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Post by Dr Strange on Aug 18, 2011 17:58:02 GMT
Here's the latest US teaser trailer for the new film version - the UK trailer will have the Hammer Films logo properly in place and a different voice over... www.youtube.com/watch?v=arixaTWmIA0Looks like some fresh twists to the plot in there, but I think this looks very promising indeed. Yeah, that does look good.  |
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Post by dem on Aug 21, 2011 12:34:45 GMT
Nigel Kneale's television script sets the story's events firmly in 1925 - there's a specific reference by one of the office clerks (played by Andy Nyman, future co-author of 'Ghost Stories' on stage) to 'the new Charlie Chaplin' - 'He eats his boots!' 'The Gold Rush' came out in '25. Hill hates the TV version. I'm a fan of the TV film - the changes Kneale makes lead to a better TV drama. My favourite version, though, is the stage play - I love the way the whole process of adaptation becomes part of the plot, the mix of narration and drama - which I've happily used myself for my radio stuff - and the way the audience's imagination is exercised through description alone. Thanks for clearing that up, Lurkio. For the first thirty pages i'd have sworn it was set circa 1900 which is why that line came as a surprise and i noted it down. Not that it makes much difference: in six months time i'll be droning on about "Susan Hill's Victorian ghost story ...." "The young woman with the wasted face ... with the skin stretched over her bones, I could scarcely bear to look at her. She was tall, she wore a bonnet type of hat ... I suppose to try and conceal as much as she could of her face, poor thing."We've just left Alice Drablow's funeral, a suitably gloomy occasion with just Arthur Kipps, Mr. Jerome the estate agent and the undertaker's men in attendance, although Arthur periodically glimpses another party watching from the sidelines, a young woman in a long faded black dress. At one stage she appears to have a brood of twenty children in tow. When Kipps mentions her to Mr. Jerome, the man has a terrible turn and Arthur tries to usher him inside the church to rest. Jerome won't hear of it. Back at The Gifford Arms, it's glaringly apparent that no-one wishes to speak of the dead woman and, for all that there's a land auction in progress, not a single party is interested in buying Eel Marsh House. i've still two thirds to go, but the novel will have to take an alarming plunge downhill for it to earn a "perfectly awful" from me. |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Aug 21, 2011 14:26:35 GMT
i've still two thirds to go, but the novel will have to take an alarming plunge downhill for it to earn a "perfectly awful" from me. It is mostly grammatically correct, I will give you that! But it is about as banal as a ghost story could possibly be. We shall discuss it further when you have finished it. Let me just note that the ghost is over-reacting quite a bit. |
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Post by dem on Aug 31, 2011 9:31:28 GMT
stalled on this, not through any lack of interest, more waiting in vain for an hour or so's peace to conclude it as, my guess is Susan Hill's intended it as a read-in-one sitting novel. sadly, too many distractions mean i've still fifty pages to go.
Across Nine Lives Causeway, courtesy of the lugubrious Mr. Keswick's pony and trap. Kipps's first glimpse of the isolated Eel Marsh House and another visitation from the woman in black who's lurking among the graves out back, withered face even worse for wear than at the funeral. He's arranged for Keswick to return for him at dusk, but a thick fog intervenes, and it looks like he's marooned until morning. Kipps foolishly wanders the treacherous marsh and is soon hopelessly lost in the mists. A child's piercing scream, and he watches appalled as a pony and trap sink in the quicksands. His first thought is Keswick, but why would he be so rash as to bring an infant with him on a night like this?
Keswick shows up unharmed. Despite the appalling conditions, he's risked his life as his conscience won't allow him to abandon a callow stranger to a night alone in that house.
Safely delivered to the Gifford Arms, Kipps now accepts that he's up against supernatural forces, and also that everyone at Crythin Gifford bar himself knows the dark secret of Eel Marsh House. He resolves to return across the causeway and see the business through.
Fortunately, taste is not a consideration of mine - i find it impossibly restrictive - but JoJo's warning of ultimate disappointment continues to nag like some evil gremlin. i've had such a good time with The Woman In Black so far that i genuinely hope that, once finished, we find ourselves in disagreement over it's virtues or lack of same.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Aug 31, 2011 11:24:00 GMT
JoJo's warning of ultimate disappointment continues to nag like some evil gremlin. Oh no! What have I done! |
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Post by dem on Sept 1, 2011 18:33:49 GMT
relax, my dear m. lapin. gremlin vanquished! May contain spoilers When Kipps makes it clear that he'll be staying overnight at the haunted house, Mr. Daily insists he takes along one of his dogs for company. Spider the terrier in tow, he crosses to the marshland, determined to face down it's ghosts. strange noises emanate from behind a keyhole-less door which Kipps has previously tried and failed to budge, Once darkness falls, it opens of its own accord to reveal a nursery, spotlessly clean, the one room in Eel Marsh house that feels lived in. But it also has an aura of suffering, despondency and hopelessness, powerful enough to plunge Kipps into a pitch black depression. A repeat of the screaming child/ sinking pony trap episode does nothing to lighten his mood. A whistle from the marshes has the desired effect on Spider who belts off to answer the summons, only to be sucked down in the quicksand. Arthur pulls off a daring rescue, nearly killing them both in the process. All the while, the woman in black looks down from the barred nursery window. This time it's Mr. Daily who comes to check on him and Kipps needs no persuasion to leave behind the house and it's incorporeal resident for good. As Kipps recuperates, his kindly host finally imparts the history of Jenny Humfrye, the unmarried mother who reluctantly gave over her son, Nathaniel, to Mrs. Drablow, and the tragedy which befell him. Consumer by grief and a thirst for revenge on the sister she blames for Nathaniel's drowning, Jenny lived out her days a mad and embittered spinster. On her death, aged only thirty-six, the haunting began. Mr. Daily has left the worst until last. Although sightings of the woman in black have become less frequent in recent years, on each occasion she walks abroad a child dies, hence the ghostly brood Kipps glimpsed at the funeral. With this ominous revelation, those readers with a working knowledge of the ghost story can predict the final tragedy, but its crushing inevitability makes it all the more horrible. ********* i'm not sure i'm as demanding as JoJo, but i thought it was rather brilliant myself. naming a chapter Whistle And I'll Come To You is a contrivance that could rebound horribly if the reader is at all MRJ informed and detests your novel, but i'm sure it was intended as a tribute. in fact, the entire novel reads like a celebration of classic Victorian & Edwardian supernatural fiction (Hill would later edit a rather pointless thirteen story cash-in anthology of the 'Best' examples of the genre). The liberal use of every trad gothic ghost story prop she can think of, the short page count, the potential for lurid cover artwork: admittedly it's bereft of violence and bad sex interludes but, had The Woman In Black come ten years earlier, Peter Haining would have ran through a wall to nab it for New English Library, of that you can be sure. |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 1, 2011 19:31:48 GMT
She was over-reacting a bit, though, do you not agree?
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Post by mattofthespurs on Sept 1, 2011 19:42:01 GMT
She was over-reacting a bit, though, do you not agree? No, not for the first time, I don't agree. Although I agree that she may have read a book about ghosts in the past that may have influenced her. The damned plagarist! Burn her at the stake. I certainly think less of her as a person, nay human being, for this act.  |
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Post by dem on Sept 1, 2011 20:56:44 GMT
in that Jenny Humfrye died blaming her sister for what was a tragic accident and nobody's fault then, yes, i'd have to agree she over-reacts, likewise in bringing about the deaths of all those other little kids out of sheer vindictiveness. but there's a big diminished responsibility thing going on. watching from that nursery window, helpless to prevent her child sinking the quicksand has permanently unhinged her. Hill doesn't really tell us all that much about Jenny, but i don't remember anything to suggest she had a spiteful bone in her body prior to Nathaniel's death.
such is my sage and solemn verdict.
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Post by Shrink Proof on May 31, 2012 18:39:34 GMT
Well, what goes around comes around. The play of "The Woman in Black" returns to the Scarborough stage next November. Not to Alan Ayckbourn's Stephen Joseph Theatre, sadly, but to the Futurist Theatre, literally on the seafront facing the beach. Casting yet to be announced, but here's hoping it's as good as last time round, though that's a tall order. www.futuristtheatre.co.uk/shows+on/19-11-2012 |
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Post by jamesdoig on May 31, 2012 21:11:40 GMT
I see the film of The Woman in Black is finally out here in Australia to no fanfare - I've been looking forward to it, but I bet it won't last long in the cinemas.
Finished Susan Hill's Mrs De Winter recently. No happy ending there.
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Post by robertmammone on Jun 1, 2012 10:00:04 GMT
I see the film of The Woman in Black is finally out here in Australia to no fanfare - I've been looking forward to it, but I bet it won't last long in the cinemas. Finished Susan Hill's Mrs De Winter recently. No happy ending there. I saw it last weekend James - not a patch on the tv adaptation. And the ending! Jesus Christ... |
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Post by noose on Jun 1, 2012 10:24:50 GMT
The ending was SUCH a let down. Nearly threw my bottle of brewski through the telly...
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Post by jamesdoig on Jun 1, 2012 22:14:56 GMT
I saw it last weekend James - not a patch on the tv adaptation. And the ending! Jesus Christ... Oh shit. Anyway, I like Susan Hill - her last couple of books are terrific, but usually end up in the remainder pile:   |
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Post by Dr Strange on Jun 5, 2012 10:25:45 GMT
The ending was SUCH a let down. Nearly threw my bottle of brewski through the telly... Completely agree - terrible ending. The Awakening is a much better film. |
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