|
|
Post by dem on Mar 30, 2021 16:09:17 GMT
William Goldstein - Dr. Phibes (Phibes Phorever Publishing, 2014: Originally Award, 1971) Blurb: The doctors of London were being murdered - horribly, grotesquely, monstrously. The first was stung to death by bees; the next was torn to bits by bats. The third was mutilated with the mask of a frog. The fourth was savagely drained of all his blood.
Somehow the deaths seemed to follow a fiendish pattern, all part of a bizarre ritual based on the ten curses of the Old Testament - boils, bats, frogs, blood, rats, beasts, locusts, hail, death of the first born...and darkness.
No one knew why.
No one could stop them.
No one, that is, except Dr. Phibes — a half-dead madman with horrific master plan that has only just begun ... First in a series of four Phibes reprints (wasn't even aware of Dr. Phibes: In The Beginning or Vulvania's Secret), gets off to spectacular start with the supposed incineration of the doctor in a sports car accident. In truth, as we know, he's not dead, merely horribly disfigured. Cut to a bedroom where lecherous Dr. Albert Dunwoody, Chief of Gastroenterology at St. Guy's Hospital, is power-snoring away the night's excesses - deuced shame he couldn't persuade the filly with the enormous powdered breasts to accompany him home. As he sleeps, a cloaked figure on the roof lowers a huge funnel through the ceiling directly above his head, feeds through scores of little blind flapping fellows with sharp teeth and leathery wings. Am hoping this one will get me back into reading novels. It already has me pining for another bloody and triumphant return of Dr. Valentine!
|
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Mar 30, 2021 17:17:59 GMT
Nice one. I bought the first three years ago as a cheap Ebook, but never came to read them. Later I discovered that this edition was pulled. Never knew that there was a part 4. Ah, Vulnavia, you were the best.
|
|
|
|
Post by dem on Mar 31, 2021 18:49:03 GMT
Nice one. I bought the first three years ago as a cheap Ebook, but never came to read them. Later I discovered that this edition was pulled. Never knew that there was a part 4. Ah, Vulnavia, you were the best.
The second paperback, Dr Phibes Rises Again was first published in 1973, but not sure about the third and fourth volumes. I'm guessing they are relatively recent additions? Anyway, this first installment behaves as it's supposed to, serves up the several deaths in satisfying fashion. Det. Sergeant Harry Trout, who, at 24, is a rising star on the force, having recently exposed a sainted vicar as the perverted murderer of three old women, is assigned the case. He's partnered by Sergeant Tom Schenley, an old school safe pair of hands should Trout threaten to do anything modern. It goes without saying that so spectacularly gruesome a culling of eminent surgeons is proving a huge embarrassment to the Yard; the chief demands results NOW! Four days into the investigation, Trout learns from Rabbi Gabirol that the murderer would seem to be working through the G'tach, the ten curses visited upon Pharaoh before Exodus. This minor breakthrough is of absolutely no benefit to Dr. Wesley Longstreet, randy philanthropist, literally bled dry while watching a 'girlie' short in his Chelsea flat. Personal favourite murder to date - far as the book is concerned - is the demise of Dr. Hargreaves, skull crushed beneath an iron frog mask at the May Day Ball, as hilarious in print as it is genuinely horrible. The first slaying, that of Dr. Thorton, and involving a swarm of bees in a bathtub, is perpetuated off page. Am around halfway through. Phibes has just repeated his vow to Vulvania. "Nine killed you, nine shall die. Nine eternities in doom!" Not sure his clockwork orchestra have quite come alive in print. Don't remember the last time I watched a film - it was well before lock-down, maybe two years ago - but am tempted to arrange a rematch with The Abominable Dr. Phibes. |
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Mar 31, 2021 19:02:26 GMT
Hi Kev, Glad to hear you are enjoying the book. I'm far from being an authority (I did look through the book briefly back when it was first out which was a REALLY long time ago), but from articles I've read more recently, a lot of how the story was told in the film was changed by director Bob Fuest. I personally think of Fuest as a design and theatrical/dramatic genius, but I don't think either the author of the original Phibes screenplay (and the book you're reading), or Michael Moorcock one of whose Jerry Cornelius novels Fuest filmed as The Final Programme, were fans. Vincent Price's offbeat embodiment of the Phibes character was a significant new element as well, of course. One significant change is that in the film, Trout was played by great character doyen Peter Jeffrey--superb as always. So Trout in the film is an older established police wallah, not a young up-and-coming chappie on the make. Hugh Griffith played the Rabbi who explains the G'tach to the Inspector. I think this book reprints substantial material from a special issue of a magazine, The Little Shoppe of Horrors, that focused on Phibes several years ago. Some of the interviews and production background research discoveries are fascinating. www.monstersinmotion.com/cart/books-ae-c-4_121/dr-phibes-companion-book-by-justin-humphreys-p-24767.htmlcheers, Steve |
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Apr 1, 2021 8:58:37 GMT
This was one great issue of Little Shoppe. Back then I still bought them, and especially this is a treasure trove of information. Price transformed this movie from a nice one to an unforgettable one. His overwhelming presence manages to gloss over the often surely even at the time of release unconvincing parts. Some of the death scenes are particulary lame, I am thinking of the death by locusts, for instance. The first movie is still wonderful. Fuest had a thing for the absurd, and there are so many bittersweet things about it. Neither Vulnavia nor the clockwork band would survive the sunrise and the harsh look of reality, but this doesn't matter as everybody is caught in the dream. I am not so fond of the sequel, as I find it a bit boring and the mysticim doesn't work for me. But I love the idea of Vulnavia being something unexplained. It is a thing which nobody would do today. The obsessive need to spoonfeed the audience some origin or other, if it makes sense or not. Fuest didn't care. She is assisting Phibes again without any explanation, right to the end, like some supernatural agent of destruction, and it makes the Phibes universe so much better. |
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Apr 1, 2021 14:31:10 GMT
Andreas--the only line I remember from the Goldstein book (which I may have owned--it is so long ago I really don't recall) has to do with Vulnavia. It involves a major spoiler so I won't repeat it beyond saying that she was described in the sentence as a "haunted girl." Intriguing.
On an unrelated (sort of) topic, I saw a news item this a.m. that the "Netflix" outfit is commissioning two sequels to the film Knives Out. The sequels will star Daniel Craig and the female lead of the original film. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that I enjoyed Knives Out sufficiently to have contemplated watching it again. Amazingly for a 21st century feature film, it had a comprehensible narrative with a beginning, middle and end AND characters who had nuance and want beyond the level of the latest buzzword cliches (though one of the characters seemed to be spoofing Gwyneth Paltrow and her online business plan).
I don't know why it seems so difficult for most in the "industry" these days to construct stories that have substance, involving characters with at least some degree of plausibility. Maybe it's simply that the reality of today's world is so ghastly that everyone feels compelled to retreat to an increasingly baroque form of phantasmagoria.
And I'm done with my rant for today.
cheers, Steve
|
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Apr 1, 2021 14:32:41 GMT
By the way, Andreas, the next issue of Little Shoppe, scheduled for release next month, seems to be a special on the 1958 Hammer film (Horror of) Dracula. I wonder if any of the articles will do an honest assessment of the debacle that was the Blu Ray edition of this film a few years ago.
cheers, Steve
|
|
|
|
Post by dem on Apr 1, 2021 15:11:28 GMT
 Harrow Observer, 5 October 1971 A contemporary review. Wonder if the poster was banned nationally or just in Middx? Support was the jaw-dropping The Thing With Two Heads. Also doing the rounds that week was The Wild Bunch. |
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Apr 1, 2021 17:01:26 GMT
By the way, Andreas, the next issue of Little Shoppe, scheduled for release next month, seems to be a special on the 1958 Hammer film (Horror of) Dracula. I wonder if any of the articles will do an honest assessment of the debacle that was the Blu Ray edition of this film a few years ago. cheers, Steve Interesting.
I have to confess that I don't feel the love for the 1958 movie. It is a classic, no argument there.
5 years ago there was a new German mediabook edition of the movie. Tons of extras, three different audio commentaries, a making of the restauration, the restored movie which even included bits of a Japanese edition, the restored BFI edition from 2007, you name it. I was tempted, but thought it too expensive for my not so high interest in the movie. It sold out. Seems there is some interest in those new editions.
Didn't knew that one of the foreign editions was not so good. I bought a few Arrow editions, some Argento, some other giallo, and never had a really bad picture quality. But I am no pixel fanatic, I don't care for 4K Ultra or whatever is the rage today.
Just this month there is a new mediabook edition of Blood on Satan's Claw from Austria in 4K, lots and lots of extras about Folk Horror. Again I am tempted, but it is a bit expensive.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 1, 2021 18:04:12 GMT
I have to confess that I don't feel the love for the 1958 movie. It is a classic, no argument there. It is a bit boring. DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS is my favorite Hammer Dracula film. |
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Apr 1, 2021 21:41:23 GMT
I have to confess that I don't feel the love for the 1958 movie. It is a classic, no argument there. It is a bit boring. DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS is my favorite Hammer Dracula film. This is a matter of taste, a bit like the Bond movies. I guess it is the mostly mute Dracula, which I don't like much. My favorite is TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA. (If I ignore the ending, which is beyond lame). While I love the Karnstein movies, the best of Hammer's vampire movies is THE BRIDES OF DRACULA.
Not so long ago I put DPoD in the player. I liked it more than I used to.
|
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Apr 1, 2021 23:17:24 GMT
Interesting, Andreas--my favorite of the Lee Dracula films is also Taste the Blood. But I agree with you about the absurd ending.
Horror of Dracula is indeed an iconic film, but I don't think much of Sangster's screenplay. It has a terrific beginning and an edge-of-the-seat ending and sort of a muddle in between. I do like many elements of the film very much, including Jack Asher's photography, Bernard Robinson's set designs, and the lovely score by James Bernard.
cheers, Steve
|
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Apr 1, 2021 23:19:05 GMT
Dem, that's a funny review. As we are all aware, the "horrible" makeup in Phibes was only seen briefly at the end of the film. I thought the concept of linking the string of revenge deaths to the G'tach was quite ingenious, too, not "old hat" at all--but it was the Daily Mail, so...
cheers, H.
|
|
|
|
Post by dem on Apr 2, 2021 12:31:51 GMT
The review is via The Harrow Observer, Steve. I'd hope they'd unleash ten plagues of their own on anyone who would dare confuse them with the M**l.
Dr. Hedgepeth has his chauffeur pull up behind a comely young woman bent over the bonnet of her stalled vehicle. He meets with .... a frosty reception.
Trout and Dr. Vesalius visit Highgate Cemetery to investigate the Phibes vault. Anton Phibes' casket contains but a silver boxful of ashes, they might be anyone's. Victoria's corpse has been made away with!
Police Chief is mightily ticked off that London is losing celebrated surgeons at the rate of one every other day. in less time than it takes to remind Trout of as much, Phibes and Vulnavia have caught up with Dr. Mark Kitaj, the brilliant young vascular surgeon. I don't recall meeting Audrey, his current girl on the go, in the movie, but we see quite a bit of her here (did women expose their breasts in the twenties, or is this another example of Dr. Phibes' farfetchedness?). Anyhow, Kitaj uniquely gives them the brush off and bombs it to Northolt Aerodrome as this is the day of his first solo flight. Make the most of it, Dr. K!
At least Trout knows the whereabouts of one potential target.
"Dr. Whitcomb is currently localised at 186 Uxbridge Road, where he is probably carousing with that apartment's occupant, a lissome maid from Denmark who had visited our Lothario not two weeks ago seeking engagement."
The locations suggest some familiarity with North London - maybe Goldstein was stationed at Bentley Priory airbase in Stanmore during WW2? Stanmore Hall (as was) appears briefly in the movie, and I think the plane flies over the haunted golf course, though can't be sure of the latter. Alvin Stardust bought a house on Uxbridge Road with the proceeds of his two smashest hits, Coo Ca Choo and the peerless Red Dress.
Don't I fucking go on?
|
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Apr 2, 2021 15:07:56 GMT
Trout's dialogue as reported by yourself (and many thanks for that--please don't stop going on and on--I need it more than you know) is really beyond belief. For a bloke aged 24 working a beat presumably somewhere in the innards of London??
So sorry I fucked up and confused the estimable gazetteer of Harrow with that crap-rag of revolting repute (now I sound like a fan/imitator of Goldstein).
Love the location notes. I'll have to get out my copy of the Little Shoppe issue and see what it says about Goldstein's life and background. My mind is a sieve with unsightly, gaping, gat-toothed holes.
cheers, H.
|
|
