The Worst Film Casting Upset of This or Any Other Year.

Atlas sculpture at Rockefeller Center by Lee Lawrie.

This is kind of how I view Jack Reacher in the series of books by Lee Child. 

**********************

Okay, so we're dishing about Vince Vaughn playing Jim Rockford and have decided that maybe it's not the best idea in the world. Though I initially didn't think it was actually THAT awful I've decided to revise my thinking.

But this latest casting 'coup d'etat' is nothing compared to what I consider to be the worst casting decision in the history of mankind: Tom Cruise to play Jack Reacher in ONE SHOT from the book of the same name by Lee Child.

HUH??!!! Please someone explain to me in what universe this makes the teensiest, weensiest iota of sense?!

Jack Reacher is a muscular, 6'5" ex-Army M.P., a man whose mere size serves to intimidate. (Plus he has a buzz cut and his hair on close inspection is sort of blondish.)

Tom Cruise is the antithesis of Reacher. He is, shall we say, on the diminutive side. (I'm being kind.) Just how does this guy intimidate anyone? What, are they going to have him standing on a box for the whole movie?

With apologies to Arnold Stang, this is how I see Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher.

Truth be told, I'd rather see Vince Vaughn as Reacher.

A New Jim Rockford?

James Garner as Jim Rockford

Omnimystery is aghast but I kind of am not.

This particular casting news actually doesn't sound too bad to me. Vince Vaughn as Jim Rockford in a new adaptation of The Rockford Files. Sure, he's no James Garner- but who is?

The thing about Vince is, he seems to have Garner's 'squishy' quality. At least that's what I call it if an actor has the type of face that has no sharp edges and can go  funny and sad at the same time.

What do you guys think?

Vince Vaughn

To be or not to be...

Shakespeare's House - Stratford-upon-Avon' 1854. By Henry Wallis.

Intriguingly enough this painting (which I find attractively enigmatic) had some sort of 'assist' by the famed English painter Edwin Landseer  (maybe the dog?) who 'touched' up the artwork and added some Shakespearean 'memorials' which if you look hard enough, you'll find. Pre-Landseer's tinkering, the painting was a straighforward enough composition of the stairs leading up to the room in which Shakespeare was born. Or so I understand it.

Read all about it here. Though I did and I'm still a bit confused as to just how much Landseer added to the mix. The painting currently hangs in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The Room in Which Shakespeare Was Born by Henry Wallis.

And by the way...

I recently tried to watch ANONYMOUS,  a film released last year about the possibility of Shakespeare's plays NOT having been written by him but by the Earl of Oxford. Shakespeare, according to this preposterous screenplay, comes into his legendary fame by the back door, in a sort of lightning striking a dolt type of thing. For in this movie, Shakespeare is very much a dolt. Make no mistake. That is the point of this smug disaster of a film. Oxford MUST have written the plays since Shakespeare was just a stupid clod.

Oxford keeps 'his' manuscripts gathering dust, stored in a dark room where, apparently, they languish waiting for the obnoxiously acerbic Earl to find an opportunity to thrust them onto an unsuspecting public. 

When the moment is ripe,the plays' authorship is supposed to go to Christopher Marlowe, but Marlowe is simply too physically and morally uncoordinated to grab the reins. Hence, the sudden ascendancy of a no account actor, Will Shakespeare.

The whole pretense is necessary because people of Oxford's titled ilk do NOT write plays, at least, not so anybody of consequence knows about it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I got about fifteen or twenty minutes into this mish-mash before I simply gave up, shut down the dvd player,  re-packaged the film  and shipped it back from whence it had come: Netflix.

The ANONYMOUS screenplay by John Orloff is so disoriented, the film itself so ungainly that you sit there stupefied not only by the dialogue but by the on-screen situations. This is a Roland Emmerich film - isn't he supposed to be some high-toned movie mucky muck? Yegads, what an abomination!

Now look, I am willing to consider the idea that Shakespeare might not have written his plays (I don't believe it, but I'm willing to suspend disbelief if the film or book is good enough) so that wasn't what turned me off this gigantic botch of a movie. 

So what did turn you off, Yvette?

It was the sheer mind-boggling, incoherent movie-making. That's all.

On a side note: It seems to me that what all the Shakespeare naysayers apparently forget when dissing the Bard of Avon is this: the serendipity of genius striking willy-nilly. 

Ha! Willy-nilly. Just got it.

This movie poster is actually better than the movie. 

Tuesday's Overlooked (or Forgotten) Film: PLAN B (2009) starring Manuel Vignau and Lucas Ferraro

Tuesday is Overlooked (or Forgotten) Film day, a weekly meme hosted by Todd Mason at his blog, SWEET FREEDOM. Don't forget to check in and see what other overlooked or forgotten films or television shows other bloggers are talking about today. LINK.

From Argentina comes PLAN B, written and directed by Marco Berger - a sweet little unpretentious love story which caught me very much by surprise. It's in Spanish with subtitles which is just as well for even I cannot catch the rapid fire South American Spanish spoken in the film. But that's fine, I never mind reading while watching a foreign movie.

This is the story of two young men whose lives take an unexpected turn when one of them decides to tamper with fate.

Here's the plot: Bruno (Manuel Vignau), a likable slacker with all over grizzly hair and a great deal of self-confidence takes a hit when his girlfriend Laura dumps him for another guy.


Pablo (Lucas Ferraro) is the hapless, equally hairy (though ungrizzled)  'other guy' who has no clue he is shortly to become the object of revenge by the spurned Bruno. (Somehow Pablo remains unaware that Bruno is his new girlfriend's ex.)

Bruno decides  to break up the happy couple by getting Pablo interested in someone else. Bruno is sure this will be the simplest thing in the world. His feckless ex-girlfriend does come back now and then for an occasional roll in the hay (this was somewhat confusing), but hey, young people behave differently now. (But talk about mixed messages.)

Manuel Vignau as Bruno and Lucas Ferraro as Pablo.

Both Bruno and Pablo work out at the same neighborhood gym, so it's easy enough for them to strike up a conversation. At first Bruno plans to insert one of several young and easy women they know into Pablo's life but when he unexpectedly hears gossip that Pablo once had an affair with another man, the plot takes a devious turn.

The gossip is wrong but Bruno doesn't know that until late in the film. He decides that Pablo needs to be taught a lesson and sets about wooing Pablo himself though he is an avowed heterosexual. Don't ask, you hadda' be there. Somehow Bruno has reasoned that this absurd machination will eventually get Laura (Mercedes Quintero) permanently back into his grungy arms.

The two main actors, at first glance, are nothing much to write home about but as the movie progresses, they sort of grow on you. Beneath their everyday unkempt appearance lurks a certain charm, especially in Bruno's case. The perpetual gleam in his eye when he thinks he's putting one over on the world gives him a kind of insouciant devilish look that begins to work its magic before you know what's what.

These two are more like your next door neighbors than the sort of guys you normally find up on the big screen. They are not buffed, gleaming, muscular models posing for the camera and its just as well - they're actors, and pretty good ones at that. That's why the movie works.

Production-wise, PLAN B has the feel of a home movie, the shoddy, lackluster locations are not especially movie-like or even photogenic. At first the whole thing seems kind of discouraging but if you hang in there, the movie begins to reward you with its hidden depths. This is, after all, a love story, if a rather chaste one.

You know what's going to happen - right? Bruno and Pablo are going to find that fate has a trick or two up its sleeve as they, slowly but surely become attracted to each other. First as easy-going friends - finding they have many things in common. Their conversation is so much more enjoyable than the conversations with the women in their circle. They seem to be able to tell each other anything, bonding in that unique way some men have. Nothing is too embarrassing for them to laugh over as they become acutely comfortable with each other.

Eventually, Bruno's conscience begins to bother him as he realizes that he is falling for Pablo - not at all what he was expecting. I think no one is more surprised or alarmed than these two as they slowly deduce that there's an attraction between them.

What on earth is Bruno going to do? Will he confess to Pablo? Will Pablo get over the fact that he has slowly been seduced into an untenable situation? The two have slept at each other's apartments - but only as friends, the screenplay makes that very clear. There's a kind of easy physicality between them which begins to seem awkward as both Bruno and Pablo realize that a deep emotional attachment has entered the mix.

It is because of the innate bumbling charm of these two young actors that this whole improbable story works and we get an ending we all can live with. An ending that left me smiling.

Nobody Panic - It's still me.

Rocky - Master of the Universe

Bear with me while I make a few blog alterations (well okay, more than a few). Just trying to get a lighter tone going on for the Spring and Summer months. It's not finished yet, so if you hate it - not to worry - it's still in the process stage.

I got tired of looking at all the dark colors on these sunny, summery Spring days. We'll see how it goes.

Saturday Salon: A Favorite Painting or Two.....or Three!

Night Game 1981 source

Workers' Holiday-Coney Island c, 1960 source

Baseball Park 1974 source

Daily News Strike 1993 source

Happy and Bud's Service Station 1970 source

Ralph Fasanella (1914 - 1997) was an American primitive painter (though he claimed that it was impossible to be primitive in a post Industrial society) who didn't begin working as an artist until he was in his thirties.

According to Wikipedia, Fasanella was born in the Bronx on Labor Day, 1914 which is perfectly in tune with cosmic forces, considering that he was a lifelong champion of working people like his father and mother before him. His father delivered ice in a horse-drawn wagon, his mother worked in a dress shop and was a keen anti-Fascist.

Fasanella volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War and was an union organizer upon his return home. He began painting when a fellow union worker gave him the idea that it might help his arthritic fingers.

During the McCarthy era, Ralph Fasanella's left-wing opinionated work was blacklisted by most Art Galleries and institutions and it wasn't until 1972 that his work was re-discovered. A cover on New York magazine brought him to national attention.

I love Fasanella' exquisitely detailed work, his vision of the dignity of the working classes, the injustices perpetrated on it, and his hope for a better future.

"I didn't paint my paintings to hang in some rich guy's living room."

To learn much more about Ralph Fasanella and his incredible work, please use this link

Foreign Film Poster Friday

Artwork by Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg.

I have no clue what film this was designed to publicize, I just know it's evidently VERY dramatic and dark and superb poster design. I believe the language might be Russian. (?) I depend on a reader to let me know the title of the film so I can post it. I also wish I knew who did the fantastic artwork.

Now thanks to Prashant and his keen research eye, we know who designed and did the artwork for this amazing Russian poster. The Stenberg Brothers were a 'pair of Russian Constructivist poster designers from the 1920's.' Good to know.

Good also to know that the name of the film appears to be SONG OF THE TUNDRA - thanks for this info to richmcd who also informs us that the poster is for sale online.

Friday's Forgotten Book: REED'S PROMISE by John Clarkson

I've written about REED'S PROMISE before and I'll probably write about it again. It's a book that makes other thrillers seem tame by comparison, a fabulous feat of writing by a novelist who I'm still not all that familiar with. (Primarily because he doesn't have a lot of books on the shelves at the library.) He has a spotty publishing history and doesn't turn out books on a regular schedule far as I can tell. There hasn't been a new book from him in several years.

Friday's Forgotten Books is the weekly meme hosted by the oh-so-talented Patti Abbott at her blog, PATTINASE. There are tons of forgotten (or overlooked) books mentioned today so don't forget to go take a looksee. It's John MacDonald day over there as well. Though I never read any MacDonald - of the John variety that is, I've read plenty of Ross MacDonald.

If you have any affinity for thriller writing at all, make note of John Clarkson's REED'S PROMISE and promise yourself you'll read it. This book continues to be one of the best of its kind, though I suspect there aren't really many of 'its kind' around. It surpassed my expectations going in as it was one of those serendipitous reading events.

The book begins at breakneck (almost literally)speed - we're suddenly thrown into the middle of a motorcycle accident in which the rider, Bill Reed will lose a leg and become an embittered amputee lying in a hospital bed feeling sorry for himself. He is a private eye and ex-FBI agent with a talent for forensic accounting - tracking illegal money back to its original source.

In the middle of bemoaning fate, Reed receives a note from his cousin Johnny Boy Reed. Johnny Boy has been institutionalized at the Ullmann Institute since he was a kid. He is severely retarded but able to function enough to put together a note to his private eye cousin asking for help.The note is cryptic enough (a series of numbers and bits of paper glued together), but Bill deduces from it that something is wrong and maybe he should go take a look. If for no other reason then that Johnny Boy is family. Guilt is a great motivator.

With a prosthetic leg in place, and a cane, Bill heads up to the Ullman Istitute.

REED'S PROMISE resonates with a crushing sense of dread from the beginning of Reed's quest to ferret out the truth and perhaps redeem himself in his own eyes.

First of all, Reed is a man minus a leg - can he stand up to physical attack? Can he fight if he has to? Just how strong is he? Can he be undermined by his handicap? All these thoughts ran through my mind as I continued to read.

Also, I didn't want his cousin Johnny Boy - whom we come to know and like - physically harmed in any way. So from the very beginning I was worried and that worry only grew.

When Reed arrives at the upstate New York, Ullman Institute, and realizes almost right away that something bad is going on, you do wonder how he'll be able to 'fix' things?

Matthew Ullmann and his wife Madeleine run the institute like some sort of fiefdom (and have made themselves rich in the process) and they are, no question about it, a fiendish duo. We know they are the enemy Reed will have to vanquish if he wants to save Johnny Boy - yet it doesn't weaken the suspense angle one bit.

While reading REED'S PROMISE I remember having to stop and take breathing breaks, tension breaks, while I acclimated my emotions and took deep breaths to calm myself. That's how overwhelmed I was by the increasing fear of what would happen to the two main characters. Up until that moment (a few years ago) I'd never read a book in which the 'hero' was an amputee taking on evil all by himself - using his wits, his smarts and yes, his physical abilities to thwart some especially nasty characters.

I don't know how else to say this except that it's own unique way, this is a brilliant book. Clarkson, who is also a screenwriter, has a knack for visual scene creation which adds immeasurably to the suspense. If your library doesn't have REED'S PROMISE, booksellers online do. Get a copy, read it and see if I'm exaggerating.

Unfortunately, the book has two major strikes against it: One: no one ever heard of it. (The publishers were obviously asleep at the switch.) Two: It has a horrible cover. I say: IGNORE the cover! Read the book.

Happy Birthday, Ann Miller! (1923 - 2004)

Ann Miller in Easter Parade. Source

One of our favorite dames of dance, Ann Miller, was born today in 1923. I have to say I thought she'd live forever, she always had so much sparkling energy and joie de vivre.


Watch this Too Darn Hot dance sequence from KISS ME KATE. 


Ann Miller was made for movies and vice versa. She always seemed perfectly comfortable and at home up there on the big screen.


Happy Birthday, dear Ann. I hope wherever you are, there's plenty of dancing going on.

Source

National Library Week April 8 - 14th, 2012

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I've had a library card since I was 5 or 6 and couldn't imagine a life without libraries.

Tuesday's Overlooked (or Forgotten) Film: NEMESIS starring Joan Hickson as Miss Marple

Tuesday's Overlooked (or Forgotten) Films is a weekly meme hosted by Todd Mason at his blog, SWEET FREEDOM. Don't forget to check in and see what other overlooked films other bloggers are talking about today. Link.

Okay, yeah, NEMESIS is technically not a movie, but you can watch it as such on Netflix streaming, if you like. And I like. This is one of my favorite Joan Hickson aka Miss Marple adaptations primarily because it (more or less) follows the book's plot, fleshing out the story visually and adding another character while removing a couple and rearranging a few events, but all to the better in this case. The adaptation was done by novelist T.R. Bowen so maybe that's why it worked so well and directed beautifully by David Tucker.

An addition I liked: Miss Marple's sad-sack nephew, Lionel (Peter Tilbury) whose wife has recently changed all the locks on their house to keep him out, has come to visit.. He arrives in St. Mary Mead, bags packed, looking for a temporary place to stay.

Instead he gets to accompany Miss Marple on a journey into the past to discover the truth of a murder which occurred some years before. Miss Marple is the 'nemesis' of the title, an appellation given to her by the late Jason.Rafiel, an elderly, self-made multi-millionaire who once helped Miss Marple prevent a murder while on holiday in the Caribbean (see A CARIBBEAN MYSTERY).

He has recently died and left Miss Marple a sum of money, but also instructions in his will for her to take a bus trip. On this trip she, unbeknown to her, will be joined by several characters who are there to keep an eye on her as well as to serve as guides to the truth of the murder of a girl named Verity Hunt years before. Whether they know they are 'guides' isn't made clear, especially since one of them turns up dead, but no matter.

Miss Marple complies with Rafiel's request out of respect for his acumen and also because she is intrigued by the vagueness of it all. She will, in any case, inherit the money whether she is successful in her quest or not.

"But how will I know if I've been successful?" Miss Marple asks the lawyer.
"We've been informed that you'll know you've been successful when you've been successful."
Miss Marple says, "Yes, yes, I can see how that could be." 
The lawyers merely look puzzled and wary.

Joan Hickson as Miss Marple

The lawyers, Broadribb and Schuster are played by two veteran character actors who know just how to do this sort of thing perfectly, they are adorable: Roger Hammond and Patrick Godfrey. I love their scenes together, with Miss Marple and later with Rafiel's son, Michael.

It is this son, Michael, who had been accused of Verity Hunt's murder but was never brought to trial. The son has since refused his inheritance and become a homeless vagabond, leaving the Rafiel family mansion sitting empty and decaying. (Decay is very much a part of the plot, perhaps because this was the last Jane Marple mystery written by Agatha Christie, though it was not the last published.)

As part of Mr. Rafiel's bequest, Miss Marple joins a Houses and Gardens of England bus tour. True to form, she soon realizes that several of the passengers on the bus are concerned in her mysterious quest and begins putting two and two together realizing too that she is being guided from the grave - in a manner of speaking - by Mr. Rafiel.


NEMESIS is about the reach of memory and the power of love to destroy. But most of all, it is about justice.

What I like most about this particular version (besides all the wonderful performances) is the gorgeous scenery and architecture, the all around English country ambiance which the film-makers made such good use of. Not to mention the beautiful vintage green and yellow (if I'm remembering correctly) bus.

The art direction on this particular Miss Marple film is absolutely top notch. This is the England we all imagine when we think of visiting. Even down to the cozy tea shop in which several characters stop to have tea and pertinent conversation. The English countryside has never looked so invitingly atmospheric -  lovely, green and flowering.

Too bad murder and madness must rear their ugly heads later in the story.

P.S. Don't, whatever you do, watch the newer version of NEMESIS starring the badly miscast Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple. The story was twisted around and peopled with ridiculous characters and not very clever actors. This adaptation was simply a dreadful mistake which probably had Agatha Christie spinning in her grave.


In my view, no one can ever equal Joan Hickson's portrayal of Miss Marple and the brilliant adaptations of Christie's work done for PBS in the 1980's.

Review: MASTER AND COMMANDER by Patrick O'Brian

Well, I'm hooked. I'd heard about O'Brian's books for years and never thought they were for me - they sounded like the sort of thing men enjoyed and women sniffed at. But I was wrong. When will I learn?

First of all, I love a good adventure story. I love tales of derring-do. I am an Anglophile. I loved the movie MASTER AND COMMANDER with Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany as O'Brian's peripatetic duo, the very British, Captain Jack Aubrey and the Irishman, Dr. Stephen Maturin. (Probably the movie is the reason why I decided to read the book in the first place.)

So all these ducks in a row, I decided to read the first book in the long-running series, MASTER AND COMMANDER (which, by the way, is a totally different story - except for a couple of elements - than the movie). What's the worst that could happen? I wouldn't like it and I'd move on to something else.

Needless to say, that didn't happen. The book is quite remarkable. I loved it and immediately ordered the next two in the series, POST CAPTAIN and H.M.S. SURPRISE.  (Found two nice used trade paperbacks.)

We're back in the 19th century, Napoleon is hovering over Europe and we're sailing the seven seas looking for adventure and whatever comes our way.

Now I don't know a mizzen topgallant from a flying jib, but that didn't stop my enjoyment of the story. Most of the books come with a diagram of a 19th century sailing ship, so if you really want to, you can figure out what sail is which and spend time deciphering Captain's orders and the sailor's jargon. Half the time when action was under way with  incomprehensible orders flying about, it didn't really seem to matter whether I understood the lingo or not. I just used my imagination.

Patrick O'Brian (born Richard Patrick Russ) was an incredibly gifted writer, superb not only in the action sequences, but more importantly in quieter times when the day to day travails of 19th century seamanship are revealed. He is particularly good at establishing the friendship of Aubrey and Maturin, two very different men. Maturin knowing little of sailing life and Aubrey devoted to that very life - his main desire: being made Post Captain which is a higher level of command than Master and Commander. (Though Master and Commander sounds much more impressive to me.

In his forward to the book, Patrick O'Brian comments: When one is writing about the Royal Navy of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries it is difficult to avoid understatement; it is difficult to do full justice to one's subject; for so very often the improbable reality outruns fiction.

War with Spain and France was on-going and any Spanish or French ship on the horizon was potential for capturing a prize and enriching the Captain's pocket, not to mention the common seamen on board. This was ship to ship battle, man to man, eyeball to eyeball, musket to musket, pick-ax to sword. It was all about cunning and valor, brilliance and stupidity, and very often institutionalized cruelty. But at the root of it all, honor among honorable men saved the day, not to mention, accompanying good manners and a definite sang froid which I am convinced, only men can achieve.

In this first book we are aboard His Majesty's sloop Sophie, recently (and unexpectedly) given over to Captain's Aubrey's command. Though it's not a huge 36 gun frigate, it will do quite nicely enough and Captain Jack soon racks up several prizes and earns the nickname, "Lucky Jack" Aubrey.

Still, that doesn't protect him from his enemies on land, especially one Captain Harte whose wife just happens to be Jack's mistress. Oh well, all is fair and love and war and the funny thing is no one thinks any the less of Aubrey for taking up with a married woman, though the woman isn't looked at with the same equanimity.

While on board ship the friendship between Aubrey and Maturin deepens as the good doctor must learn to accommodate himself to the harsh shipboard realities, a reality which the sailors (many of them 'pressed' men, several Africans among them) seem to take in their stride -  floggings to deter all manner of bad behavior including drunkenness which wasn't helped much by the daily measure of rum handed out to every man.

I did enjoy learning about the subtleties of leadership, i.e. what makes a good captain, what ill-bred, ill-used, uneducated men will and won't respect and just how chancy were the lives of 19th century sailors and their leaders. Also discovered that a man could be hung for buggering a goat. Chancy, indeed.

Learning that many ships never even carried a doctor on board was mind-boggling. Not that 'doctoring' was any great shakes at this point in history, what with 'bleedings' still regularly carried out as a 'preventitive' or cure-all. Though Dr. Maturin does have enough skill to operate on a man with an ugly head wound and bring back a boy thought dead by drowning.

But on the whole, life on the high seas then was all very hit or miss - the only thing holding everything together, I'm convinced, was strict adherence to naval law and the common goal of defeating Napoleon.

England did expect every man to do his duty and most of them did.

A fabulous book.

Happy Easter Everyone.

Spring by Swedish painter, Carl Larsson.

No Saturday Salon today, but we'll be back at our regularly scheduled spot next week. In the meantime, I hope we may all have a happy and festive Easter with family and friends keeping in mind the reason why we celebrate the day.

Easter Greetings by Russian painter Boris Kustodiev

A Bit of Agatha Christie On A Beautiful Sunny Day in April.

One of many reasons why I adore Dame Agatha's writing:

(The following is an interlude between dead bodies at the English Country estate of Lord Caterham where a body with a bullet in it has just been discovered by a maid. The police are on the scene, Lord Caterham plans on leaving all the details in their hands as well as in those of George Lomax (known as Codders), a government toady who is on his way over from a neighboring estate. The dead man was an important and very hush-hush dignitary.)

"Well," said Lord Caterham, eager to escape, "I'll leave you here, Inspector. You'll be able to find me if you - er - want me. But Mr. George Lomax is coming over from Wyvern Abbey shortly, and he'll be able to tell you far more than I could. It's his business really. I can't explain, but he will when he comes."


Lord Caterham beat a precipitate retreat without waiting for a reply. "Too bad for Lomax," he complained. "Letting me in for this. What's the matter, Tredwell?"


The white-haired butler was hovering deferentially at his elbow. "I have taken the liberty, my lord, of advancing the breakfast hour as far as you are concerned. Everything is ready in the dining room."


"I don't suppose for a minute I can eat anything," said Lord Caterham gloomily, turning his footsteps in that direction. "Not for a moment."


Bundle [Caterham's daughter] slipped her hand through his arm, and they entered the dining room together. On the sideboard were half a score of heavy silver dishes, ingeniously kept hot by patent arrangements.


"Omelet," said Lord Caterham, lifting each lid in turn. "Eggs and bacon, kidneys, deviled bird, haddock, cold ham, cold pheasant. I don't like any of these things, Tredwell. Ask the cook to pouch me an egg, will you?"


"Very good, my lord."


Tredwell withdrew. Lord Caterham, in an absent-minded fashion, helped himself plentifully to kidneys and bacon, poured himself out a cup of coffee, and sat down at the long table. Bundle was already busy with a plateful of eggs and bacon.


"I'm damned hungry," said Bundle with her mouth full. "It must be the excitement."


"It's all very well for you," complained her father. "You young people like excitement. But I'm in a very delicate state of health. Avoid all worry, that's what Sir Abner Willis said - avoid all worry. So easy for a man sitting his consulting room in Harley Street to say that. How can I avoid worry when that ass Lomax lands me with a thing like this?..."


With a sad shake of the head, Lord Caterham rose and carved himself a plate of ham.


"Codders has certainly done it this time," observed Bundle cheerfully. "He was almost incoherent over the telephone. He'll be here in a minute or two spluttering nineteen to the dozen about discretion and hushing it up."


Lord Caterham groaned at the prospect. "Was he up?" he asked.


"He told me," replied Bundle, "that he had been up and dictating letters and memoranda ever since seven o'clock."


"Proud of it, too," remarked her father. "Extraordinarily selfish, these public men. They make their wretched secretaries get up at the most unearthly hours in order to dictate rubbish to them. If a law was passed compelling them to stop in bed until eleven, what a benefit it would be to the nation! I wouldn't mind so much if they didn't talk such balderdash. Lomax is always talking to me of my 'position.' As if I had any. Who wants to be a peer nowadays?"


"Nobody," said Bundle. "They'd much rather keep a prosperous public house."


Tredwell reappeared silently with two poached eggs in a little silver dish which he placed on the table in front of Lord Caterham. "What's that, Tredwell?" said the latter, looking at them with faint distaste.


"Poached eggs, my lord."


"I hate poached eggs," said Lord Caterham peevishly. "They're so insipid. I don't like to look at them even. Take them away, will you Tredwell?"


"Very good, my lord." Tredwell and the poached eggs withdrew as silently as they had come.


The book was published in 1925, only Christie's sixth mystery. But I don't even mind the adverbs. I am in love with Lord Caterham. He is one of the few men in literature that I would willingly marry. Ha!


I've lost track of how many times I've read THE SECRET OF CHIMNEYS, but I suspect I'm not done yet.

Quote/Unquote

Photo by Skye Fillmore.

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other." 

Charles Dickens
A favorite quote of mine and thanks to Marylinn Kelly  for jiggling my memory.