Sunday, I was absolutely certain I would deliver my manuscript for Jekyll and Hyde before 2026. That is, today.
Monday, however, we had a boatload of stuff that had to be done and all of it took longer than it was supposed to (not our fault, for the record). Yesterday there was a whole bunch of little follow-up stuff that had to be taken care of. So now I’m like two chapters short of where I thought I’d be and way short of where I anticipated being on Sunday evening when I forecast the end of the year.
It’s not fatal if I’m late. I can definitely get it in this week and McFarland is flexible… but damn, I was looking forward to the satisfaction of making deadline.
Not that I’m feeling Scrooge-ish or anything. As I said yesterday, it was a good December despite having to stint on my usual Christmas entertainment. But I was reflecting this week that Christmas season is one of the few big events in our calendar.
We don’t travel together (we don’t want to leave the dogs with someone else — at their age a health problem could happen any minute, and sometimes does). I don’t go to the Mensa national gathering regularly like I used to (it’s harder to justify spending the money without TYG there) and we haven’t gone to Dragoncon since the pandemic. There are no big regular family events for us to attend. That makes Christmas time that much more special, something to look forward to. That’s only possible because it ends, leaving us waiting (sort of) for next Christmas.
I’m happy to say goodbye for now. Only 11 months till we buy the next tree, whoo-hoo!
Christmas was low-key — us and the pets — and good. German apple pancake for breakfast, then presents, then naps, then, as always, A Christmas Story. Then a game I bought TYG for Christmas, The League of Lexicon. The naps were needed because TYG got up earlier than usual after Plushie fell off the bed. In a Christmas miracle, he didn’t wreck his leg or any other part of his body.
Gifts? From my friend Ross I got the movie Alias Nick Beale. From my bro, an Oberlin College t-shirt (he was in that area recently). From TYG McVitties digestive biscuits (mmmmm), a Cheescake Factory gift card (like League of Lexicon that’s an “us” gift) and a collection of the great German director Fritz Lang’s. Plus a book, The CIA Book Club.
Other than that, the week was spent working like a demon on finishing Jekyll and Hyde. It’s going slower than I hoped but not so slow I can’t finish it up Wednesday. Not guaranteed though, so we’ll see.
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. Also Happy Holidays, Cool Yule, Kickin’ Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah and Fab Festivus.
Cover by Nick Cardy, all rights remain with current holder.
While I’m rewatching a number of movies for Jekyll and Hyde, I thought I was done watching anything new. I’d seen it all except for a couple of films that simply weren’t available.
Oops. This week my research reading turned up one for the appendix and two films miraculously turned up on Amazon or YouTube. I can’t think of any way it could happen again, though. Due to the rush to get the book done, only one movie gets a review this week.
The appendix-bait is PARIS — WHEN IT SIZZLES (1964) [the on-screen titles show a dash though the poster below does not] because there’s an uncredited Mel Ferrer playing Jekyll and Hyde (i.e., he’s dressed in a top hat and cape, drinks a foaming potion, transforms) in a party scene. Otherwise I used this as a talking lamp while I worked on other stuff.
A Hollywood studio head (Noel Coward) realizes they have 48 hours before shooting starts for The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower and they haven’t received one page from scriptwriter Richard Benson (William Holden) or even a hint what it’s about (even if Benson were a genius this is absolutely batshit). As Benson’s living in Paris, the studio sends over Gabrielle Simpson (Audrey Hepburn) to become his minder: cling to him like a leech but get the damn script written!
Richard, it turns out, hasn’t written one damn thing so now he and Gabrielle have to conceive and write the script in two days. In between supposedly witty banter, they toss off ideas — war movies! Horror movie! Love story! — before settling on a caper film. As they imagine it out, and also imagine themselves as the two leads, the characters constantly shift — is the pretty girl the master safecracker Rick meets reallly an innocent tourist? What if she’s a police spy? Or a prostitute with a heart of gold? And what does it mean that the girl is going to steal the Eiffel Tower?
This is one of those movies with the ingredients to make a fun, quirky film but it just doesn’t work. Hepburn is adorable, as always, but she and Holden don’t have the spark they did in Sabrina, the dialog is annoyingly arch and the story feels less quirky than “let’s throw some more stuff at the wall! Something’s got to stick!” Part of the problem was that Holden had fallen for Hepburn on Sabrina and having her within arm’s reach but uninterested turned his alcoholism, already bad, up to 11. The director had to work around Holden’s problems which led to adding Tony Curtis in a supporting role and Marlene Dietrich in a cameo (details here). It didn’t help; the movie tanked as it deserved to. Still, Hepburn looks adorable and irresistible, as always. “It is a well-known fact that I am not only a brilliant safecracker, I am a liar and a thief.”
A good, productive week, even if I feel quite wiped out.
Last weekend was our annual writer’s group Christmas Party. Smaller than usual, still fun, and we’re still pigging out on leftovers. However it’s an exhausting day setting up for it, from cleaning to cooking (chili, cornbread, beer bread, fruit compote). Next year we’re going to plan better and do some of the cleaning earlier in the month (stuff can be moved out of the way).
Of course, I had to move my computer up to my office and out of the way. Turns out someone knew the password.
One of my goals for next year is cleaning up my room. Quite aside from my guest (a doll from my mother’s play therapy practice) it’s disorganized enough even I can’t stand it.
Anyway, that left TYG and me wiped out Sunday, though we managed to put the house back into shape. Fortunately I’ve been sleeping well lately — every so often I’ll go through a no-insomnia stretch and this is apparently one of them. As I mentioned last week, waking up “late” throws me off my game but this time I seem to be coping.
I got two stories in for The Local Reporter, one on local first responders winning an award and one on local GoFundMe projects. And I’m feeling more confident I can finish the book. I rewrote about 40 percent of the text, wrote more on the Hulk chapter and put some more thought into the title. The rewriting showed me it’s in better shape than I realized. Yay me.
Very little else got done. I have several tasks I want to complete but I’m confining myself to the absolute necessities right now. I may be writing this weekend — I’ll probably put in at least one day — but it won’t be as exhausting as the party. Not that I mind — we don’t entertain much so it’s nice to have one big event every year.
Plushie had his recheck Monday. The review is mixed: he’s improving, though not as fast as they’d like. Surgery might still be necessary but maybe not. So we continue what we’re doing (exercise, walks, PT) and have another checkup in January. Fingers crossed. He also got his eye exam and despite his glaucoma, his peepers are still holding up. The vet was quite astonished he’s almost sixteen. That pleases us.
And I sold one copy of Sex for Dinner, Death for Breakfast last month. Thank you, unknown buyer, for giving my book a shot.
Bonus photo, here’s Snowdrop under the Christmas tree. So far neither cat has attempted to climb it.
As I wrote in 2017 if I lived in isolation it would be much easier to manage my time. I’d be more efficient but, of course, more miserable. You can trust me on this; I was single and pet-free for most of my life and married with pets is better.
This year I got even less isolated due to making Snowdrop an inside cat back in January. After the first week or so, it worked out well; Wisp slept downstairs with Snowdrop at night so I could wake up and do a half-hour of exercise and stretching without the cats deciding my body language was an invitation to snuggle. After a long stretch of doing that stuff irregularly (ever since we took Wisp in two-plus years ago) the improvement in how my body feels is marked (plus improvements in things like balance).
But the nature of living in a house with four pets and another person is that there’s never a permanent time-management solution. First we have Dudley’s injuries requiring added PT time. Then the past couple of months we’ve been going to bed later — not the occasional thing where I have a Zoom writers’ meeting or TYG has to work late but just shifting “normal” by a half-hour to an hour. No big, except that it means I get up later (assuming I’m sleeping well, and lately I have been) which throws off my schedule. I wind up skipping exercise or skipping the half-hour of tea and reading that follows it up, or I do both and start writing a lot later. Which is not good because with the PT and various other stuff, I don’t have any wriggle room to make it up later in the day. And in the evening, I’m not up for it.
(Plushie escaped recently when we neglected to lock his cage. Fortunately he didn’t do anything to harm his leg, just climbed up on the couch).
Another is that TYG’s been doing more work in the early morning before bringing Plushie down. That results in dog PT, walkies and my morning ablutions not getting done until around 9:30, about 90 minutes later than “normal.” Logically I should have 90 minutes extra before she comes down but frequently it doesn’t work that way. Perhaps because Trixie insists on coming down earlier and I spend extra time petting her? It doesn’t seem like that can be the whole thing, but …
This week part of the problem has been Dudley suddenly resisting eating his meds, no matter what tasty treats we wrap them in. He’ll eat them eventually but it can add a good ten minutes to the morning routine.
And part of it is that I bought us a Jacquie Lawson digital advent calendar, having had so much fun with one a friend got us last year. Checking out the day’s offerings in the morning eats time, but pleasantly. A couple of days ago, the game for the day was decorating a snowman. We went, perhaps, a little overboard.
I will muddle through this month and launch some sort of adjusted schedule with the New Year.
This week I accomplished one of the nuts-and-bolts of writing this book, going over the cast and behind the scenes credits for each entry and fleshing them out. Also rearranging some of the entries to make sure the chapters are even length; figuring out which chapters a couple of movies should go in (they don’t quite fit any of the chapter topics); and checking for movies I’d forgotten to enter in the book at all (there were a couple). I think I’m on track for an end of the year finish.
On a lighter note, I’ve been attending a Genre Book Club this year, an event sponsored by the Durham Library where the organizer picks a genre each month and we all read a book of our choice fitting the theme. At this week’s meeting, Elle, the moderator, gave regular attendees Christmas ornaments reflecting our choice of books through the year.
Very cool.
Simak cover by Richard Powers. All rights to images remain with current holders.
As I’ve blogged about a couple of times, the Victorian stage scripts adapting Jekyll and Hyde had a huge influence on subsequent adaptations. The two scripts I read this week are noteworthy in that they don’t stick as closely to that template as the Richard Abbott script reviewed at the link does.
As H. Leonard Cuddy’s JEKYLL AND HYDE has a large role for a maid (an unhappy one, raped in one scene, murdered later) I’d assumed Cuddy was influenced by Mary Reilly but no, this came out in 1981.
Jekyll here has the radical belief that intelligence and character aren’t something born into us: all our brains as bodily organs are equal in ability but education and social status leads to us burying a lot of it. This annoys both Dr. Lanyon and his niece Celestine — is Jekyll seriously suggesting that his uncouth new maid isn’t innately and obviously inferior to Celestine? Despite which Jekyll and Celestine become engaged in the “well, I guess you’ll do” matter of fact way some people apparently did back then. Unfortunately Jekyll’s experiments in unearthing what’s buried go in unanticipated directions … interesting.
In the introduction to his DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE script, playwright David Edgar admits he wanted to get back to Stevenson but instead found himself borrowing from later adaptations, including a maid inspired by Mary Reilly. Edgar’s script does restore Jekyll to bachelorhood but gives him a sister who represents the “new woman” of the late 19th century, the kind of independent, quasi-feminist woman he believes Stevenson’s sausage-fest of a novel was responding to. The story that results didn’t do much for me but like Cuddy’s, it’s an interesting variation on its theme (I’ve no idea how I’d respond to either of them were I not knee deep in Jekyll and Hyde thoughts). And I did find Edgar’s discussion of casting interesting: originally he’d chosen two men to play Jekyll and Hyde but he concluded the audience wants the tour-de-force of seeing one man assay both roles.
As the Bill Bixby Hulk TV show wound down, NBC launched THE INCREDIBLE HULK (1982) as a Saturday morning cartoon. It strongly resembles the Hulk’s Silver Age run in Tales to Astonish: in between the Hulk clobbering various threats (Doctor Octopus, Spymaster) Bruce Banner struggles to keep his identity secret with Rick Jones’ help, while fellow scientist and girlfriend Betty Ross wonders where Bruce keeps disappearing to.
It’s adequate but uninspired compared to the X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons of the 1990s. It’s distinctive in making Betty a scientist years before the MCU (in comics she was Bruce’s Girlfriend, General Ross’s daughter, nothing more) and showing her as capable in other ways: in the final episode, when she’s convinced the Hulk has killed Bruce, she goes after him like an avenging fury.
It’s also interesting that “Origin of the Hulk” has all the visuals of the gamma bomb test from the comics but they never spell out that the gamma-ray device Bruce is testing was a weapon. Nuclear testing no longer being cool, it’s the closest anyone’s come to using the comics origin on either the big or the small screen. And finally this gives us She-Hulk’s first screen appearance, though not a memorable one. “Looks like you captured a stuffed gorilla!”
The first season of THE INCREDIBLE HULK (1996) has a stronger voice cast (Neal McDonough as Bruce, Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk, Genie Francis as Betty, Cree Summer as Jennifer “She-Hulk” Walters and Matt Frewer as the Leader) and draws more on the Bronze Age when Hulk (created this time by a gamma-powered engine exploding) was restlessly wandering all over the country, pursued by General Ross’s Hulkbusters. Betty is once again a scientist (I’m surprised they never retconned this take into the MU) and we have a huge array of guest stars including Thor, Iron Man and Ghost Rider. A much more entertaining show and She-Hulk’s personality shows how much she improved since her debut: where Bruce is unleashing his buried rage, she unleashes Jennifer’s buried swagger and sense of fun. “Totally irrelevant, Gargoyle — you know I don’t do gratitude.”
BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING (1932) is a Jean Renoir film in which a bourgeousie bookstore owner saves a tramp from going down, takes him into his home, then both of them and the businessman’s family have to adjust. It’s a quirky, cynical little comedy of manners, much better than the more pretentious American remake Down and Out in Beverly Hills. However it does not shed as much light as I thought on Renoir’s later The Testament of Dr. Cordelier. “He spat in Balzac! He respects nothing!”
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (1945) is a vast improvement over Oscar Wilde’s tedious book, though it wasn’t quite what I was in the mood for relaxing after Thanksgiving dinner. George Sanders as Wotton tosses off Wilde’s epigrams, convincing young Dorian (Hurd Hatfield) that nothing is more important than staying young — which Dorian proceeds to do, even as his soul ages from sins such as driving singer Angela Lansbury to suicide and then moving on to innocent Donna Reed. Hatfield’s increasingly flattened affect as the film progresses becomes increasingly creepy. “The only different between a caprice and a life-long passion is that a caprice lasts longer.”
Somehow I never wrote about the Mexican film PACTO DIABOLICO (1969) in which John Carradine uses his deceased friend Dr. Jekyll’s research as the basis for a youth potion so that he’ll never have to worry about someone taking over his research and getting all the glory after he dies. Wouldn’t you know, there are A Few Side Effects, such as gouging out women’s eyes and dressing in a top hat and cape even as Carradine turns into a beastman?
At least, I think that’s what’s going on — whether from subtlety or sloppiness they never spell out clearly that Carradine’s using Jekyll’s chemical theories, so first time through I was a lot more confused. Not the worst movie I’ve watched for Jekyll and Hyde but not particularly good either. “The time has come for a supreme, inevitable meeting with destiny!”
We had to change things up from last year because the cats’ litter boxes sit where we normally put the tree. With a little rearranging of the living room, sticking it near the French doors worked out well.
TYG bought a lot of bird ornaments for the tree, some of which are visible in the photo. I think the weirdest one is the vulture.
Snowdrop was not at all happy with this big thing we brought into the house. He went and hid upstairs in the master bedroom.
This was a productive week. My brain is in high gear working on Jekyll and Hyde, the kind of intense state where I have a hard time getting up from the computer to exercise, stretch, etc. Which I regret after a few hours but I need that intensity to finish the book. I got a lot of polishing done this week, as well as some research reading and watching the 1982 and 1996 Incredible Hulk cartoons.
Over at The Local Reporter I wrote about Carrboro’s downtown plan, profiled outgoing council member Randee Haven-O’Donnell and a Saturday event marking the day the Thirteenth Amendment ended legal slavery (though as the article notes, some people found a workaround). At Atomic Junkshop I looked back at the mystery of why, after 18 months without buying comics, I suddenly picked up Teen Titans #32 (cover by Nick Cardy).
I also looked at how the sword-and-sorcery genre in Bronze Age comics did not begin with DC’s Nightmaster.
If Denny O’Neil’s writing were as cool as that Joe Kubert cover, perhaps it would have.
That’s my week. As usual these posts are less memorable when things are going well. I’m okay with that.
As chronicled in Jekyll and Hyde Dramatized, when Richard Mansfield brought his stage adaptation of Stevenson’s novel to England, one David Bandmann whipped up a mockbuster version starring himself. It violated copyright and Stevenson’s people got it shut down fast.
One of the things I’ve picked up on that most books haven’t is that an 1897 adaptation by Luella Forepaugh and George Fish is a direct knockoff of Bandmann’s script, whether authorized or plagiarized. It was more successful though, cutting out some of the worst parts of Bandmann (the choir of adorable moppets singing) and would be the basis for multiple silent films. It’s influence is substantial.
DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE by Richard Abbott is a 1941 adaptation that appears to owe a lot to the Bandmann/Forepaugh-Fish version, including a comic-relief Irish cook, Hyde declaring that he enjoys attacking helpless women and children and a similar arrangement for changing Jekyll to Hyde. That said, Abbott does chart his own path on some things, such as an emphasis on the age gap between Jekyll and his lady love. It’s still being performed in the 21st century, but I find it slow, tedious and talky. One element that didn’t transfer from stage to film is Sir Danvers Carew’s daughter demanding Jekyll help capture Hyde (the movies shifted Carew’s death to the end of the story so there’s less time for that).
AMERICANS AGAINST THE CITY: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century by Steven Conn looks at how Americans a little over a century ago began grappling with the idea that the majority of the population was now urban, an unsettling thought for a country that defined Real Americans as living in small towns and on farms, not wage slaves and drones living in the big city. Plus cities were dysfunctional in a lot of ways — slums, corrupt political machines, immigrants, how could they possibly be the heart of America?
The initial response from early 20th century progressives was to fix the cities: better government, slum clearance, parks, education (the swimming pool controversies of Contested Waters fit right in). This proved a tougher task than expected, leading to counter-arguments that the solution was to support authentic rural lifestyles as the real America, or to build new towns that could be perfectly, efficiently run from the first. Neither solution worked: support for traditional Appalachian crafts, for instance, mostly turned them into a cottage industry providing kitsch for urbanites with money.
What ultimately changed the game was the federal government building the interstate highways. Not only did this destroy many settled city neighborhoods, it made it possible to leave the city to live and commute there for work. City populations stopped growing and often shrunk, as did their revenue base. The Reagan era further intensified the problems by insisting government is the problem so government doing anything to fix things was pointless.
The focus on urban planning rather than the pop culture perception of cities wasn’t quite what I wanted. However I’d still rate it as an interesting book.
ABC’s ONCE UPON A TIME was a mixed bag for me over the years (sequential season reviews here, here, here, here, here). The initial premises has PI Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) discovering the town of Storybrook is populated with refugees from fairytales, cursed by the evil queen Regina (Lana Parrilla) to live as mortals denied their happy endings. Emma, of course, refuses to believe it, let alone that she’s the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, who pulled a Jor-El and Lara to get her to our world before the curse hit.
While Disney frequently used the show to promote their film catalog it did offer clever spins on the old tales (Ginnifer Goodwin as a rebel Snow White was a lot of fun). On the other hand, it was often way too soft on Regina (as I discuss here): while her time as Evil Queen was fueled by tragedy, that doesn’t change that she laid waste to a kingdom and made Snow’s life a living hell over a child’s innocent mistake. Less tragic than psycho.
I rewatched the end of S6 and the beginning of S7 because Jekyll and Hyde play a role along with multiple other fictional characters (Nemo, Count of Monte Cristo). I felt (and still do) that the duo’s appearance comes off largely pointless: it’s more a useful plot point to have Jekyll’s formula split off Regina’s dark side, giving us the Evil Queen as villain while keeping Regina reformed
That said, from the Jekyll and Hyde perspective it has some interest. It’s one of the few (only?) times the formula physically splits good from evil the way Jekylls are always saying it should. Only it doesn’t split them psychologically: Jekyll is odious and Hyde is capable of grief and softness. The show was definitely running out of steam, but it wasn’t done yet. “It appears there was one final twist.”
The Disney + series SHE-HULK, ATTORNEY AT LAW (2022) riffs on both the Dan Slott run on She-Hulk (she’s an attorney tackling superhuman law) and John Byrne having her break the fourth wall (“Excuse me, who’s series is this?”). Tatiana Maslany plays Jennifer Walters, Bruce Banner’s cousin; when she’s injured in an accident, he saves her with a blood transfusion and guess what happens?
I watched this initially for the Hulk chapter of Jekyll and Hyde but Jen doesn’t change from repressed rage the same way — as she points out to Bruce, she’s spent her whole life learning to keep her anger in check, like when some dude lectures her on her own specialty of law. I kept watching because it’s funny. A fight with the super-villain and influencer Titania, who’s trademarked the She-Hulk name. A lawsuit involving an Asgardian shapeshifter who banged a guy by appearing as a big-name rap star. I also like that unlike a lot of the MCU, this has no qualms about letting a villain like the Porcupine show up in costume. The finish suffered from too much fourth-wall breaking but I’d still like to see S2 (Disney is mulling). And I’m sorry I didn’t think of mentioning the show during a recent Con-Tinual panel on TV courtroom dramas. “Either there’s a big twist coming or I’m about to get fridged.”
THE AVENGERS (2012) introduced Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, (following Ed Norton in the 2008 film), a role he’s held in the MCU ever since. The movie holds up well as Nick Fury puts together a team to stop Tom Hiddleston’s Loki conquering the Earth (with a high enough body count his later switch to reluctant hero seems like a stretch) with the help of the alien Ch’Tauri. It holds up well, except the Ch’Tauri didn’t impress me then or now — if Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) can kill them with her trusty automatics, they ain’t that much.
Ruffalo’s more brittle as Bruce than Norton’s more controlled Banner, which fits with his comment at one point that he doesn’t have to get angry — he’s always angry. One of the strengths of the movie is that everyone is aware how dangerous Bruce is: when the Black Widow thinks he’s about to Hulk out, even she’s scared. The film doesn’t have the kick it did originally (whoa, all the MCU characters in one movie together!) but it is still fun. “Until such time as the world ends, we’re going to act as if it intends to spin on.”
She-Hulk cover by Mike Mayhew, Avengers by Kirby. All rights to images remain with current holders.
