42 - Coming in Six Weeks

A story that Hollywood is LONG OVERDUE to tell. Jackie Robinson: American Hero.

The Catch - In Color

No, I'm not talking about Dwight Clark vs. the Cowboys.

Now, I am a Bogart devotee and I appreciate the artistry of black and white. But Willie Mays' catch, in appropriate color, is simply, well, amazing.

Many do not realize that the throw to double up the runner
at first was as impressive as the catch

Sherlock Holmes Goes to Court

UPDATE - The Economist doesn't seem to think that The Estate has much of chance on this one.

Another lawsuit regarding ownership of Sherlock Holmes.

Sidney Paget is THE Holmes illustrator
from the original run of stories. If I remember
correctly, this picture (in black and white) was
found rolled up in a trash can or something
like that by his daughter. It was published
for the first time in Leslie Klinger's annotated
books

I know the person who claims to own the copyright to Sherlock Holmes (usually referred to in some form as the 'Literary Estate.'). Courts have ruled against her more than once, involving her assertion that she owns the characters, not just the stories. She has no relation to the Doyle family.

If I remember correctly, her then-husband Sheldon Reynolds bought the rights from the Doyle family. Reynolds produced the black and white Holmes tv series starring the under-appreciated Ronald Howard. She got the rights in their divorce. Or so the story goes.

As an FYI, all 60 of the original Holmes tales by Doyle are in the public domain in England. All but the last 10 (collected as the Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes) are in the public domain in the US.

CORRECTION

I was mistaken. I assumed this was related to the Literary Estate's claim to the Holmes copyright. This is actually a lawsuit against the Doyle heirs, who are trying to block the publication of the book. It's amazing how many different people are trying to make money off of Conan Doyle's work (including his family). At least authors are producing something. The heirs are just milking the talent of their bloodline.

Clayton Kershaw - $200 Million Pitcher?

Factoring in age and ability, I think Clayton Kershaw is worthy of being the highest paid pitcher in the game. But a $200 million contract for a pitcher? Presumably $25-$30 million a year? For a guy who will (hopefully) play in 40-ish games and maybe win 22 or so?

I still believe that baseball's salary structure is going to (continue to) hamstring the game and, at best, keep it third in popularity behind the NFL and NBA. And really fourth, behind college football. My Dodgers are the new Yankees and out front on the road to ruin.

This is a pretty good article at Cnnsi.com looking at the financial prospects of Kershaw and Justin Verlander. Verlander: Cy Young winner on the AL Champions, in line for a record setting pay day and dating the cover girl of the SI Swimsuit issue. Tough life.

Arthur Wontner - The First 'Definitive' Sherlock Holmes (Part One)

I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere

Due to the smashing success of the two Guy Ritchie-helmed films, Robert Downey, Jr. is now the face of  Sherlock Holmes to many, if not most, people. He succeeds Jeremy Brett in that role; Brett himself followed Basil Rathbone. We're going to look at a few depictions of the great detective in film and television. We'll start with the first major Holmes star of the "talkies" era: Arthur Wontner.

PART ONE - A Holmes On Every Corner (or Stage..)

In the days before cinema took firm hold of the entertainment seeking public, stage plays were the major source of work for actors of all levels. Arthur Wontner was the last film Holmes before Basil Rathbone laid claim to the role. But as we’ll see below, Wontner’s stage career would directly and indirectly cross paths with many Sherlockian-related performers.

In the late 1890’s, a young Wontner served in Louis Calvert’s theater troupe (the great Eille Norwood was also a member at one time). Both would also perform at different times for Edward Compton. In 1906, Wontner played Raffles (Norwood, John Barrymore), the gentleman thief created by E.W. Hornung, Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother in-law.

Wontner first worked with Lyn Harding (who twice appeared opposite him in films as Professor Moriarty) at the Shakespeare Festival in 1910. In 1912 he played Orsino (Basil Rathbone) in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Also in the cast was Dennis Neilson-Terry (Holmes in Doyle’s play, The Crown Diamond) and Felix Aylmer (Holmes in the 1933 play, The Holmeses of Baker Street).

In 1913, he played Hilary Cutts in The New Sin. Norwood would play the part the very next year.  And in 1916, Wontner portrayed an enduring villain, Peter Pan’s Captain Hook. The role would be shared with two screen Moriarty’s, Ernest Torrence and Harding. That same year, Wontner appeared in the movie, Frailty, which also included Norwood in the cast!

In 1920, Wontner went into management and was involved in several plays. They were not overwhelmingly successful and thankfully for Holmes fans, he returned to the stage. In 1922 he was cast as Detective Anderson in Mary Robert Rinehart’s mystery play, The Bat. This was a hugely successful play based upon her earlier novel, The Circular Staircase. Largely forgotten today, it was one of the most popular plays of its time and Wontner was the male lead.

He continued to appear in the UK and America throughout the twenties; there were always parts available for Arthur Wontner. It is unlikely that New York theatergoers, attending The Captive in September of 1926, realized they were seeing two future great Holmes’ when Wontner and Rathbone shared the same stage! In 1924, Wontner appeared in The Ware Case. His own future Watson, Ian Fleming, would make his film debut in the same story in 1928 (albeit in a different role. Clive Brook later filmed it as well).

In 1930 he played one of history’s greatest villains, Cardinal Richelieu (H.A. Saintsbury, Raymond Massey, Christopher Lee) in The Three Musketeers. Following that play, he was cast as detective Sexton Blake. It was directly from that role that he would go on to play the greatest of all detectives in The Sleeping Cardinal.

In 1934, between Holmes films, he was Pontius Pilate in the play Good Friday. Rathbone would follow in a filmed version the following year. Later that year Wontner played King Louis XI (Rathbone, Saintsbury).

Wontner focused on movies for the rest of his career, with occasional appearances in plays. He filmed Blanche Fury in 1947, appearing with future Holmes Stewart Granger. His last film came in 1955. Three Cases of Murder included Andre Morrell, who would play a non Nigel Bruce-like Watson opposite Peter Cushing.

Clive Brook, Raymond Massey, Robert Rendel and Reginald Owen had all made undistinguished “talkies” featuring Holmes. Brook’s first effort (he made two Holmes films) was the most commercially successful, but beyond a doubt it was Wontner who came closest to the realization of Doyle’s creation.

For Twickenham, it was certainly an inspired choice. As Wontner had said himself, “People had remarked so frequently, ‘You really ought to play Sherlock Holmes. I’ve never seen anyone so like Sidney Paget’s drawings.’” In fact, Wontner was Joseph Simpson’s drawing for The Red Circle come to life. About his casting, Wontner said:

I knew the stories very well. You couldn’t say I was an expert or anything like that, but I liked them very much, and it helped with getting the dialogue right. I found quite a lot of dialogue in the stories that we were able to use…I was keen to see that the dialogue was authentic.

Next up: the first film, The Sleeping Cardinal.

The Sleeping Cardinal was renamed Sherlock Holmes'
Fatal Hour for its American release

The Greatest of These is Love

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Bob's Books - Conan the Raider by Leonard Carpenter

Conan the Raider is the second of the eleven novels that Leonard Carpenter wrote in the fifty-book Tor series. In William Galen Gray’s chronology it is the sixtieth Conan tale, following Robert E. Howard’s The Man-Eaters of Zamboula (aka Shadows in Zamboula) and taking place before L. Sprague de Camp and Bjorn Nyberg’s The Star of Khorala.

This tale opens up with Conan chasing the man who had stolen a gem, the Star of Khorala from him. Our favorite barbar had obtained the Star at the end of Howard’s The Man-Eaters of Zamboula. While it does take place directly after that story, you need not have read it, as the tie-in to the actual plot is minimal.

This book could more accurately be called Conan the Tomb Raider, and I rather liked it. We get an inside look at the building of a massive pyramidal tomb, which, of course, Conan is going to rob. I liked the shadow that Stygia’s culture cast over neighboring Abaddrah in this book. Carpenter digs into the socio-cultural side of things, which I don’t find too often in the Conan pastiches. The Queen was a bit one dimensional, though.

As in Carpenter’s Conan: Scourge of the Bloody Coast, the hero is awfully forgiving of someone who betrays him. I think Carpenter is showing the practical side of Conan, but, in this book, at least, it seems that Conan will let bygones be bygones (even really, really bad things) if he can make a bit of coin in so doing. I think he undervalues the Cimmerian background too much in this one. Honor and revenge get short shrift.

Where there’s a necromancer, there are undead. I like the horror aspect they bring to this story:  there seems to be more substance to it than there was in Conan the Defiant. “Creepy” seems like  fair description.

Sex is implied with the sultry dancer who has the lead female role, and Conan is rewarded with a woman’s favors at the end of the book. But this one is low on the Conan sex scale.

Readers of Howard’s original Star tale might have wondered what happened next to Conan: this story answers that question, though 98% of the book is really a side trek in the Star’s saga. But it works.

The next Tor book published after this one was John Maddox Roberts’ Conan the Champion. With so many average (or worse) books in the Tor line, Raider and Champion were a rather solid back to back duo.  I found Raider, while not a great book, to be one of the more enjoyable Tor pastiches.