Movies

[Herlock Sholmes]

You certainly know your Holmes CF especially as you’ve got Baring Gould’s Annotated. I also bought Klinger’s Annotated a few years ago though it was expensive. A lot of money spent on books on Holmes, biographies of Doyle, loads of pastiches and even autographs and suchlike. I rarely read anything on the subject these days but I won’t get rid of my Holmes books. I was thinking of buying Denis O. Smith’s 6.30 From Fairfield Junction because there’s no better writer of Holmes stories imo.

I have Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, which is the German Christopher Lee Holmes movie. It’s watchable but has two main problems. The soundtrack - it’s modern jazz so inappropriate and annoying. The dubbing - they obviously had to dub the German actors but they even dubbed Christopher Lee and Thorley Walters.

The Seven Percent Solution is a great movie but I’d say that my favourite is probably The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.

[C. F. Leon]

I must admit I always loved The Mummy with Brendan Fraser and have never seen the original. Should try it someday. I don't dislike remakes per se but then I was born in 1995 and didn't see any of the classics on release. I'd like to see a darker Wizard of Oz that takes more from the (very weird) book/s, and a remake of A Clockwork Orange would be interesting; I found Kubrick's a bit too kitsch.

Hey, I was born in 1956, missing the Silent Era and Hollywood's Golden Era. I grew up just a couple of blocks from the Hollywood Theater, and they had a Saturday matinee for the kiddies. Mostly cartoons (Looney Tunes, some Disney, etc.) Sometimes, especially later in the decade, some Canadian, European, or Anime (mostly Tezuka) would creep in. I remember my parents taking me to see a couple of (Connery) James Bond films. My grade school had an after-school matinee also, and I especially remember It Came From Outer Space one afternoon (paid 25c). Occasionally, I would get to stay up to late to catch a Late Night showing. Two films that really impressed me (because of atmospheric scenes) were The Lost World (Irwin Allen, 1960) and Frankenstein 1970.

When I was in my early teens, I became interested in Monster/Horror films (Thank you, Carlos Clarens & Famous Monsters!). Around that time, one of our local TV channels started a regular dinner hour showing of the classic Universal Monster movies, and I got hooked. A year or so later came Sinister Cinema- two vintage movies and and a chapter from a serial! Good Times.

Later, Video tape (VHS) becomes a thing and for a few bucks you could watch a whole library's worth of vintage films at your leisure, including Silents!

Have you seen Return to Oz, Tani? THERE'S a Dark Oz for you. Return is actually closer in tone to some of Baum's original take on Oz than the 1939 movie or Thompson turning Oz into a suburb of Fairyland. Or the insipid Journey Back to Oz. There's an animated Oz series from the '60s that I enjoy, in addition to the later Anime series.

What did you think of the remake of Kubrick's The Shining?

[Tani]

Hey, I was born in 1956, missing the Silent Era and Hollywood's Golden Era. I grew up just a couple of blocks from the Hollywood Theater, and they had a Saturday matinee for the kiddies. Mostly cartoons (Looney Tunes, some Disney, etc.) Sometimes, especially later in the decade, some Canadian, European, or Anime (mostly Tezuka) would creep in. I remember my parents taking me to see a couple of (Connery) James Bond films. My grade school had an after-school matinee also, and I especially remember It Came From Outer Space one afternoon (paid 25c). Occasionally, I would get to stay up to late to catch a Late Night showing. Two films that really impressed me (because of atmospheric scenes) were The Lost World (Irwin Allen, 1960) and Frankenstein 1970.

When I was in my early teens, I became interested in Monster/Horror films (Thank you, Carlos Clarens & Famous Monsters!). Around that time, one of our local TV channels started a regular dinner hour showing of the classic Universal Monster movies, and I got hooked. A year or so later came Sinister Cinema- two vintage movies and and a chapter from a serial! Good Times.

Later, Video tape (VHS) becomes a thing and for a few bucks you could watch a whole library's worth of vintage films at your leisure, including Silents!

Have you seen Return to Oz, Tani? THERE'S a Dark Oz for you. Return is actually closer in tone to some of Baum's original take on Oz than the 1939 movie or Thompson turning Oz into a suburb of Fairyland. Or the insipid Journey Back to Oz. There's an animated Oz series from the '60s that I enjoy, in addition to the later Anime series.

What did you think of the remake of Kubrick's The Shining?

Return to Oz is my favourite movie, I watch it at least once a month lmao. I show it to all my friends. I have it on both YT and Amazon.

The Shining I found decent but not my favourite; I definitely prefer Stephen King's work's in books. Kubrick's Lolita was a disaster, however.

[C. F. Leon]

You certainly know your Holmes CF especially as you’ve got Baring Gould’s Annotated. I also bought Klinger’s Annotated a few years ago though it was expensive. A lot of money spent on books on Holmes, biographies of Doyle, loads of pastiches and even autographs and suchlike. I rarely read anything on the subject these days but I won’t get rid of my Holmes books. I was thinking of buying Denis O. Smith’s 6.30 From Fairfield Junction because there’s no better writer of Holmes stories imo.

I have Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, which is the German Christopher Lee Holmes movie. It’s watchable but has two main problems. The soundtrack - it’s modern jazz so inappropriate and annoying. The dubbing - they obviously had to dub the German actors but they even dubbed Christopher Lee and Thorley Walters.

The Seven Percent Solution is a great movie but I’d say that my favourite is probably The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.

I've been a Holmes fan since I was a teenager. Barring-Gould (both the 2-volume Annotated and SH of Baker Street) was among the first books that I ordered when I first started with Amazon several years ago, along with Starrett & Rosenberg (surprisingly harder to find). Klinger is on my list, but low in the cue. Currently, my book budget is largely (other than adding my collection of dinosaur books) going to vintage Tolkien calendars criteria/studies and what I can afford of the Starmont Reader's Guide series. My latest Holmes-related acquisition is Harrison's The London of SH. I just received it last week, along with the 2010 Ripper A to Z and a 1976 Hildebrandt Calendar. (It was surprisingly cheap!)

I haven't made various Doyle editions a priority, but did order the early '70s Berkeley Medallion series when I found it was available as a box set. I had picked up the books individually years ago and it is my favorite edition because the cover illustrations are not the usual portraits or scenes but just various paraphernalia with brightly colored backgrounds. Imagine my annoyance when they sent me a DIFFERENT box set (from the '60s)! I eventually got the set that I wanted, and I'm very happy with it.

You know you're a Holmes fan when you know about George Smith's The Second War of the Worlds, Farmer's The Adventure of the Peerless Peer (Holmes meets Tarzan!), and Rupert Furneaux's chapter on Holmes on "Doubtful Identities" in The World's Strangest Mysteries (1961). I was excited when I saw SH's War of the Worlds by Wellman, but VERY disappointed when I got it home and read it. And don't get me started on the novelization of The Giant Rat of Sumatra...

Sorry to derail a movie thread.