12/17/2023 0 Comments Edmund droodHe loves his nephew, and yet cannot avoid hating him as a rival for the young woman. Jasper, who is the choirmaster in "an old cathedral town" (based on Canterbury), is a secret opiun user. Both are in love with Rosa Bud, the ward of the lawyer Hiram Grewgious. The novel's main figure would be Drood's young uncle (and rival) John Jasper. So Dickens decided he would write one novel where the center would be the commission of a crime: to wit, the disappearance (and probable murder) of the title character Edwin ("Ned") Drood. Dickens, who could plot as well as Collins, could not quite see how differently the two approached novel writing. Collins did this too, but he centered his plots on the crimes in the stories. He was a social critic, and he had to notice crime as part of the social scene. But in all of his books Dickens used crime and criminal as an element, not the central element, of the story. In his lesser fiction, he had used characters based on real life poisoners Thomas Griffith Wainewright and Dr. Murders played parts in MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, BLEAK HOUSE, A TALE OF TWO CITIES, and OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. OLIVER TWIST was certainly a crime centered tale of gangs of youths trained to be thieves in London. He had been accused of writing sensational novels by his critics. It became the best selling series of issues for the magazine - outstripping issues that had contained Dickens' novel OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. He edited a magazine, ALL THE YEAR ROUND, and had been lucky enough to get his friend, William Wilkie Collins, to write a novel for it to be serialized. He already had David COPPERFIELD, GREAT EXPECTATIONS, PICKWICK PAPERS, BLEAK HOUSE, OLIVER TWIST, A Christmas CAROL, A TALE OF TWO CITIES, and seven or eight other titles to remind the world of his talents. The film, then, serves as an interesting companion piece to contemporaneous Dickensian adaptations (a star-studded David COPPERFIELD emerged from MGM that same year) and should also pique the interest of horror buffs for the reasons I delineated at the startĬharles Dickens reputation did not need THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD to survive his death in 1870. Montgomery, however, does not rest on his laurels – indeed, he makes himself up as an old man in order to conduct his own private investigation! The exciting climax – set inside the crypt so memorably utilized in the James Whale masterpiece I mentioned earlier – sees the villain engaged in a scuffle with the hero, eventually getting his just desserts in melodramatic fashion. This adaptation of Charles Dickens' famous unfinished novel is made in the style of Universal's horror films: in fact, it not only features many of their participants (from both sides of the camera) but actually shares several sets with BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) –making the film all that more enjoyable and fascinating a viewing! The stunning opening sequence, depicting an opium-induced hallucination, is followed by the shocking discovery of the addict involved (Claude Rains) to be the choirmaster of the local church! Jealously in love with a girl (Heather Angel) about to marry his nephew (David Manners in the title role), he schemes to get the boy out of the way – unaware that the couple had mutually given each other up when she falls for hot-tempered newcomer Douglass Montgomery the latter's own shaky relationship with Drood leads to his being suspected of foul play when Manners goes missing – a situation Rains encourages for obvious reasons. David Manners doesn't have as much to do but is also good. In fact all the cast acquits themselves well, particularly Douglass Montgommery and Heather Angel. Claude Rains may have given better performances, but he is still exceptional, and from Rains you wouldn't expect any less. The characters are believable, especially the tortured and creepy John Jasper. The film is short for a Dickens adaptation, but the mystery is always involving and respects the book, well with what they had to work with, rather than disembowelling it. The dialogue is easy to follow and is written, while the story is tense and suspenseful. The atmosphere evoked really does give off a sense of unease. The stylised Gothic sets though are very striking and the film is filmed most handsomely and further advantaged by generous direction from Stuart Walker. It does have pacing issues and the ending is far too melodramatic. And Mystery of Edwin Drood is very good, it does a noble job adapting an unfinished book and works very well on its own. Claude Rains, a consistently great actor, is reason enough to see any film.
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