Hyper Ape Yawn!

I'm sure everyone reading this already knows that I was given a set of Charlie Chan dvds for Christmas. In fact, if I hadn't been ill, I would have scripted a little Christmas play, "A Charlie Chan Xmas", in which a famed Chinese-American detective buys a beat-up tree for the holidays, only to discover the proprietor dead beneath it, stabbed through his carotid artery with an expensive glass ornament...

Anyway, I've managed to spend most of the holidays in the 1930's, thanks to this dvd set, and I really want to share some of the beauties of it.

For example, did anyone realize that Bela Lugosi was in one of them? Probably the best of the bunch, in terms of productions values and such, "The Black Camel" is a pretty wonderful film. Here are some shots below, showing that the cinematographer got to have a little fun, at least (apologies for the photo quality - I can't use the Grab function on my computer in conjunction with the dvd player):

 

 

Unfortunately, the whole film doesn't look quite this stylized, but it looks good, Bela looks healthy, and he has some fun dialog.

Another favorite of mine is "Charlie Chan Does London", or something like that. London is in the title, at any rate, and Warner Oland is again in the lead role. This film contains the coolest silk velvet outfit ever:

 

 

Even though the print was restored for this film, it's obvious the original was in very poor shape. This Chan movie is loaded with wonderful clothing, though. Highly recommended for 1930's fans.

There was knitting in one of them - midget knitting, as Olive Brasno knits up some thing in "Charlie Chan Goes to The Circus" (or some such title - it's Warner Oland and Keye Luke at the Circus, at any rate).  I tried to get close-ups of what she was knitting, and they are uber-crappy:

Part stockinette, then with loopy rows? chenille rows? eyelash yarn spun from the bearded lady rows? See for yourselves:

No bloody help at all. Rent the movie, folks, and then tell me what you see.

As if Bela Lugosi, silk velvet, and knitting midgets weren't enough fun, in "Charlie Chan at The Olympics" he actually rides in the Hindenburg!  Oh, alright, it's just stock footage. But stock footage of the Hindenburg! And one little bit is shot from the inside of a zeppelin (not sure it's the Hindenburg - it could have been from the Graf Zeppelin or another airship). See for yourselves:

 

I've still got five movies from the set to watch, so you might have to look at more crappy photos of my laptop. Apologies.

'ere, now, wot's all this, then?

Picking on the knitters  - for shame!  From The Telegraph: 

9. Mother Clancy must have found the deal of the year at the Arran jumper shop: 'Buy one get three free'. 

I must admit, though, that's a lot of Aran knitting on those four boys. Hopefully some knitter was handsomely paid for all that cabling.

Plot Z-twists

The would-be pithy title is my half-assed attempt to make light of my excitement in discovering a film in which knitting is a plot device. Not much of one, admittedly – mostly serves as a red herring - but one that unexpectedly moves the story forward.

As you may have noticed, dear reader, I have a fondness for things vintage. I’ve a modest but well-loved collection of vintage knitting and crochet patterns. For over a decade the only new garments I wore were underwear and socks (put on a bit too much weight to stay vintage, unfortunately). And when I’d switch through the channels on TV, I’d stop anytime I saw something black and white.

So I was delighted to find a small collection of public domain movies available on the Internet Archive. I downloaded one immediately entitled “And Then There Were None”, directed by Rene Clair. The visuals of the film are quite wonderful, and there’s a light touch of humor brought to a grim Agatha Christie tale. (NB – the novel has a much nastier ending than the film.)

If you’ve never seen any versions of this story (most filmed under the title “10 Little Indians”) or read the book, it’s about a group of people who are invited to an isolated locale for a house party that turns out to be an opportunity for one of the characters to kill off all the others. The justification is that everyone in attendance has gotten away with some crime and deserves their fate.

Judith Anderson is one of the actors in this film version. Her character knits. And she sports a knitted stole for a sizable amount of her screen time. And in one sequence she is wearing what looks to be one of those lovely 1940’s hand knit jackets.

So I grabbed some screen shots – sorry they’re not better, but the print was not dvd quality – to share with everyone, along with a few of the more entertaining dialog quotes.

First photo is a seemingly gratuitous kitty photo. But it’s not gratuitous at all.


The next several are of Judith Anderson. She is sitting on a terrace, knitting her hard little heart out. She seems to be knitting a sweater (or jumper, as they would have said in 1940-something Britain) with what looks to be two to three inches of ribbing. Notice also her shawl and the jacket she is wearing.



Check out the knitting bag!


Large enough to hold her knitting and a pair of binoculars, as you'll see in the next two shots. You'll also see closeups of the sleeves of her jacket – I would have loved a clearer picture, but these were the best I could get. I'm pretty sure I've seen that design, or something similar, in one of my vintage books.



These photos show the design of her stole (which she also uses for a scarf). It’s a long rectangle, so shaping isn’t an issue.




Here’s Judith throwing her yarn, knitting English (just as I would expect). Nice to know that she and Dr Zoidberg share knitting techniques.


Next we see Dame Judith at the beach; note that here she’s using the stole as a head scarf.

Dame Anderson's character stops to pick up some seaweed. But why...?



She returns to the house with her find and says, “Such a pretty pattern - I thought I'd like to copy it for a shawl.”

At a knitting retreat, no one would think twice about that remark. However, since she's the only knitter at this house party of doom, they simply look at her as if she's insane.

The notion that her behaviour is irrational is seemingly supported by a brief conversation someone has with her in the kitchen, in which she makes (what I think) is a perfectly rational observation:

“Very stupid to kill the only servant in the house; now we don't even know where to find the marmalade.”

After breakfast (probably one without marmalade), the rest of the house party discusses Judith's oddness, with Walter Huston passing final judgment with this great line:

“No sane person would think of using seaweed as a pattern for a shawl!”

However, before they can get their pitchforks and torches together to go after the heartless, knitting-crazed witch, a ball of yarn drops down into the conversation. Our little kitty friend has chased it over the banister.

And here’s a gratuitous shot which does not do justice to Clair’s visual aesthetic – the light yarn against the dark floor, with an even darker shadow falling across it.

They follow the yarn into Judith’s room, where she’s obviously died like she lived, with her knitting in her hands (and probably on a chenille bedspread).

From Viviana's Mad Howls

I'll look through some of my knitting patterns to see if I can find one which matches her jacket. And I think the design for the stole should be fairly easy to reproduce - in the next few weeks I'll knit up some swatches and post the photos. I won't, however, be designing shawls based on seaweed just yet. Maybe later.

So, in summary, I rate this film "Mmmm...knitting."

Inspiration for the Month

Probably not the way you are thinking of inspiration, dear reader. I began writing a story last year (length TBD), a tale of personal growth and geographic quest (exile and returning home)*; I got my characters’ narrative to the point where they took the next step – but there was no next step there, nothing but darkness. I knew where they were going to be in the end, that was pretty much built into their personalities early on; however, they still need catalysts, drivers, to help the get from A to B in less than a million pages of aimless meandering. I’m no James Joyce, so trust me, you don’t want me to take on that particular literary experiment.

But this weekend I was pointlessly googling for images of whoever/whatever came to mind, and I found this photo. And some…thing, I guess, clicked in my mind, and suddenly I knew that face belonged in my tale – not the real person, by the way, but the character traits that photo conjured in my mind when I saw it. Within minutes I’d created an entire group of characters, storylines to go with them and to propel my original characters forward in their own tale. Eh, why am I bothering you with this? Well, my poor RL friends and coworkers get to hear way too much of this stuff, so I thought I’d share the wealth ;-)

If the story gets to a point where I’m willing to share some – or all – of it with any sort of reading public, I will do just that. Writing is like knitting, though. You see a yarn you like; you see a pattern you like; you think that, with a little work, you can get them to go together really well. Next you know, you hate the yarn, you hate the sweater, and the entire project spends years in a plastic bag until you give it away or unload it at a garage sale.

As a writer, you can have the same experience. Some characters don’t have nearly as much to say to you as you thought originally; story ideas that seemed to have real meat to them end up nothing but dried bones. However, with writing it’s not easy to give unfinished stories that aren’t working to the local goodwill; but you can recycle ideas, characters, or even words if it’s good dialog or a wonderfully wrought phrase. Still, it’s not uncommon to end up with several notebooks that have the literary equivalent of a half-knit sweater in them.


* If one views life as a journey then (almost) all narratives are ‘quests’ of a sort, character starting at A, going through B to get to the end, C, be it stories of personal evolution (Pride and Prejudice), personal devolution (Watt)…I was going to add novels that focus on quests, such as Patricia McKillip’s Riddle Master trilogy, but that includes personal evolution and devolution, as most fantasy quest novels do to a greater or lesser extent.