The old Universal film of The Old Dark House, directed by James Whale, is a hoot - I saw it again on TV not so long ago. I've been a bit of a Priestley fan since first seeing An Inspector Calls with Alastair Sim as a kid on TV, and then actually reading it in English class at high school. I also vaguely remember a TV adaptation of Time and the Conways in the 80s. I think the only other things I've read by him are the novel Saturn Over The Water (which I don't remember much about now, except it was some sort of spy thriller involving a nefarious plot for world domination) and the short story The Grey Ones, which seems to quite often crop up in horror story collections.
This sounds good--I think that I'll order the Valancourt Books edition. Our tastes generally seem to align, though I'm going to test that soon by reading Freak Museum to see whether I share your relatively negative assessment of it.
Post by cauldronbrewer on Aug 10, 2013 15:44:53 GMT
I don't think I enjoyed Benighted quite as much as Timothy, but I still liked it. It's well written: Priestley does a better job of creating believable characters than most writers in the genre, and he juggles different points of view skillfully. The horror elements are somewhat of a letdown, however, as the real focus tends to fall on the character drama.
The folks at Valancourt did excellent work on their edition of the book.
I don't think I enjoyed Benighted quite as much as Timothy, but I still liked it. It's well written: Priestley does a better job of creating believable characters than most writers in the genre, and he juggles different points of view skillfully. The horror elements are somewhat of a letdown, however, as the real focus tends to fall on the character drama.
The folks at Valancourt did excellent work on their edition of the book.
Dredging up this old post because the ebook is on sale this month, I was thinking about reading it, and I was wondering if people might know of the earliest examples of the old dark house genre?
Initial quick search points to some authors identifying the novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Circular Staircase (1907). S.T. Joshi's Icons of Horror and the Supernatural:An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares points to markers of the genre being "guests who unwillingly stay overnight because of a broken-down car or nocturnal storm, hidden corridors, sliding panels, spiral staircases, and unknown perils." The unwilling aspect seems the least crucial; a sentence later, he gave the example of The Cat and the Canary in which guests were "summoned to the house for the reading of the deceased millionaire's will." Seems like there could be earlier fits in novels and stage plays than 1907, though?
Interesting question, toff. I'm sure you're aware that The Circular Staircase eventually became the play, The Bat, which was filmed several times. The 1930 version, The Bat Whispers, had an experimental 65 millimeter recension that is on youtube now (in a UCLA restoration--at least, it's viewable here in the US), and reportedly it was some of the imagery in this film that led to Bob Kane's eventual creation of the Batman.
I would think there must be Victorian Gothic antecedents for the scenario of embittered family members and their spouses or friends gathering in a creepy mansion on a "dark and stormy night" for the reading of a will, but I'm not familiar enough with that enormous sprawling repertory of literature from that period to cite possible instances.
I would think there must be Victorian Gothic antecedents for the scenario of embittered family members and their spouses or friends gathering in a creepy mansion on a "dark and stormy night" for the reading of a will, but I'm not familiar enough with that enormous sprawling repertory of literature from that period to cite possible instances.
Hel.
Good question, Steve. Who is this particular Patient Zero? I also have no clue.
Scans are from my personal collection if not noted otherwise.
Directed by the marvellous film pioneer Segundo de ChomĆ³n. Notice the clever use of stop-motion.
And if e'er you should come down to the village or the town, With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown, You will stand upon the thresholds with a face of dumb desire, Nor be known by any fire. What would you see in your proud land, Petrarch, If you came back again to Italy, And in the Garden of the Medici Could listen to the nightingale or lark And dream of Laura in the fragrent dark?
Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jan 25, 2023 11:55:10 GMT
Gothic novels from the 18th and 19th centuries are full of elements of the Old Dark House idea.
For instance in Anne Radcliffe's The Romance of the Forest a group of travellers, through misfortune, encounter first a mysterious small house where one of them is briefly imprisoned and where they are supplied with a future damsel in distress, then, when the wheel on their wagon breaks, a ruined abbey complete with secret passageways, where they are forced to settle for a while. However in many of the novels the scenes are not always confined to the building alone, which may be a requirement to fit the old dark house bill. I'd imagine there will be something Gothic that fits that requirement, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.
And if e'er you should come down to the village or the town, With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown, You will stand upon the thresholds with a face of dumb desire, Nor be known by any fire. What would you see in your proud land, Petrarch, If you came back again to Italy, And in the Garden of the Medici Could listen to the nightingale or lark And dream of Laura in the fragrent dark?
The Alastair Sim version of "An Inspector Calls" was an enjoyable adaptation of one of Priestley's "Time Plays". Priestley was interested in the theories of J. W. Dunne, author of "An Experiment with Time" and the theory of serialism. There's an interesting book by Anthony Peake, which explores this in "Time and The Rose Garden: Encounrering the Magical in the life and works of J.B. Priestley"
Not suggesting it as the first, but Anna Letitia Aikin Barbauld & Dr. John Aiken's hallucinatory Sir Bertrand: A Fragment, posthumously published in Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose, 1773, maybe qualifies as an Old Dark House gothic in miniature.
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
