Alfred Hitchcock - Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV (Pan, 1960: Reinhardt , 1957)
Ghost-edited by Robert Arthur
Preface - Alfred Hitchcock
Arthur Williams - Being A Murderer Myself Edward Lucas White - Lukundoo William Sansom - A Woman Seldom Found Margaret St. Clair - The Perfectionist John Russell - The Price Of The Head Q. Patrick - Love Comes To Miss Lucy Saki - Srendi Vashtar Philip MacDonald - Love Lies Bleeding Jerome K. Jerome - The Dancing Partner M. R. James - Casting The Runes William Hope Hodgson - The Voice In The Night Robert S. Hichens - How Love Came To Professor Guildea Stanley Ellen - The Moment Of Decision James Francis Dwyer - A Jungle Graduate C. P. Donnel, jr. - Recipe For Murder Roald Dahl - Nunc Dimittus Richard Connell - The Most Dangerous Game John Collier - The Lady On The Grey A. M. Burrage - The Waxwork Thomas Burke - The Dumb Wife D. K. Broster - Couching At The Door Ray Bradbury - The October Game Robert Bloch - Water's Edge Robert Arthur - The Jokester Leonid Andreyev - The Abyss
In my experience, the 'Hitchcock's ghost-edited by Robert Arthur are excellent and Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV is in with a strong shout for series best, although the title may not be strictly accurate - I'm pretty sure the opening story was featured as an episode in one of his shows. As Hitchcock (?) is honest enough to stress in his too-short Preface, it wasn't always a case of them all being banned, more that "actors are only human" and would've had a time of it trying to depict certain sequences in Lukundoo and the like. Always thought this book would make a marvellous gift to somebody who fancied reading some horror stories but didn't know where to begin. A good mix of classics and some excellent lesser known works like The Dumb Wife and A Jungle Graduate.
You'd probably get away with adaptations of any of these today, and I wish somebody would put it to the test. The TV potential of say, Arthur's mortuary shocker The Jokester, Thomas Burke's grim as Hell offering and Bloch's adventure in a rat-infested death-trap is enormous - and has there ever been a faithful screen adaptation of The October Game?
weirdmonger said:
I bought the above hardback this morning for £1.50 in Frinton-on-Sea. Max Reinhardt Limited (1957). Book in reasonable condition. Dustwrapper as seen below.
Steve
You're quite right. 'Being A Murderer Myself' by "Arthur Williams" did appear as an episode of Hitchcock's TV show. The episode was called 'Arthur' and was first broadcast in 1959. Laurence Harvey played the title role.
'The Jokester' had already been an episode of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' in 1958.
'Water's Edge' also later appeared on the 'Alfred Hitchcock Hour' in 1964 with John Cassavetes.
A few more of these stories have had small or big screen adaptations too, either before or after this book came out
The best known is probably M. R. James' 'Casting The Runes' which became Jacques Tourneur's Fifties B-movie classic 'Night of the Demon' (Incidentally, on the subject of Aleister Crowley - as I have been elsewhere on this board - guess who the character of evil cultist, Julian Karswell is supposed to be based on... yeah, that's right. Him.)
H. H. Munro's 'Sredni Vashtar' has been filmed at least three times to my knowledge - most recently in 2003 by the BBC (It's also been made into a Czech cartoon which isn't something you see every day...).
William Hope Hodgson's 'The Voice In The Night' was adapted twice. Once as an episode of the late 1950s TV series 'Suspicion', and later in 1963 by the great Ishiro 'Godzilla' Honda (he also worked with Kurosawa) as the not-quite-so-great 'Matango, Fungus of Terror' AKA 'Attack of the Mushroom People'.
'The Most Dangerous Game' by Richard Connell was first filmed back in 1932 with Leslie Banks as Count Zaroff (General Zaroff in the original story) and Fay Wray & Robert Armstrong who would appear together again the following year in 'King Kong'. It's been remade about half a dozen times since.
I don't know of any adaptations of 'The October Game'.
Killercrab
The best known is probably M. R. James' 'Casting The Runes' which became Jacques Tourneur's Fifties B-movie classic 'Night of the Demon' (Incidentally, on the subject of Aleister Crowley - as I have been elsewhere on this board - guess who the character of evil cultist, Julian Karswell is supposed to be based on... yeah, that's right. Him.
Absolutely right about Karswell being supposedly based on Crowley .
Apparently there was a 1979 tv adaption of RUNES but I've not seen it. I read the short story last year after watching NIGHT OF THE DEMON - the film is *bigger* in feel - more dramatic - but the short story has an uneasy edge and arguably a better ending.
In some quarters M. R. James isn't seen as that good a writer - but I've enjoyed what I've read - particularly the very short LOST HEARTS which got a BBC Christmas Ghost stories adaption - myth and long memories say it was creepy - love to see this one sometime!
ade
Illustrated Man
This is one of my all time best anthologies, as it contains so many of my favourites- How Love Came To Prof Guildea, still gives me the creeps, no matter how many times I read it, Casting The Runes, Lukundoo, Price Of The Head and The Voice In The Night. I've always liked the cover art as well for some reason, very similar to that of the original cover of Pan Horror #2. And yes The Jungle Graduate is excellent.
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty. - Christine Campbell Thomson
Richard Connell - The Most Dangerous Game: "Oh, I give him his option, of course. He need not play the game if he doesn't wish to. If he does not wish to hunt, I turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once had the honor of serving as official knouter to the Great White Czar, and he has his own ideas of sport. Invariably, Mr. Rainsford, invariably they chose the hunt."
Zaroff, big game hunter and former General in the Cossack army, has bagged an impressive array of animal heads for his trophy room but, bored with his accomplishments, he retires to a private island in the Caribbean with his monstrous man-servant Ivan. Zardoff's pleasure is to lure ships onto the rocks and hunt down the survivors. When fellow hunter Sanger Rainsford washes up on the island, he gets his turn at being pursued across the quicksands of Death Swamp by the gun-toting maniac and his ferocious hounds ...
Robert Arthur - The Jokester: Serial practical joker Dave Bradley of The Express plays one of his mean pranks on old Pop Henderson, the slow-witted night attendant at the morgue, getting him in bother with Sarge Roberts who's been waiting for an opportunity to fire him. Bradley's second victim of the night is a little guy in a bar, who doesn't take kindly to being given the hot-foot. Unfortunately for Bradley, said little guy is Kid Wilkins, hot-tempered prize-fighter, who promptly punches him out, the journalist breaking his neck on the way down. When Bradley comes to he finds himself back in the morgue, and old Pops has had his fill of 'hilarious' jokes for one night ....
Jerome K. Jerome - The Dancing Partner: Furtwangen, Black Forest. On hearing his daughter Olga and her friends complaining about the clumsiness of the local young men, Herr Geibel, a toymaker of genius is inspired to create his masterpiece: Lieutenant Fritz, the mechanical dancing partner. Annette, “a bright, saucy little girl fond of frolic” is the first to put Fritz through his paces and, were she still capable of submitting a report when their waltz is eventually terminated, it’s certain she’d have mentioned his one, fatal flaw. He doesn’t know when to stop …
Edward Lucas White - Lukundoo: Stone learns the hard way that it doesn’t do to humiliate a witch-doctor. From carbuncle-like swellings on his body emerge tiny Negroid men, the heads of which he lops off with a razor. But it’s a never-ending battle and, forced to endure the shrill taunts and gesticulations of the pygmy’s, he’s driven to madness and death.
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty. - Christine Campbell Thomson
Post by thecoffinflies on Apr 11, 2009 9:33:50 GMT
It's maybe twenty years since I read this anthology, but I remember thinking even then that it's not that effects weren't good enough to make these on tv, but simply that some of the best stories: "A Woman Seldom Found", "The Abyss" - just wouldn't work on television. And "Lukundoo" is unpleasant enough, I guess, but I always thought a faithful SFX filmed version of it would be laughed off the screen. Some things are scarier when you imagine them than when you see a latex or indeed cgi version of them on your telly.
Careful, guys. Pantechnicon forum and website have been badly affected by a virus - you don't want to let that kind of thing happen here. I reckon this offending account would be best deleted for safety's sake.
Robert Arthur's The Jokester was dramatised for the South African radio series Beyond Midnight, which was broadcast between 1968 and 1970. Rarely, if ever, were acknowledgements given for story sources, but this is the same plot as in the radio programme.
Post by jepersonoatcake on Oct 7, 2013 2:50:52 GMT
Nunc Dimittis by Roald Dahl has also been dramatised: it was one of the Tales Of The Unexpected episodes from the time when only Dahl's stories were being adapted for that series, but was screened under the title of "Depart In Peace". Presumably, Anglia Television was worried that their viewers wouldn't understand Latin.
[i]The poster previously known as Oatcake. All Hail THE GREAT SMELLY ONE![/i]
Richard Connell - The Most Dangerous Game: "Oh, I give him his option, of course. He need not play the game if he doesn't wish to. If he does not wish to hunt, I turn him over to Ivan. Ivan once had the honor of serving as official knouter to the Great White Czar, and he has his own ideas of sport. Invariably, Mr. Rainsford, invariably they chose the hunt."
Zaroff, big game hunter and former General in the Cossack army, has bagged an impressive array of animal heads for his trophy room but, bored with his accomplishments, he retires to a private island in the Caribbean with his monstrous man-servant Ivan. Zardoff's pleasure is to lure ships onto the rocks and hunt down the survivors. When fellow hunter Sanger Rainsford washes up on the island, he gets his turn at being pursued across the quicksands of Death Swamp by the gun-toting maniac and his ferocious hounds ...
7th Shocktober - Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game, courtesy of a Pan paperback of Alfred Hitchcock presents Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV -part two (copyright 1957 15th Printing 1973!). Although I've no time for hunting, this is a terrific story. It made a terrific film back in '32, but this is stripped, of comedy relief, love interest, anything extraneous...it's top hunter Rainsford falling overboard from a friend's yacht en route to South America, and washing up ashore on Ship-Trap Island, home of General Zaroff, a dark reflection of himself. Zaroff, exiled from Russia after the revolution, has accomplished everything there is to accomplish in the field of hunting (and has the heads on his wall to prove it), so has had to create a new form of hunted - human beings. Rainsford is appalled (he believes prey has no feelings or reason so cannot conceive of hunting humans) and refuses to hunt with Zaroff. The disappointed General decides to give Rainsford the chance to be the hunted. If the American can avoid capture or death for three days, Zaroff will return him to civilisation. A superb battle of wits ensues. A good enough story to be interpreted in many different ways, especially Jesus Franco's La Comtesse Perverse and the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target
I reckon this offending account would be best deleted for safety's sake.
