Tag Archives: Inspector Alan Grant

Melodrama Screening and Discussion, Wednesday 26th of February, 5-7pm, Jarman 6

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All are very welcome to join us for the fourth of this term’s screenings. We will be showing The Franchise Affair (1951, Lawrence Huntingdon, 95 mins) on Wednesday the 26th of February, 5-7pm, in Jarman 6.

The Franchise Affair is based on Josephine Tey’s 1948 novel of the same name. The third of Tey’s Inspector Alan Grant series of novels, it directly follows 1936’s A Shilling for Candles, adapted as Young and Innocent (1937). (You can see our discussion of this film here: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/melodramaresearchgroup/2020/01/21/summary-of-discussion-on-young-and-innocent/ )

Grant once more briefly appears, this time played by John Bailey, but the top-billed stars are Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray. Denison, as local lawyer Robert Blair, comes to the aid of Gray’s Marion Sharpe, and her mother (played by Marjorie Fielding). They have been accused of kidnapping and torturing a local young woman, Betty Kane (Ann Stephens). Tey’s plot was inspired by the real-life case of 18th Century maidservant Elizabeth Canning.

The New York Times considered both Tey’s novel and the film to belong to the melodrama genre. On the film’s release in the United States a very brief note labels the film ‘a British-made melodrama’ (3rd June 1952). Two months later, James Kelly reviewed Tey’s The Privateer (written under the name Gordon Daviot) for the same newspaper. In his review, Kelly applies the term ‘melodrama’ to The Franchise Affair and Brat Farrar – Tey’s 1949 non-Alan Grant novel (24th August 1952). Kelly provides more detail, claiming that Tey’s ‘vivid characterization, dispassionate reporting, and crisp writing can lend conviction to improbable melodrama’. Kelly’s view of melodrama is therefore pejorative – it is not believable, and praise is due to Tey for surmounting it.

We can perhaps discuss this in relation to the novel and/or film. In particular, it may be worth considering if the fact that the New York Times labelling of the film as ‘British melodrama’ has additional significance, commenting not just on its country of production, but its treatment of melodrama.

Do join us if you can.

Summary of Discussion on Busman’s Honeymoon

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Our discussion of Busman’s Honeymoon covered genre – especially different aspects of melodrama; adaptation; the notion of authorship; and casting.

The film credits both Dorothy L Sayers’ 1937 novel, Busman’s Honeymoon, and Sayers’ and Muriel St Clare Byrne’s 1936 play of the same name. But we primarily discussed the film in relation to Sayers’ novel. This is partly because our theme for this term is adaptations of detective novels written by women. There is also a practical reason: the play is far less known today, and more difficult to access, than the novel. The two authors of the play nonetheless raise interesting questions about authorship which I return to towards the end of this post.

 

We discussed the titles of the novel and the film. ‘Busman’s Honeymoon’ suggests a mix of genres. The similar term ‘Busman’s Holiday’ refers to a vacation spent performing similar tasks to one’s ‘day job’. Lord Peter Wimsey investigates crime and Harriet Vane writes detective novels. We can therefore anticipate that their married bliss (significantly they are on honeymoon – implying romance – rather than on holiday) will be interrupted by crime. This is indicated more strongly in the subtitle to Sayers’ novel: ‘a love story with detective interruptions’. The title of the film on its US release, Haunted Honeymoon, is less explicit than the film’s UK title, perhaps the phrase is less well-known in the US. It still suggests that something unusual will occur during Peter and Harriet’s honeymoon in their new home.

We began our discussion on genre by commenting on this genre hybridity in more detail. The film’s genres are more equal than in the novel, which after all places primacy on a love story which is ‘interrupted’ by detection. The film switches between romance and detection more readily. Peter and Harriet’s jokey banter as they agree to stop investigating and writing about crime is juxtaposed with the crime itself. In this, the film more closely resembles the play’s subtitle (‘A Detective Comedy in Three Acts’) than the novel’s. The novel and the film begin with a focus on Lord Peter Wimsey (Robert Montgomery) and Harriet (Constance Cummings). But the film more quickly incorporates the crime by depicting the victim Noakes (Roy Emerton) and his relations with those around him. The film paints Noakes as an unpleasant man, with various people in the village shown to have motive for removing him. Noakes’ niece, Miss Agnes Twitterton (Joan Kemp-Welch), is revealed to be his heir, and in want of money in order to keep her fiancé, Frank Crutchley (Robert Newton). Frank has an additional monetary motive – Noakes owes him £10. The village policeman Constable Sellon (James Carney) also has a financial reason as Noakes is blackmailing him. Cleaning lady Mrs Ruddle (Louise Hampton) is another person who has been threatened by Noakes; he caught her stealing some of his fuel. Sure enough, Noakes is then knocked unconscious, presumably killed. This greatly contrasts with the novel as Noakes is only spoken of since we are introduced to the suspects once Peter and Harriet arrive at their new house.

We noticed that the film’s foregrounding of the crime also increased aspects of melodrama – especially male melodrama. Mystery is inherent in films which focus on detectives, and Violence is also often implied if the plot involves a murder. The film’s setting up of several suspects, each of whom is filmed creeping around the village and having unpleasant interactions with the victim, amplifies the mystery and means that the violence is enacted on screen. The chase aspect is also present. Again, this is emphasised in the film in comparison to the novel. In the latter when the policeman suspect, Constable Sellon, goes missing this is for a very short period of time. His discovery by a sergeant is only revealed to the reader in retrospect – perhaps partly because Peter is not involved. The film not only shows the chase, but, as with Noakes’ murder, the lead up to it. It inserts a car crash between a lorry and Lord Peter’s car in the centre of the village which is inadvertently caused by Constable Sellon. Constable Sellon flees the scene and the cinematography revels in the Devonshire landscape to picture policemen hunting their colleague. This is oddly anti-climactic as the audience does not necessarily think Constable Sellon is the guilty party; indeed, when Peter catches up with the fugitive he reveals that he does not believe in Constable Sellon’s guilt either. The chase scenes reminded us of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (1935). But they play a far less central role in Busman’s Honeymoon and are shorter in duration than in either The 39 Steps or last time’s screening, Hitchcock’s Young and Innocent (1938). (see our discussion here: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/melodramaresearchgroup/2020/01/21/summary-of-discussion-on-young-and-innocent/) This perhaps comments on the ability of film to show rather than tell. While novels are of course not limited to telling, and can ‘show’ via description of the characters’ behaviour and though dialogue, the visual image can be more vivid.

As was the case during our discussion of Young and Innocent, we noticed elements of more traditional melodrama in Busman’s Honeymoon – suffering women. This is less of a focus in Busman’s Honeymoon than the male melodrama, since the suffering mostly relates to supporting characters. However, the suffering, like the aspects of male melodrama, also seems emphasised in the film in comparison to the novel. While the novel delays revelations about Noakes’ murder, and Miss Twitterton’s and Frank’s relationship, the film divulges this information sooner. This means that we are aware of Miss Twitterton’s shabby treatment at Frank’s hands (including his cheating on her with Polly (Googie Withers)) for a longer period. Miss Twitterton also relives her suffering as she relates what has happened to her to Peter and Harriet when they visit her house. Miss Twitterton’s distress, while acute, is short-lived – she soon pulls herself together. This was also the case when she was, understandably, affected at the finding of her Uncle’s body.

The film’s other main instance of high emotion relates to Harriet, after the murder has been committed but before it has been discovered. The morning after Peter and Harriet’s wedding night we hear a loud shot. Harriet rushes out of the house, terrified, and screaming for Peter. The matter is soon neutralised, and even turned comical; the shooter is revealed to be the local reverend Simon Goodacre (Aubrey Mallalieu), and the victim not Peter, but a stoat. This is an invention of the film, as the novel introduces the clergyman in a more traditional manner.

Harriet’s brief moment of suffering caused us to reflect on the fact that the film also has some gothic tropes. The house in which the murder has been committed is one bought for new bride Harriet by her wealthy husband Peter. This brings together both the old dark house often present as a setting in gothic narratives, and the idea of the unwise hasty marriage. The novel begins with a flurry of letters between various people, including members of Peter’s family, which comment on his and Harriet’s surprise recent elopement. These reveal that the pair did have a big church wedding planned, but that they decided on a smaller, more private, gathering. While the last-minute change of venue has caused consternation to some, it is made clear that Peter and Harriet have known each other for a long time. Those familiar with Sayers’ previous Wimsey novels would know that Peter and Harriet met several years earlier (in the 5th Wimsey novel, Strong Poison, published in 1930) when he defended her on a charge of murder against her live-in-lover. Harriet also appears, alongside Wimsey, in the 7th, Have His Carcase (1932) and the 10th , Gaudy Night (1935), novels of the series.

By contrast, the film introduces us to Peter and Harriet prior to their wedding. The film fleetingly pictures a society announcement of the upcoming wedding, noting that it is ‘long-awaited’. In the opening scene, Peter and Harriet are carrying out an inventory of wedding gifts, which include numerous, very gothic-looking, candelabras. Their relationship seems jokey but is not as obviously of such long-standing as in the novels. We do not see the wedding (this seems to occur at the time Noakes’ murder is taking place on screen), but we do glimpse Harriet trying on her wedding dress. Significantly, this is a traditional white gown. A letter from Peter’s sister-in-law, Helen, cattily comments that Harriet had the ‘sense and the propriety’ not to wear ‘white satin and orange blossom’ due to her scandalous past. We thought that the film therefore portrayed Harriet as less experienced, especially as there is no mention of her previous lover. While this is unsurprising, due to what was considered to be in good taste in the mass medium of film at the time, it can also be seen to position her more closely to the heroine of gothic narratives.

While we mostly compared the film to the novel to illuminate the former’s genre, especially melodrama, we also commented on the basic mechanics of the murder plot and representations of characters. Unlike Young and Innocent, Busman’s Honeymoon retained the same murderer and motive as its source novel. Frank killed Noakes for financial motives. We especially noted that the film stuck rigidly to Frank’s ingenious fake alibi. Frank set up a heavy plant pot, attached by wire to the radio cabinet; this struck Noakes when he opened the lid, as was his habit, at 9pm – a time at which Frank made sure he was seen elsewhere.

The film was very faithful to the novel in this respect, and most of the changes which heightened elements of melodrama simply moved aspects from later, to earlier, in the narrative. Moments at which the film diverged more strongly from the novel had a bigger impact on the characters, especially Harriet. In addition to small alterations which emphasise Harriet’s links to the gothic heroine, other elements give her less independence. Harriet’s means of earning her own income – writing detective novels – are denied to her in the film as she and Peter agree to both give up detecting. This affects Harriet more because Peter is very wealthy, and his work unpaid, while she will be dependent on him for money. In the novel, however, Harriet tells a journalist that she will continue writing; furthermore, she reveals that Peter is supportive of her stance: ‘he certainly doesn’t object- in fact I think he entirely approves’. The nature of Harriet’s work is also disparaged in the film. During the wedding gift inventory scene Harriet comments that Peter’s family thinks her novels are ‘junk’. This is not something Sayers states in the novel – perhaps because she herself is a female writer of detective fiction.

This returns us to consideration of authorship. Authorship is already a complex matter in films as they are the product of several collaborators – director, screenwriters, actors, camera operators, costume designers etc. This is intensified when the film is an adaptation. The authorship of Busman’s Honeymoon is especially convoluted. The film credits Sayers’ novel and Sayers and St Clare Byrne’s play. In addition, it lists that its screenplay was written by Monckton Hoffe, Angus MacPhail and Harold Goldman. But Sayers’ is probably the name we most recognise today. This was even the case at the time of the film’s release – via her 10 previous Wimsey novels and her co-writing of the play.

We can usefully compare the authorship of Busman’s Honeymoon to Young and Innocent. This too was a collaborative effort, but director Alfred Hitchcock’s input is probably most foregrounded in the present day. Hitchcock was well-known by the time of Young and Innocent’s release, though he had yet to achieve his almost mythic place in film. By contrast, its source, Josephine Tey’s novel A Shilling for Candles was only the second in her Alan Grant detective series. We can speculate that the fact that the public was less attached to Tey’s novel may have been part of the reason it was feely adapted – only the first half of the novel appears on screen, and her central detective Alan Grant was mostly absent. After all, the title had to be changed because this no longer made sense as a reference to the murderer’s motive as both of these had been altered.

 

Brief consideration of Busman’s Honeymoon’s director is also necessary. The film’s production is complicated. While the American Richard Thorpe began shooting the film in the UK in August 1939, the outbreak of World War II meant that this was soon suspended. Arthur B Woods, a less known British director, took over when production resumed in March 1940. Although Woods gained acclaim for his noirish They Drive by Night (1938), nearly half of the 27 films he had directed from the start of his career (in 1933) are missing, presumed lost. The reasons for the number of films produced by particular directors, and why some of their films are still extant while others vanish, is of course multifaceted. But in way of comparison, all 10 of the films Hitchcock directed between 1933 and 1940 are still in existence. Woods was also denied the opportunity to cement his reputation as he was killed in action in 1944 while flying with the Royal Air Force.

 

 

We also commented on the impact the film’s casting of actors had on the film. We were surprised that that two US stars played the quintessentially English characters. Cummings was most familiar to us as Rex Harrison’s second wife in David Lean’s adaptation of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit (1945). Montgomery had a long career, but we mostly associated him with high-class characters, such as in Robert Z Leonard’s The Divorcee (1930). Just prior to Busman’s Honeymoon, Montgomery starred in Richard Thorpe’s Earl of Chicago (1940). Montgomery’s character in this film starts off as a gangster. But on the death of his English uncle, he inherits an Earldom and a butler and is propelled into the higher echelons of English society. Montgomery had previously appeared, as the Irish Danny opposite Rosalind Russell’s Olivia, in Thorpe’s 1937 US film version of Emlyn Williams’ play Night Must Fall. While Busman’s Honeymoon is a British film it, like Night Must Fall, casts Americans as non-American characters, but retains British actors in supporting roles.

 

We especially appreciated Sir Seymour Hicks’ performance as the devoted butler Bunter, alongside Robert Newton and Frank Pettingell. Hicks was connected to melodrama through his long-running association with Charles Dickens’ character Scrooge. Meanwhile, Newton and Pettingell both starred in Thorold Dickinson’s UK version of the melodrama Gaslight the same year that Busman’s Honeymoon was released. The connection of these actors to melodrama, and dramatic acting, heightened Montgomery (Peter) and Cummings’ (Harriet) separation from them. We related these to both class differences (the American Montgomery and Cummings play the only upper-class characters) and the film’s genre hybridity (detective comedy and drama).

As ever, do log in to comment, or email me on sp761@kent.ac.uk and let me know that you’d like me to include your thoughts on the blog.

Summary of Discussion on Young and Innocent

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Our discussion on Young and Innocent covered its relationship to both traditional and male melodrama; the main characters Erica (Nova Pilbeam) and Robert (Derrick De Marney) and the stars who played them; the film as an adaptation of Josephine Tey’s novel A Shilling For Candles; another of its director Alfred Hitchcock’s films from around the time.

We were especially struck by the melodramatic tone of the first scene, a direct contrast to the jaunty, 42nd Street-style music, which plays over the opening credits. In the first scene, a man (Guy, played by George Curzon) and woman (Christine Clay, played by Pamela Carme) have a blazing row. This is filmed straightforwardly, privileging the gestures of the characters. These gestures are rather broad, but the staginess is explained later in the narrative as we learn that both participants are performers – a musician and a film star. The lack of inventive camerawork means that we focus on the dialogue in which Guy accuses his wife, Christine, of infidelity. As the argument reaches its peak, sound is used imaginatively. In addition to music underscoring the characters’ emotions, the weather is also dramatic. A diegetic clap of thunder obligingly replaces the, presumably colourful, insult Guy directs at Christine. Drama conveyed by landscape and music is extended to the scene in which Robert Tisdall (Derrick de Marney) finds Christine’s strangled body on the beach. The lapping of waves at Christine’s lifeless, swimming costume clad, body is joined by another upswell of music.

 

Other aspects of the film can be more usefully connected to the male melodrama’s staple elements of mystery, violence, and chase. There is the central mystery of who killed Christine, and the whereabouts of the presumed murder weapon – the belt from Robert’s raincoat. Chase also plays a large part in the film as Robert soon goes on the run. Violence is implied in the hands-on method of the murder, even though we do not witness it. There is also the threat of violence, as we may fear for the life of young Erica (Nova Pilbeam); a woman who becomes bound up with Robert, and the film’s elements of mystery and chase. More traditional melodrama is returned to as Erica begins to regret helping Robert and fears for what will become of members of her family if she cannot return to them. Later Erica is reduced to tears again. The relationship between Robert and Erica has grown and, after a brief separation, they are reunited but she is distressed at the thought of losing him again.

The rhythm of the film is very important. There are points of high drama: a woman has been killed, Robert faces the death penalty if he is found guilty, and Erica faces expulsion from her family if she keeps true to him. There are car chases, a near train crash, and collapsing mineworks. But there are also slower moments. Notably there is comic relief we might compare to earlier stage melodrama which often used stock comic secondary characters. In Young and Innocent these are Robert’s surprisingly breezy solicitor, the incompetent uniformed police who are forced to travel in a cart with some pigs, Erica’s younger brothers, Erica’s Aunt (Mary Clare) and Uncle (Basil Radford), and Will the friendly china-mending tramp (Edward Rigby).

These secondary characters are incorporated more fully into the narrative than is often the case in traditional melodrama since Robert and Erica frequently interact with them. Robert steals his solicitor’s spectacles to effect a Clark Kent-style transformation in order to escape. He also inadvertently kicks a policeman in the head as he and Erica flee their hiding place – a remote mill. Will is enlisted by Erica and Robert to help them locate the real killer.

 

Some of these secondary characters are particularly attached to Erica. Her quarrelsome, but endearing, brothers and her aunt and uncle provide her with context. A visit to Erica’s Aunt and Uncle especially gives Erica and Robert the chance to extend the gentle badinage they have already begun to engage in as they drive through the countryside. The comic awkwardness of Erica introducing a new friend to her family is taken further. Erica’s Aunt questions Robert and, understandably due to his fugitive status, he invents a name for himself. He and Erica then have to improvise around this. When separately interrogated by Erica’s Aunt, they provide Robert with different professions: while Erica states Robert is an architect, he claims to write music. The use of fake names (and Robert’s is perhaps deliberately ridiculous) and the invention of identities brought to mind screwball comedy films. In films belonging to the screwball subgenre, generally thought to have begun in the United States in 1934, the main couple engage in ‘role play’ as part of creating their own world. Robert and Erica’s use of imagination is also employed when it is not necessary to put others off the scent. When they are alone at the cold and dark train station they begin to fantasise about a delicious dinner and a fancy hotel.

We also spent a fair bit of time discussing the two main characters, Erica and Robert, and the actors who played them. We considered the possibility that Erica was a suffering heroine, at risk from violence at the hands of Robert. In fact, this does not seem applicable to Erica. We were impressed with the spirit she showed throughout the film, and which is established in her first appearance. Erica breezes confidently into the police station at which Robert is being held. While Erica’s assurance is partly due to her status as the daughter of the chief constable, it is also influenced by her forceful personality which belies her youth. On seeing that Robert has fainted, Erica swiftly administers physical aid and offers alcohol in an effort to revive him. Erica is equally able to take charge at home by keeping her younger brothers in line – even when one produces a dead rat at the dinner table.

Erica is not limited to spaces connected to her father, though, as her ownership of a car allows her to travel wherever she pleases. It is significant that she alone seems able to persuade her old heap to work – her mobility is only possible because of her determination. Erica’s access to a car means that she can help Robert in his escape and subsequent investigation. She is also an active participant in this. She leaves Robert waiting outside as their quest for Robert’s missing raincoat leads them to Tom’s Hat café. While inside she chats naturally with the regulars, mostly lorry drivers, finding out that Will, a china-mending tramp, was seen wearing Robert’s coat. The release of this information leads to fight breaking out. During this, to Robert’s surprise, Erica is able to take care of herself. She also stands up to Robert as she insists, on more than one occasion, that her dog is not left behind. It is Erica’s knowledge of first aid which unmasks the killer. Will has revealed that the man who gave him Robert’s coat had a twitch. When Erica rushes in to help a musician who has collapsed at the Grand Hotel she realises that he too has a twitch. Her identification leads to him taking full responsibility for the crime, thus exonerating Robert.

We also thought a little about the fact that the film places Erica centrally. Nova Pilbeam receives star, above the title, billing. This mention of Pilbeam reminds us the that characters in films are connected to the stars who play them. Pilbeam was indeed young, aged 18 at the time of Young and Innocent’s release, and had only appeared in a handful of films. The characters she portrayed in these can be usefully compared to the independent Erica. In Berthold Viertel’s Little Friend (1934) Pilbeam played a girl who becomes aware that her parent’s marriage is disintegrating. The same year she appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much – as the kidnapped daughter of Leslie Banks and Edna Best. Just prior to Young and Innocent, Pilbeam starred in Tudor Rose (1936, Robert Stevenson) as Lady Jane Grey, ‘the Nine Days’ Queen’, who was executed at the age of 17.

The struggling youths Pilbeam had previously played mitigates Erica’s independent spirit. Furthermore, the title of the film on its US release, The Girl Was Young, underlines that Erica is the Young and Innocent of the UK film’s title. While in the film Pilbeam’s independence is championed, the outside context of her earlier films and the film’s titles on UK and US release, potentially place her at more harm from Robert.

This consideration that Erica might be a ‘woman in peril’ also needs to be contextualised in reference to Robert’s character, de Marney’s billing, and his previous films. Although Robert is suspected of murder, the only violent act we see him commit is an accidental one – the kicking of a policeman in the head. Robert manages to stay calm while he is on the run, and his role-play with Erica is good-humoured. When reflecting on how a star’s previous films affect his or her current role, it is worth noting that de Marney started in silent films in 1928. Because he had appeared in more films than Pilbeam by 1937 (19 to her 3), it is less easy to provide a summary of the types he played – both larger and smaller roles – in lower and higher budget films. He does not seem to have been attached to villainous characters, however. In Edward Godal’s ‘quota quickie’ Adventurous Youth (1928) de Marney played the main role of a heroic man fighting for his village during the Mexican Revolution. In the year of Young and Innocent’s release, de Marney, appeared in the small role of Young Disraeli in Herbert Wilcox’s Victoria the Great. De Marney played the same character in Wilcox’s sequel, Sixty Glorious Years (1938), and was connected to the role earlier in his stage career. It has been important to look at Robert’s character, and at de Marney’s previous heroic and statesmanlike roles when considering whether Erica is in danger, but it is also true that Erica and Pilbeam’s earlier roles hold more sway. She is after all, more centrally placed. While Pilbeam is given star billing, de Marney is only afforded a ‘with’ credit, which is places below both Pilbeam and the film’s title.

In addition to thinking about how the characters in the films are portrayed and the connections we can draw to the actors, they are further illuminated in comparison to Josephine Tey’s novel. The film is a fairly free adaptation. It changes the identity of the murderer. In the novel this is revealed to be Christine’s brother, Herbert Gotobed, after her husband, Lord Edward Champneis, is first suspected. Christine’s brother does not appear in the film, and her husband, now renamed Guy and redeployed as a musician, is the guilty party. Guy does not play a large part in the film, though he is involved in the key moments which bookend it: he argues with Christine in the opening scene, leading to her murder, and he confesses to his crime in the film’s last moments. The revelation of his guilt just prior to this is especially arresting. The camera sweeps from its initial focus on guests in the lobby of the Grand Hotel to the crowded dance floor, the group of the black-face orchestra, and finally to the twitching drummer – Guy. As well as demonstrating the impressive range of the camera, it is perfectly timed with the sound, as the close up coincides with the line of the song ‘no one can like the drummer can’.

 

We also discussed the fact that the film only adapted the first half of the novel – Erica’s meeting with Detective Inspector Alan Grant and her subsequent undertaking to prove Robert’s innocence. The second half of Tey’s book moves to Grant’s uncovering of the real culprit. In the film, which changes the identity of the murderer, the matters are tied together: finding Robert’s missing raincoat leads to the identification of a twitching man who used the belt to kill Christine. The film’s change in scope also means that it pulls focus. While Grant provides the through-line for the novel, he is barely present in the film, as the renamed ‘Inspector Kent’ (John Longdale) who briefly interrogates Robert at the police station. We were able to recognise that ‘Kent’ was Grant as the dialogue Erica shares with Grant in the novel is allocated to Kent. The film’s main detectives are instead Erica and Robert. 

Because the film’s aspect of investigation is very narrow – finding the lost raincoat – it does not explore the motive for Christine’s murder. I have already mentioned that Guy only bookends the film. Christine is afforded even less attention. This is not the case in the novel, which provides lots of information about Christine’s public image (in fan magazines) before it delves into her past.

Although the film removes some characters, and provides less information about others, it supplies new characters too. These are mostly Erica’s relatives – her brothers, her Aunt and Uncle – and add to the film’s comedy. While this bolsters Erica’s role, it mitigates her self-sufficiency. By contrast, Robert is given less of a back story in the film than the novel which details a previous name change so that he was able to receive an inheritance. The fact that in the film Robert accompanies Erica on the investigations she pursues alone in the novel impacts on her status as an independent woman. In the novel, Will is a menacing figure, who threatens Erica when she visits his isolated caravan alone. Will is altered to a more genial type in the film – he even gets dressed up and dances with Erica at the Grand Hotel. In addition, Robert’s own solo hunt for Will at a boarding house, gives Erica less opportunity to display her bravery.

The placing of a bickering couple at the film’s heart, in contrast to the novel, brought to mind another of Hitchcock’s’ films from a few years earlier. In The 39 Steps (1935) attention is expanded to encompass both Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) and Pamela (Madeline Carroll) in a significant divergence from John Buchan’s novel. This couple-focus is not exclusive to Hitchcock as Hollywood films especially privilege the couple. The mix of screwball and detective aspects was also in fashion at the time. The hugely popular The Thin Man (1934, WS Van Dyke) starring William Powell and Myrna Loy spawned many imitators and five sequels. This returns us to consideration of Young and Innocent’s genre. It deftly combines not just detective tropes and comedy elements, but aspects of male, as well as more traditional, melodrama. In Erica, it has a spirited, but at times vulnerable heroine, who interacts in interesting ways with the film’s elements of melodrama.

Do log in to add a comment or email me on sp761@kent.ac.uk and let me know that you’d like me to add your thoughts to the blog.

Timetable for Spring 2020 Melodrama Screenings

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All are welcome to attend our screening and discussion sessions in the Spring term. These will take place on ‘odd’ Wednesdays from 5-7pm in Jarman 6, starting on the 15th of January.

This term we will be turning our attention to film adaptations of detective novels written by women from the UK. This gives us the chance to compare melodrama on the page (from the 1930s to the 1950s) and the screen (with films dating from 1937 to 1963).

15th January 2020  Young and Innocent (1937, Alfred Hitchcock, UK, 83 mins) based on the 1936 novel A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey.

29th January 2020 Haunted Honeymoon (1940, Arthur B Woods, Richard Thorpe, UK 99 mins), an adaptation of the final entry in Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey series, Busman’s Honeymoon, published in 1937.

12th February 2020 Green For Danger (1946, Sidney Gilliat, UK, 91 mins), from Christianna Brand’s 1944 Inspector Cockerill novel of the same name.

26th February 2020 The Franchise Affair (1951, Lawrence Huntingdon, UK, 95 mins), adapted from Josephine Tey’s 1948 novel of the same name, which in turn was based on a real-life case. This is the 3rd of Tey’s Inspector Alan Grant series, immediately preceded by A Shilling for Candles (see 15th January 2020 entry above).

11th March 2020 Tiger in the Smoke (1956, Roy Ward Baker, UK, 94 mins) based on  Margery Alingham’s ‘Campion’ novel of the same name, the 17th of the series, from 1952.

25th March 2020 Murder at the Gallop (1963, George Pollock, UK, 81 mins), a very free adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1953 Hercule Poirot novel, After the Funeral, which was altered to star Margaret Rutherford as Christie’s other best-known detective – Miss Jane Marple.

Additional details will be posted in due course.