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Post by dem bones on Feb 28, 2017 9:20:59 GMT
Raunchy TV series Father Brown, based on characters created by G. K. Chesterton, has attracted no little comment on this board of late, but what of the original stories? This being among the most anthologised seems as good a place to start as any. G. K. Chesterton - The Hammer Of God: Colonel Norman Bohun is carrying on with the blacksmith's wife, the latest of a steady stream of conquests on his own doorstep. His younger brother, Reverend Wilfred, warns that one day God will strike him down in the street for his sinful ways. Sure enough, while the Reverend is praying high up in the Church tower, his errant brother's skull is obliterated by a blow so powerful it shatters his Brodie helmet. Only one man within forty miles would have the physical capacity to deliver such a wallop - mighty Simeon Barnes, the blacksmith! But Barnes, a staunch Presbyterian, has a solid alibi. Several witnesses of impeccable character are prepared to vouch that he was on Church business half a mile away in Greenford when the fatal blow was delivered. The murder weapon is retrieved from the gore. A very small hammer. Suspicion now falls on the cheating wife but Father Brown - where did he spring from? - is quick to bat away such a fanciful suggestion. No woman so frail could have inflicted such damage. Who's next? 'Poor Joe', the undisputed village idiot. Bohun had tormented him earlier that day and everyone knows a lunatic has the strength of ten when the madness is upon them. At last we're getting somewhere! No we're not. Father Brown blithely shoots this latest theory down in flames. The crowd are growing desperate. Could it be that a psychotic cow moo's among them? Then it is back to the Reverend's 'Act of God/ thunderbolt from the Heavens' theory which, as Father Brown has cleverly deduced, is closest to the truth.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 28, 2017 14:04:14 GMT
G. K. Chesterton - The Hammer Of God This one was actually adapted early on in the show, and it is the only episode I have watched. The method of murder was retained, but practically every other aspect of the plot was changed.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 1, 2017 7:59:55 GMT
G. K. Chesterton - The Hammer Of God This one was actually adapted early on in the show, and it is the only episode I have watched. The method of murder was retained, but practically every other aspect of the plot was changed. From what I've seen of the show to date, I'd expect nothing less. The Hammer Of God opened the first series, and from your comment it seems the writers started as they meant to go on. Followed The Hammer Of God - which I liked - with another story 'adapted' (presumably audaciously) for series one, The Eye Of Apollo, as revived in Peter Haining's The Television Detectives Omnibus. When wealthy Pauline Stacey - "who denied the existence of tragedy" - takes a fatal plunge down a hotel lift shaft, Father Brown refuses to accept death was accidental. His suspicion falls upon the self-styled prophet Kalon, a charismatic, seemingly well intentioned Hierophant of the Sun-God. Villain ultimately exposed as not only a heathen but - of all the confounded insolence - an American masquerading as an Englishman! As much blatant exercise in 'never trust a Pagan' propaganda as detective story, but that Wordsworth Classics edition of The Complete Father Brown Stories is looking increasingly alluring at a piggy bank friendly £1.99.
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