal, and Carlos is wounded as he climbs out of the window. Corder leads the Runners and local vigilantes on a hunt for the 'murderer', and where should he be hiding out. The Red Barn! It looks as if Corder has finally settled his hash, but he hasn't reckoned with a persistent sniffer dog who begins scooping out the dirt from a freshly dug hole. Corder's panicked insistence that they all leave the barn be because they have the killer and there's no point investigating a silly patch of disturbed soil the size of a grave gives him away. He's handed a shovel and told to get on with it ...
Corder's in the condemned sell now with a mob at the prison gates demanding justice, the curs! He's just received the good news that he'll be reprieved for a week as the hangman's gone sick and it's hardly likely anyone will step forward to volunteer for the position on a one-off.
He actually believes this until he's led cursing and fighting to the gallows.
Thanks Graham!