Daphne du Maurier - Don't Look Now

[dem bones]

Daphne du Maurier - Don't Look Now & Other Stories (Penguin, 1976: originally Gollancz, 1971)

Don't Look Now
Not After Midnight
A Border-line Case
The Way Of The Cross
A Breakthrough

Blurb:

A married couple on holiday in Venice caught up in a sinister train of supernatural events....
A middle-aged schoolmaster is strangely impelled to investigate a repulsive American and his mysterious wife ...
A confident young actress loses her cool when she confronts her father's old friend on a lonely island ...
An ill-assorted party of pilgrims from Little Bletford meets disaster in Jerusalem when the Vicar succumbs to 'flu...
A dedicated scientist abandons his scruples when tries to tap the energy of the unconscious mind...

Five short stories which illustrate once again the unique du Maurier blend of sympathy and suspense.

Have had a copy of this collection (in its original Not After Midnight guise) hanging around on the shelf for ages, but it was landing this film tie-in on Sunday finally decided me to read the title story. As I'm sure many of you are already aware, it is quite simply brilliant.

Don't Look Now: "This," he thought, "really is the start of paranoia. This is the way people go off their heads.". Determined to get their marriage back on track after cruel bereavement, John arranges a holiday in Venice for he and wife Laura, leaving son Johnnie back in England at prep school. A few days in and it seems to be working, Laura back on vintage cheerful, sexy form, until she falls in with two fellow tourists, elderly twin sisters from Scotland, one of whom is blind and, apparently, psychic. She claims to have 'seen' the ghost of their dead little girl, Christine, all smiles and laughter, standing between her parents at the restaurant table. Laura is overjoyed, cynical John less so, fearful that these frauds will return his wife to misery. And so, in the most roundabout way, it proves.

The sensitive sister's next vision portends the gravest consequences for John if he does not leave Venice within the next 24 hours. Perhaps the spirits have their wires crossed, as the couple then receive a telegram from England informing them that Johnnie has appendicitis and requires an immediate operation. Laura is fortunate to book a flight home, but her husband will have to settle for the car ferry. Laura dashes to the airport, John boards his boat, but as it pulls away from the harbour, who should he see returning to Venice?

""Another ferry was heading downstream to pass them, filled with passengers, and for a brief foolish moment he wished he could change places, be amongst the happy tourists bound for Venice and all he had left behind him. Then he saw her. Laura, in her scarlet coat, the twin sisters by her side, the active sister with her hand on Laura's arm, talking earnestly, and Laura herself, her hair blowing in the wind, gesticulating, on her face a look of distress."

What can it all mean? Concerned, and not a little angry, John heads back to Venice to await his wife at the hotel. She doesn't arrive. He informs first the manager, then the police, vengefully implicating the meddling sisters who, he has no doubt, are crooks. Next stop the British Embassy, and its here he learns from a stereotypical fellow Brit abroad - belligerent, racist, entitled to your slavish attentions on a 24/7 basis, etc. - that there's a serial killer on the lose. Small consolation that the police know who they are after and close to making an arrest.

Back at the hotel, a phone call from Mrs. Hill at the school. Johnnie's operation went without a hitch. Thank God! And then - the bombshell. "Now I'll get off the line and you can speak to your wife."

Even if - like me - you've not seen the film (yet!), chances are you know how the mystery is resolved and what spiteful fate has in store for John. Doesn't make it any the less shocking when you read those last, desperately grim paragraphs.

[mattofthespurs]

I absolutely love the book, it's fantastic, but the film blows it away in my opinion.

I did have the UK blu ray by Optimum but have recently purchased the Criterion region A blu ray and it is utterly superb.

Even comes with a map of Venice where key scenes (including that one!) take place.

I've been to Venice once, on my Honeymoon, but I plan to return but this time in the autumn/winter and follow the map.

[Craig Herbertson]

Apr 21, 2015 8:52:08 GMT dem bones said:

Daphne du Maurier - Don't Look Now & Other Stories (Penguin, 1976: originally Gollancz, 1971)

Don't Look Now
Not After Midnight
A Border-line Case
The Way Of The Cross
A Breakthrough

Blurb:

A married couple on holiday in Venice caught up in a sinister train of supernatural events....
A middle-aged schoolmaster is strangely impelled to investigate a repulsive American and his mysterious wife ...
A confident young actress loses her cool when she confronts her father's old friend on a lonely island ...
An ill-assorted party of pilgrims from Little Bletford meets disaster in Jerusalem when the Vicar succumbs to 'flu...
A dedicated scientist abandons his scruples when tries to tap the energy of the unconscious mind...

Five short stories which illustrate once again the unique du Maurier blend of sympathy and suspense.

Have had a copy of this collection (in its original Not After Midnight guise) hanging around on the shelf for ages, but it was landing this film tie-in on Sunday finally decided me to read the title story. As I'm sure many of you are already aware, it is quite simply brilliant.

Don't Look Now: "This," he thought, "really is the start of paranoia. This is the way people go off their heads.". Determined to get their marriage back on track after cruel bereavement, John arranges a holiday in Venice for he and wife Laura, leaving son Johnnie back in England at prep school. A few days in and it seems to be working, Laura back on vintage cheerful, sexy form, until she falls in with two fellow tourists, elderly twin sisters from Scotland, one of whom is blind and, apparently, psychic. She claims to have 'seen' the ghost of their dead little girl, Christine, all smiles and laughter, standing between her parents at the restaurant table. Laura is overjoyed, cynical John less so, fearful that these frauds will return his wife to misery. And so, in the most roundabout way, it proves.

The sensitive sister's next vision portends the gravest consequences for John if he does not leave Venice within the next 24 hours. Perhaps the spirits have their wires crossed, as the couple then receive a telegram from England informing them that Johnnie has appendicitis and requires an immediate operation. Laura is fortunate to book a flight home, but her husband will have to settle for the car ferry. Laura dashes to the airport, John boards his boat, but as it pulls away from the harbour, who should he see returning to Venice?

""Another ferry was heading downstream to pass them, filled with passengers, and for a brief foolish moment he wished he could change places, be amongst the happy tourists bound for Venice and all he had left behind him. Then he saw her. Laura, in her scarlet coat, the twin sisters by her side, the active sister with her hand on Laura's arm, talking earnestly, and Laura herself, her hair blowing in the wind, gesticulating, on her face a look of distress."

What can it all mean? Concerned, and not a little angry, John heads back to Venice to await his wife at the hotel. She doesn't arrive. He informs first the manager, then the police, vengefully implicating the meddling sisters who, he has no doubt, are crooks. Next stop the British Embassy, and its here he learns from a stereotypical fellow Brit abroad - belligerent, racist, entitled to your slavish attentions on a 24/7 basis, etc. - that there's a serial killer on the lose. Small consolation that the police know who they are after and close to making an arrest.

Back at the hotel, a phone call from Mrs. Hill at the school. Johnnie's operation went without a hitch. Thank God! And then - the bombshell. "Now I'll get off the line and you can speak to your wife."

Even if - like me - you've not seen the film (yet!), chances are you know how the mystery is resolved and what spiteful fate has in store for John. Doesn't make it any the less shocking when you read those last, desperately grim paragraphs.

Seems incredible but a about a large number of the audience walked out in pure funk when this first aired in Edinburgh. Me and brother stayed on but it was genuinely terrifying. Having seen it since it's lost some impact but it was a wow at the time

[Jojo Lapin X]

Du Maurier is great. Of her novels I recommend MY COUSIN RACHEL (perhaps the blackest roman noir ever, similar to Cornell Woolrich's WALTZ INTO DARKNESS but less uplifting) and THE SCAPEGOAT (that starts out as a doppelgänger thriller and then turns into something rather different and deeply moving), and with some reservations the bizarre time-travel story THE HOUSE ON THE STRAND, a unique if confusing experience. Sadly, the celebrated REBECCA was a disappointment to me. It has a wonderful, atmospheric prologue, which is staged to great effect in Hitchcock's film, but otherwise the film is superior to the novel.

[dem bones]

Apr 21, 2015 18:16:34 GMT Jojo Lapin X said:

Du Maurier is great. Of her novels I recommend MY COUSIN RACHEL (perhaps the blackest roman noir ever, similar to Cornell Woolrich's WALTZ INTO DARKNESS but less uplifting) and THE SCAPEGOAT (that starts out as a doppelgänger thriller and then turns into something rather different and deeply moving), and with some reservations the bizarre time-travel story THE HOUSE ON THE STRAND, a unique if confusing experience. Sadly, the celebrated REBECCA was a disappointment to me. It has a wonderful, atmospheric prologue, which is staged to great effect in Hitchcock's film, but otherwise the film is superior to the novel.

Thanks for the recommendations. What's your verdict on Jamaica Inn? Could have picked up a copy on Sunday, but the condition was just too ratty so settled for Confessions Of A Driving Instructor instead.

[Jojo Lapin X]

I never finished JAMAICA INN, because I found it boring. I may give it another try some time.

[pulphack]

I like old Daph a lot, though I find I have to be in the right mood to enter into the atmosphere of a lot of her stuff (and Jamaica Inn's period put me off it, rather than the writing - I currently have to sit through Poldark with Mrs PH and it's a struggle...). But I have to applaud Dem's buying choices - Confessions over gothic Daph. Splendid - and he thought I was flying low when I bought a Fiona Richmond sci-fi novel??*

(*he was right, mind)

[Craig Herbertson]

Ashamed to say i have read nafall by her. Must redress that

[Michael Connolly]

Apr 22, 2015 4:55:03 GMT pulphack said:

I like old Daph a lot, though I find I have to be in the right mood to enter into the atmosphere of a lot of her stuff (and Jamaica Inn's period put me off it, rather than the writing - I currently have to sit through Poldark with Mrs PH and it's a struggle...). But I have to applaud Dem's buying choices - Confessions over gothic Daph. Splendid - and he thought I was flying low when I bought a Fiona Richmond sci-fi novel??*

(*he was right, mind)

I'd only watch Poldark if Demelza went berserk with a pitchfork.

[weirdmonger]

THE ALIBI by Daphne du Maurier

….this beginning to be one of the darkest, most disarmingly deadpan, openings to a story by a famous mainstream writer I have ever read!

Where has this story been, and why has it never been spoken of before in the circles where I spend my time roaming the byways of dark literature?

[helrunar]

I'm intrigued! Also, I'd like to read the original short story (or novella?) of "Don't look now" sometime.

H.

[Shrink Proof]

Both are well worthwhile. But I wouldn't bother with "Jamaica Inn". But to be fair, I'm biased, having lived fairly close to the Inn back in the mid-1980s. I don't know what it's like now, but certainly back then it was a truly hideous example of the worst that tacky Cornish tourism has to offer (and I include in that most of Tintagel which actually does have King Arthur's Car Park, Merlin's Fish & Chip Shop and - wait for it - Ye Lucky Pisky Giftique...).


Apologies for the digression. As you were...

[helrunar]

Dr Shrink Proof, I guess it's a comment on the fact that in some ways I'm a typical American tourist--I loved the day and night I spent at Tintagel (I remember it being an afternoon, evening and the following morning). We had dinner at a lovely inn with a pub that had a veg tart on the menu (that's a pastry with a vegetarian dish-up, not a dark-eyed young man with dietary restrictions compatible to my own on the make). And the food was, to my palate at least, superb. I don't recall any tacky Arthurian kitsch. We spotted a couple of thatched cottages and clambered around the castle ruins. It was a perfect day, bright sun gleaming on black rocks and grey stone. We didn't attempt to go down to "Merlin's cave."

We went on to Penzance, as I recall, and that I DID find quite unmemorable. I don't think we spent very long there. There were 3 of us in a car driven by our plucky chum Sandra who laughed to scorn Americans who complained of insurmountable difficulties with the driving orientation and endless incidence of roundabouts on the "carriageways."

Also noting that the one time I saw the film of Don't look now, I found the ending tremendously underwhelming. Have been meaning to watch again for some years now because so many people in various film groups I'm on have described the movie as a classic--some have placed it in their top ten. 

H.

[Shrink Proof]

Glad you enjoyed your time in Cornwall. Sounds like things have improved since I lived there (for a hundred years between 1984 & 1988), which is great to hear. Anyway, returning to the thread, I thought the "Don't Look Now" movie ending was OK. Not Top 10 but definitely worth seeing.

[weirdmonger]

Jun 25, 2021 19:17:27 GMT helrunar said:

I'm intrigued! Also, I'd like to read the original short story (or novella?) of "Don't look now" sometime.

H.

THE ALIBI is in the du Maurier story collection that I had not heard of before with the title THE BREAKING POINT, seemingly the Darkest of Daphne?