The Dictionary Atkinsonian

A few noble quotes from the world's greatest living chemist.

• "You plum-bum!"
• "Don't be a Geoffrey, Jeffrey."
• "Why it's astatine, Justine."
• "This met-ol is as soft as cheee-eee-eeese."
• "Met-ols!"
• "Met-uls!"
• "Met-els!"
• "Met-ils!"
• "Right-ho!"
• "Argh!"
• "I invite you to talk."
• "Shhhhhh - don't tok!"
• "Stop your incessant char-tar!"
• "Pleeeeeeeeease..."
• "The gas airrr-rrr-rrr."
• "Qiy-ut!"
• "Let us feed the pooooooooor..."
• "Notice my... rock-shelf!"
• "This is... gypsum! A gypsum stick!"
• *Pointlessly throws a cherished elemental substance in the air and clumsily catches it.*
• "Can you beat the tee-chur?"

If we got the chance, I'm sure we would. Heh, heh, heh.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)

This "site" can have a more serious side at times, so I'm going to force you all to sit through a precocious selection of film reviews. Try and have a Merry Christmas - I've made it as interesting a snapshot as possible.


Made on the back of the hugely successful but fairly austere The Hound of the Baskervilles (also 1939), Adventures was the second and last excursion into Conan Doyle for Twentieth Century Fox, and the second of fourteen adventures for Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, the definitive Holmes and Watson. This ranks as the best of that formidable repertoire for a number of reasons - the always fascinating George Zucco's reptilian Moriarty; the stunning production values as Fox recreates a good chunk of Victorian London, including the Bloody Tower; the dynamic musical score (especially considering its vintage) by David Buttolph; the sly undercurrent of black humour, excellently handled by Bruce and Zucco; Leon Shamroy's glittering black-and-white cinematography; and the stable directing of Alfred Werker, who hit a career peak with this film. This neat set-up has "classic movie" written all over it, a title that Adventures has rightly earned. Special praise must go to an unrecognizable Rathbone's cockney dance hall routine, which is entertaining, amusing, and weirdly compelling on so many levels. Then there's that classic line he delivers to Professor Moriarty, world ambassador of villainy: "You have a magnificent brain, Moriarty. I admire it. I admire it so much I'd like to present it pickled in alcohol to the London Medical Society."

There are a few detractors, too, but they're kind of fun in that dated fashion. The romantic lead (Alan Marshal) comes off as more of a psychopathic child snatcher than a comfort to the leading lady, and is unfairly saddled with the script's worst lines. (To paraphrase: "You think I'm going to hurt you? I sometimes wonder why I don't!"). Much has been made of Ida Lupino, other half of the love interest, but she makes very little impression here. True, her career was one of missed chances and forgotten promises, but perhaps it's not so much of a surprise that she never rose to bonafide stardom. The mystery is convoluted, complicated, and utterly incomprehensible, chunks clearly chopped from the script to speed up the proceedings. But overall, it's a very slick job.

As mentioned, George Zucco is the standout here. He had plenty of experience in the horror trade, and it clearly reflects in each bulbous, glowing eye. Whether cackling, "I'll give him a toy to delight his heart," eccentrically staring up at his plant collection with sardonic glee, softly threatening his petrified butler with a boiling in oil, or sadly announcing his intentions to retire to the abstract sciences, Zucco is the cold, cruel, calculating embodiment of malice, a dark reflection of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. There isn't a false note in his electric performance, and it certainly towers above his more conventional series rivals. Zucco again proves himself to be an unfortunately underused character player, and one who richly deserved the stardom and exposure of a Karloff or Lugosi.

The Holmes series moved to Universal Pictures for the next entry, 1942's Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, but the series rapidly deteriorated into repetition and lethargy. The next twelve were not without a great sense of nostalgia, including some minor classics, 1944's The Scarlet Claw and The Pearl of Death, but lacked the lavish studio mounting of the first two installments. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes embodies all the best traits of these classic detective thrillers - complex mystery, cunning disguises, fog and shadows aplenty, pompous British stereotypes, genuinely funny comedy, a truly menacing antagonist, and the irreplacable Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, on top form as always. It has yet to be topped in the genre.


Stay tuned for another dull review - the bizarre 1962 horror anthology, Tales of Terror, again with Rathbone - as well as the next installment of those potty Potter adventures. And if you would rather watch Van Helsing, Saw, or that tepid House of Wax remake, kindly dunk your head in a toilet. I could pull better horror out of my posterior with a deadened Game Boy Camera, a crummy bedroom lamp, and several buckets of horse manure. And should you still persist, the collective ghosts of Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, and Peter Cushing will get you while you sleep.

Heh. You've got to sleep sometime.

Chapter One: Owl Post

Here's that delightful Potter spoof I mentioned, which James Davies and I have managed to record. We tapped a decent cast as well, including Sir Laurence Olivier as Winky, the manic-depressive house elf.

The Davies played Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, that enigmatic Tea Lady, and Professor McGonagall, as well as any number of bitchy, effeminate characters yet to surface. I, on the other hand, choked all possible fun out of Rubeus Hagrid (well, Mr. Atkinson), Ron Weasley (expertly personified by a sock puppet), Albus Dumbledore, and... well, I wouldn't want to spoil it, would I?


Introduction
We hear the wind whistling between the boards of a tumbledown gardener's shed. The faintest notes of Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" rise elegantly above the stormtorn myopia.
Stephen Fry: Oh, hello, there. I didn’t hear you come in! Good evening, and welcome to the humble abode of Sir Stephen Fry – the most darling little gingerbread chalet, nestled in the heart of the snow-dusted Swiss Alps! Yes – Sir Stephen Fry, reclining in a nineteenth-century armchair, using my brother and long-term partner as a cushy footstool, and with glass of port in hand, mind you! And tonight, I shall read to you lesser mortals the delightful escapades of everybody’s favourite, acne-ravaged teenage wizard. From the wonderful world of G.K. Chesterton, the bewitching magic-ry of… Harry Potter!
The Star Wars theme tune abruptly starts and fades to nothing.
Utter arse gravy!


Stay tuned for the next bewitching (ooh, clever) scene, in which various well-respected dramatic conventions are set up only to be knocked flat on their pompous faces. Ho, ho, ho!

On that note, I'll drop you a link to the right honourable Stephen Fry's take on the Dracula legend. Drawing room hilarity may or may not ensue:

http://www.electronincantation.net.nz/4_Favourites/pages/4-s-01-The-Letter.html

Baker! The Musical...

Just a few of the song titles from the multi-million West End musical blockbuster starring everybody's favourite librarian.

• Baker!
• Have You Done a Print Preview?
• I Got Locked in the Store Cupboard, and Lived to Tell the Tale (March)
• A Life Without Spellcheck
• It's Not Library, it's LRC
• I Hate Martin!
• Ballad of the Lost Kiwi
• I'm Just as Good as Mrs. Dibb, No Mistake
• Mr. Shiels, You're the Only One for Me
• I Hate Martin! (Reprise)
• Bags Out the Library - Not Including Me
• Big Bag Romance
• Fantasia on Repetitive MIDI Files
• Baker! (Big, Fat Sing-Off)

I'm holding out for the sequel. It's sure to feature a certain crusty schoolmaster floating eerily around his classroom and crumbling to dust as the sun rises. In the immortal words of Rolf Harris: "Can you guess what it is yet? Eh, eh? Oh, gimme a break, sport! They're taking away my extra leg after the failure of Bestiality Hospital!"

Breaking in the Blodgings

As Wednesday's thrilling addition to my blodgings in Baker Street, I submit a scintillating little drawing I did in Paint. Well... simple computer programs please simple minds, after all.

http://img400.imageshack.us/my.php?image=welcome0il.png

How about that! It looks almost like I imagine myself to appear! I think in some weird way, it reflects the hidden degradation of our collective immortal souls. And it's a lot more significant than Gerard Butler's piffling skin wrinkle in 2004's The Phantom of the Opera. What a wimp. If you want ghastly makeup, go see the 1925 version, starring the great Lon Chaney, who also played in 1923's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. His Phantom looks like he's come dripping out of a festering leper colony plonked in the middle of an atomic battlefield (the actor used improvised metal prongs to scrunch his nose up, and suffered from the most incredible nose bleeds). And of course, the film's silent, so you can absorb my velvet tones as I yammer on about it for ninety minutes.

Tune in next time for the first thrilling installment of a Harry Potter spoof, subtitled "Everybody Hates the Potter Boy," or "Potter: A Ten Minute Interpretive Opera." I, James Swanton (expert copyeditor), solemnly swore to write James Davies' (originator, writer, part-time pirate of Penzance) name before mine, and will do all in my power to achieve that egocentric goal of his.

Whoops.

Welcome to the Land of Phantoms...

This blog pertains to be an ongoing chronicle of the life and times of James C. Swanton - lifelong horror lover and jack-of-all-trades, as amateur writer, actor, artist, film historian, and any other number of useless trades that will succeed in making me very little money.

Enjoy this tranquil spot in cyberspace, where you can relax in your cushy computer chair, admire the pixelated scenery, and hear some fifteen-year-old nutter debate the ever-so-charming continuity errors plaguing Dracula's Daughter (circa 1936; the golden age of vintage horror)!