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[profh0011]

Lots of strange and confusing S*** going on back then.

For example, I only recently read there were two completely-different characters called "The Falcon" back then.  I believe the 2nd one was from the novel "The Gay Falcon" by Michael Arlen.  From what I read, Leslie Charteris sued Arlen for his character plagiarising The Saint, so, apparently, there was only one novel with that character. 

But then Leslie Charteris & RKO had a falling out over how RKO was doing THE SAINT movies (the ones with George Sanders-- I've often thought, 2 were great, 2 were average, and 1 gets my vote for the worst SAINT film ever made).  Right now I just read that RKO set up a UK branch to somehow take advantage of something that was going on with the British government... and THAT's who made the next 2 SAINT movies, with Hugh Sinclair (1 of which was FANTASTIC, the other one, merely average).  So although connected, it WASN'T quite the same people.

But before this, RKO decided to start a FALCON series, with George Sanders & Wendy Barrie, which seems to me their way of thumbing their nose at Leslie Charteris!  I read sometime ago he tried suing them over this, but the article that brought this up failed to mention he had already successfully sued Michael Arlen over his one-and-only Gay Falcon novel.

Crazy enough, there was another, separate "Falcon" character, Michael Waring-- created by Drexel Drake (real name Charles H. Huff), who appeared in 3 novels, before the Michael Arlen novel appeared.  And this earlier "Falcon" was featured in 3 films starring John Calvert, made after the Tom Conway series ended.  Isn't that NUTS??

That explains why the John Calvert films were so utterly different-- they were about an entirely-different character to begin with.



It took me decades to track down THE SAINT's GIRL FRIDAY.  The damned thing NEVER turned up on any TV station in my area, and I finally saw it on Youtube.  What a terrible disappointment.  Louis Hayward seemed to be aging before his time, and the entire film is so dark, downbeat & depressing, it's the furthest thing from a "Saint" story imaginable (except, maybe, for the Val Kilmer film).  I finally understood WHY it was like that, when I found out Michael Carrerras was involved.  Although not in name, it was, virtually, a HAMMER FILM.  Geez.  Like, the last people on Earth who should have been doing a "Saint" story.

[paw broon]

Of course there another 2 characters called The Falcon (Not including the Marvel or French heroes)
The criminal turned secret agent turned sf good guy turned masked mystery man, finally turning up in Zenith, featured in Radio Fun and a 3 part BBC adaptation for radio.
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/f/falcon.htm
And the superhero from Pep Comics.

I've been reading, or re-reading as I bought som tpbs recently, Avengers West Coast and New Titans Judas Contract.  The Avengers tpb, Darker Than Scarlet isn't as good as I remember.  The story seems confusing and some of the art either isn't very good or doesn't appeal to me.  And before you shout, IT'S JOHN BYRNE!!!, it's not all his work.  Actually at times I found it hard to figure out what was going on and who was who.
The Titans is better but I had forgotten how Terra acted and how young she was.  I wonder if nowadays the way she is portrayed in a comic book might cause considerable worry in certain quarters. Scenes with her and The Terminator look dodgy now.  She was 15 after all.

[crashryan]

Of course there another 2 characters called The Falcon (Not including the Marvel or French heroes)
The criminal turned secret agent turned sf good guy turned masked mystery man, finally turning up in Zenith, featured in Radio Fun and a 3 part BBC adaptation for radio.

So the Falcon in Radio Fun did not start out as the character from the radio series? I am veree confused.

[profh0011]

Considering the "Michael Waring" character-- created by Drexel Drake (real name Charles H. Huff), and the "Gaylord Falcon" character-- created by Michael Arlen-- it might be a surprise that Drexel Drake didn't sue Michael Arlen-- instead of Leslie Charteris suing Michael Arlen.

But, given the 2 Falcons characters in the RKO films were SO different, there might not have been a basis for plagiarism between them, whereasm if you look at some of the RKO films with George Sanders (and even his brother Tom Conway playing his brother), some of those seem MORE like "Saint" stories than the RKO SAINT films.

Sanders' "Gaylord Falcon" had an on-again-off-again girlfriend (played by Wendy Barrie), while Patricia Holm ALMOST NEVER turned up in the SAINT films (only once, to my knowledge, and that was a 2nd-rate film).  Gay also had a steady butler (though he was played by a diferent actor in each film-- OY!).  And, he had a fairly steady comic sidekick, again, played by a smal larmy of actors on a rotating basis (the RKO Templar had several comic sidekicks, but never, that I can recall, the same one more than once).

A recurring comic sidekick in the SAINT books was former NYC criminal henchman "Hoppy Uniatz".  I always recall Charteris' description of him.  Hoppy wasn't very bright.  But ONE thought had managed to work its way into his brain.  That being, the Saint WAS smart.  Therefore-- if he hitched his wagon to Templar, his future was assured.  Templar was, more often than not, amused by Uniatz' presence, behavior, and loyalty.  But, he did come in handy, so he didn't mind him sticking around. 

To my knowledge, Hoppy only turned up on film ONCE, ever-- in an earlt 1st-season episode of the Roger Moore TV series, played by Percy Herbert... who I thought was just TOTALLY-WRONG for the part.

Then again, the tv series went thru 4 different actors playing Chief Inspector Claude Eustace Teal, and the only one who STUCK-- Ivor Dean-- was my LEAST favorite of them.  Oy!

[The Australian Panther]

Patricia Holm ALMOST NEVER turned up in the SAINT films 

She doesn't appear in many of the books either. She was a fixture in about the first half dozen or so, and even then mostly off-stage.

A recurring comic sidekick in the SAINT books was former NYC criminal henchman "Hoppy Uniatz". 

In the books Hoppy replaced a character name of HORACE - who was quite similar.
Turned up in one movie,
The Saint Meets the Tiger1943
[Memorable quote]
https://www.quotes.net/mquote/1114661

In the earliest books Templar had something of a gang and didn't operate alone.

Re 'The Falcon'. Apart from the Marvel comic character, there is also the Australian comic character, 'Sir Falcon'. To my surprise, we have no examples on-line at CB+
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/sir-falcon/4050-62679/
cheers!
 
   

[profh0011]

In the earliest books Templar had something of a gang and didn't operate alone.

Yes. If watching THE SAINT IN NEW YORK is a bit of shock compared to what came later, it was even a bigger shock when I read THE LAST HERO.  No quite the earliest book, but the earliest one I could manage to find in the early 80s.

Templar really was a "modern Robin Hood". He came from a wealthy family, had the best education, and surrounded himself with a group of like-minded friends, who made it their goal to go on a crusade against injustice, just like "The Merry Men".  And Pat was his Maid Marian.

Apparently his best friend sacrificed his life at the end of that book.  It took me some years to track down the sequel, THE AVENGING SAINT.  2 scenes in that that have always stuck in my head.  One is where the bad guys are in the next room while he's hiding in the bathroom, writing a message to them on the mirror as he listens to their plans.  The other is where he jumps from a small plane onto the roof of a speeding train.  When I saw the 1989 film LICENSE TO KILL, I thought the scene where Bond jumps from Pam's plane onto the top of a speeding tanker truck seemed inspired by that scene with Templar.

I also remember the description of the evil scientist, Dr. Rayt Marius, always made me think of Lionel Atwill.

I understand the main villain, who Marius worked for, eventually turned up in a 3rd book, which insanely, I haven't read yet... but THAT book, was turned into one of my favorite films, THE SAINT'S VACATION.  I thought Cecil Parker was the best Saint villain ever!  He was so cool and sophisticated, he was clearly the model for many Bond villains.


Been too long since I watched those things.  I currently set them up as part of a massive 1930s marathon.  I have a new (previously-owned) VCR on the way.  As soon as it gets here, I can resume my videotape marathon.  (There's too much for me to upgrade to DVD all at once!  ONE mail-order a week is a reasonable rate.)


Does anyone know any place that buys old VCRs to repair and resell?  The alternative is dropping it off at a Best Buy where they take stuff for recycling, but I'd like to think it would actually get reused.  (I can't fix it, but the problem is so minor, someone else should be able to. There just aren't any repair shops around here like in the old days.)

[paw broon]

I have to admit that I'm not a fan of many of the film adaptations of The Saint etc.  I dislike George Sanders and some of the other actors in them. The first couple of Lone Wolf films I found enjoyable and a couple of the Bulldog Drummond ones.  But it's this thing about a gang an/or girlfriends/female partners that I was thinking about.  Drummond had a gang and the 2nd book is called The Black Gang - all robes, hoods  and anti semitism.
As Panther points out, The Saint had a sort of team around him.
Paul Temple's lady friend, soon wife, Steve plays a big part in the stories and I don't mean getting kidnapped and screaming - she's much better than that.
Norman Conquest, 1066 had a female partner, Joy Everard who aided and abetted him

[profh0011]

From the moment I started reading the Saint books in the early 80s, the only actor I could picture in my head was Louis Hayward.  To me, he looked the part, he was written and acted the part. The irony is, they decided to adapt the most violent of the books, at a point where the Production Code forced them to tone things down and even change part of his reason for taking out the gang of crooks.  And the film just looks CHEAP.  Even so, it's one of my favorites.



George Sanders is a case of an actor who was TOTALLY-miscast in a role-- yet, I rank 2 of his 5 films (IN LONDON, TAKES OVER) among the best-ever.  IN LONDON is the only one to show us his house with the secret entrance leading to the garage, it's got the best-ever Teal (Gordon MacLeod) and my favorite Saint girl, Sally Gray.  The story it was based on featured Pat, so, really, she should have been playing Pat, and she's the one I picture in my head when I think of the character.  TAKES OVER is actually a better variation on "Angels Of Doom" (my favorite novel of all time), HORRIBLY adapted as STRIKES BACK.  Yeah, I rank Sanders' 1st as the worst Saint film ever made, his 2nd, as the best one ever made.  GO FIGURE!  If Hayward had been in it, it would have been PERFECT.





I just spent more than a half-hour trying to look up an actor whose name I could not for the life of me remember.  It was Warren Hymer.  He's the guy I could picture as Hoppy Uniatz!  I've only seen him in 2 films:  THE CASE OF THE CURIOUS BRIDE (loosely adapted from the only Perry Mason novel I ever read!) and MR. MOTO ON DANGER ISLAND.

[profh0011]

What's really fun is SON OF MONTE CRISTO (1940).  Louis Hayward plays the hero, and George Sanders plays the villain!  Perfect casting!!



And some time after I saw this, I suddenly realized that Herge based one of his TINTIN villains on Sanders' character in this film!  (It's the baddie who was in both KING OTTOKAR'S SCEPTRE and EXPLORERS ON THE MOON.)

[paw broon]

I'm just not convinced about most of the films talked about here, and even if this is "Watcha readin'" Let me say that I would much rather watch the Saint tv series or the Inspector Hornleigh movies or Shskespeare and Hathaway or old Edgar Wallace thrillers.  Preferably, overall, The Big Sleep - the Bogart Bacall version and The Blue Dahlia.
Back to reading, not watching perhaps?
Currently another book in the British Library  Crime Classics series, Two-Way Murder by E.C.R. Lorac.

[crashryan]

Concerning the Saint and his gang, we shouldn't forget that Simon Templar / The Saint first appeared as a member of a five-man vigilante outfit called The Five Kings. We have a couple of those early stories, which ran in The Thriller. For example:

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=58991

Four of the group, identified by playing cards, were Kings, while the fifth, Simon Templar, was known as both The Joker and The Saint. It was a clumsy arrangement, and Leslie Charteris wisely dumped the Five Kings angle when he converted these stories into books.

On the subject of sidekicks, both I couldn't stand 'Orace and Hoppy Uniatz (which as a boy I thought was pronounced "ooney-ats"). I know that at the time dumb assistants for detectives were almost as rigid a requirement as boy sidekicks for superheroes, but Hoppy just slowed the stories down. Every time he showed up I wished he'd just leave so we could get back to the action. Dumb sidekicks were even more grating in movies when you couldn't skip forward a few pages to avoid them.

[profh0011]

It's been so long since I read them, that I can't recall which story Hoppy turned up in.  All I can recall is, he broke into Simon's flat, apparently working for the bad guy, but once he saw who he was robbing, he switched sides.

The next time I saw him was in SAINT AT THE THIEVES' PICNIC, my 2nd-favorite novel.  Simon pulls one long, protracted con-game against the baddies in this, for most of it telling about 95% of the truth in order to hide the 5% where he's lying.  He gets into their confidence, supposedly to help them pull off a caper (the details of which I can't remember at all), and each time it looks like something bad should happen, his wit and charm pushes him past it.

UNTIL... as happens so often, some really stupid, insignificant thing blows his cover.  Which was, someone saw his photo on the cover of a movie magazine.  the nerve of a guy who had become so famous and well-known, to try and go undercover and pretend to be somebody else.  When he knew the game was up, he just smiled, shrugged, and was like, "OH WELL!"  Like, he couldn't believe he made it that far.  THEN he had to figure out how to stop the bad guys, despite their now being on to him.  It was so much fun!

All I can recall about Hoppy is that his head probably hurt trying to keep up with what his boss was doing.  Like Nigel Bruce trying to keep up with Basil Rathbone, only WAY more so.



There are several episodes of McCLOUD with Dennis Weaver as Deputy Marshall Sam McCloud where he finds himself going undercover, and each time, something small and stupid usually blows his cover.  So I was used to that sort of thing by the time I read the SAINT books.

In "THE PARK AVENUE RUSTLERS", he goes undercover to get the goods on a massive car-stealing ring, run by Eddie Albert (from GREEN ACRES), whose PSYCHOTIC sidekick was played by Roddy McDowell, who distrusted and hated Sam from the start.  Things went almost smoothly, until they were at some big party with a lot of upper-crust people, and out of nowhere, Sam's on-again-off-again reporter girlfriend Chris Caughlin (Diana Muldaur) turned up, saw him, said hello, and mentioned her cousin (the Police Commissioner!!).  Next thing, the baddies were in full retreat, and Sam wound up hanging on the bottom of a helicopter as it flew over half of Manhattan.

[The Australian Panther]

McCLOUD with Dennis Weaver 

Weaver stays in my mind because of DUEL. Masterpiece. [Richard Matheson(screenplay)]
McCloud for a different reason.
At some point they had a policy of shooting episodes in different countries.
When US TV did that, they had to throw in known local landmarks [for the US Audience - which meant a limited number.] And to hell with the local audience.
I'm not attempting to be insulting here, just explaining network think.
So there had to be a shot of the Harbour Bridge.
So, according to the plot, he's riding across the bridge [on a horse!] to get to the airport in a hurry.
But he was riding north and the Airport is on the south side.   
Hey, as long as you get the shot, who cares, right?!       

[crashryan]

This sort of thing has happened forever, and not just on international shoots. The Night Stalker was shot in Seattle, which I knew pretty well at the time. The show's geography was completely screwy. Kolchak would be walking down a street, turn a corner, and be miles away in another part of town . As you said, it's about getting the shot, putting in a little local color without sticking too closely to reality. They know the majority of viewers won't know the difference. Personally I'm okay with that.

[profh0011]

I don't know about where the shows were actually filmed, but THE NIGHT STALKER took place in Las Vegas... THE NIGHT STRANGLER took place in Seattle... and most of the episodes of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER took place in Chicago.

[paw broon]

Loved Kolchak.
Actually, today Good Omens is being filmed in Bo'Ness on the banks of the Forth. A few streets blocked off and they are filming in the library and The Hippodrome, Scotland's oldest purpose built cinema. I think they are also using the station of the preserved steam railway in the town.  A couple of friends who live in the town were going to "accidentally" walk down, "just in case" Sheen and Tennent were around. 2 ladies who are big fans.
A couple of weeks ago Batgirl was being filmed in Glasgow and a few streets behind the Tron Theatre had been transformed into Gotham.
So when I see both of them it will look odd as they turn corners and re-appear miles away. 
The Avengers filmed in Edinburgh was actually not too bad and seemed quite logical.  Scenes were also filmed in the tiny coastal village of St Abbs on the east coast - a place we go to regularly.  Lots of good cliff walks and very popular with divers - and despite the CGI, it was great picking out places we recognised as Thor chatted on the cliffs.

[The Australian Panther]

Here is a Spanish Film starring Kenneth More, also, for some odd reason, known as 'Where Time began' Dubbed, but the dubbing is pretty good.
The Fabulous Journey to the Center of the Earth (1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNQFX6bXtP8

Look at the credits for  this director, [Juan Piqer Simon].
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0685034/?ref_=tt_ov_dr#director
A Spanish Irwin Allen?


Cheers!   

[Captain Audio]

Here is a Spanish Film starring Kenneth More, also, for some odd reason, known as 'Where Time began' Dubbed, but the dubbing is pretty good.
The Fabulous Journey to the Center of the Earth (1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNQFX6bXtP8

Look at the credits for  this director, [Juan Piqer Simon].
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0685034/?ref_=tt_ov_dr#director
A Spanish Irwin Allen?


Cheers!

I watched that film just recently. Kind of odd a hard to follow at times but entertaining. The time travel element threw the plot askew a bit.

[profh0011]

I first taped WHERE TIME BEGAN off some local station.  The picture & sound quality were pretty bad, the film looked cheap, but somehow... it had a certain charm to it, that I liked it.  Over the years, I watched it twice more, and liked it MORE each time.  Which is usually a good sign.

So a few years back, when I got the idea to do a chronological sci-fi marathon on Fridays, a few films I bought that I never had before (DESTINATION MOON, EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN).  And a few I upgraded from terrible self-recorded tapes to DVDs (INVASION EARTH 2150 A.D., THE FABULOUS JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH).

The Kenneth More film on DVD left me STUNNED. Not only was it a crystal-clear picture & sound, in widescreen, it was UNCUT. Turns out several entire early scenes were missing from the US butcher job, at least one scene had been run totally out of sequence, the opening and closing credits & music were totally-different, and there were a couple of scenes where someone in America TAMPERED with the visuals for some idiotic bad effect, so in the uncut Euro print (in English) you could see clearly exactly what was going on.

It IMMEDIATELY became one of my favorite films, and it had already surpassed the James Mason film as my favorite adaptation of the Verne story.  (Despite some bizarre changes and new additions, it's WAY closer to what Verne wrote than the Columbia film.)


When I got my hands on the MCI Basil Rathbone SHERLOCK HOLMES box set, I also realized something quite bizarre.  2 different scenes in the 1977 JOURNEY, neither in the book, are identical to scenes in SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON.  What am I to make of that, except whoever wrote the Kenneth More film was a Rathbone fan.

[The Australian Panther]

it had already surpassed the James Mason film as my favorite adaptation of the Verne story.  (Despite some bizarre changes and new additions, it's WAY closer to what Verne wrote than the Columbia film.)

Agreed. I first knew the story from the classics illustrated version and have seen most film versions, so am quite familiar with the original story.
While I sometimes wonder, why the hell do they keep on making new versions of Verne's 'Mysterious Island?' I never tire of seeing new adaptations of other Verne stories. That said, there are at least 1/2 dozen that have never been filmed or appeared as a comic.     

[Captain Audio]

Heres another Simon Verne adaptation, in a more light hearted vien.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yshqhZ8XqQ

Monster Island is a total fraud. More like a theme park with mechanical dinosars and a fake volcano. The entire adventure, other than the unexpected intrusion of treasure hunters, is a hoax perpetrated by the young hero's wealthy ecentric uncle.
I expect Verne was inspired by several theme parks of the day which featured statues of what people thought dinosaurs would have looked like. I think they even had coaches for visitors built in the shape of dinosaurs.

[profh0011]

I first ran across "Journey To The Center Of The Earth" as an amusement park boat ride in Dorney Park in Allentown, PA.  No kidding!  Later, I saw the 1967 Filmation cartoon series.  The writing & animation were both pretty bad, but something about it continues to grab me.  I only wish they'd actually done the beginning and the end of the story.  I once fantasized that Filmation could have done a movie spin-off of the series, with the beginning and grand finale the show never did, as a follow-up to their animated FLASH GORDON movie.  If they'd done it in the early 80s, Ted Knight (who played Oliver Lindenbrook) was still around.

Around the end of the 60s I finally saw the James Mason-Pat Boone-Thayer David film.  Loved it, as weird as it was.  Looking back, it's shocking how in typical Hollywood fashion, they changed so much of the story, especially the ending.  As with Poe films, many Verne movies add both romance and a villain that's not in the original stories.

And then there's Rick Wakeman's 1974 LP, which actually managed to encapsulate the novel in 45 minutes, maybe only 10 of which is actual narration! I love David Hemming's reading... "DUMB with astonishment and amazement which bordered on stupification... they fled the forest."  I know there's apparently been several different English translations of the novel, but I was disappointed that that line was NOT in the book I read.

I have several Verne comics (either the actual books or scans from online) and actually spent a good part of a year posting a whole variety of comics versions of "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea".  Another instance where the most famous version (the 1954 Disney film), while a FABULOUS movie, is drastically-different from the book.  (Which is not necessarily a bad thing.)

I forget the actual number, but it seems to me Gilberton's "Classic Illustrated" did about 10 Verne novels... but Bruguera's "Joyas Literarias Juveniles" in Spain did 50 Verne novels!!  And I haven't even counted all the ones in the Mexican "Novelas Inmortales" and "Joyas De La Literatura" digests.  (I've only been buying the Poe comics, but I've been slowly, tediously grabbing cover scans and compiling indexes-- there's like 700 or 900 issues in those series!)

Decades back, I noticed that in most mall book stores, you usually could only find 3 Verne novels-- 4 if you were lucky.  But most of his works ARE in print, you just have to get them from online stores these days.

My very 1st exposure to Verne (though I didn't know it) was Disney's "IN SEARCH OF THE CASATAWAYS" (1961), based on "Captain Grant's Children".  I saw that again in a theatrical release 20 years later, and the story is so "episodic" in nature, so loosely tied together, I still had trouble remembering how in the hell they got from point A to point B.  (Just like the 1979 movie "MOONRAKER".) It's one of those I suspect may have been originally serialized in a magazine or something.  Crazy enough, when I got around to reading Verne's "The Mysterious Island" (which has NO MONSTERS in it at all!!!), the main villain from "Captain Grant's Children" turns up halfway in as a castaway on another island.

Verne must have been very dodgy when it came to dates, because it's been noted by some that if you go by the dates mentioned in the books, "20,000 Leagues" and "Mysterious" seem to take place AT THE SAME TIME.  Someone in Hollywood must have noticed this, because the 1916 silent film of "20,000 LEAGUES" is presented exactly that way, with 2 parallel plots running the length of the film, finally colliding at the end.

[profh0011]

My Jules Verne blog project starts with an overview...

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2013/08/jules-verne.html


The comics start with "Part 3", the 1954 Dell Comic adaptation of the Disney movie, with art by FRANK THORNE!  (My Dell monitor was going bad and dark without my noticing it, so like too many things I posted around that time, the scans look washed out.  I haven't had time to go back and fix them all.)

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2014/01/jules-verne-part-3.html

[crashryan]

I'm not a wide-ranging Verne reader, though I've read a few. I read Verne's 20,000 Leagues some years after seeing the Disney version. I confess it bored the heck out of me...so much of it was endless descriptions of sea life and vegetation the travellers saw. It read like a a textbook. The underlying story was rather weak and was buried by the travelogue.

[profh0011]

I'm not a wide-ranging Verne reader, though I've read a few. I read Verne's 20,000 Leagues some years after seeing the Disney version. I confess it bored the heck out of me...so much of it was endless descriptions of sea life and vegetation the travellers saw. It read like a a textbook. The underlying story was rather weak and was buried by the travelogue.

That strikes me as a pretty accurate description of ALL of Verne's books that I've read.

I would easily compare them to Ian Fleming's novels as well on that score.  There's moments where he seems to be doing long dissertations on food, drinks, restaurants, fashion... But I would say his over-wordiness is less over-wordy than Verne, perhaps mainly because of the different era the books were written in.

A confession:  at times, I tend to SKIM over the "textbook" sections, to get to "THE STORY".



Let's see... way, way back, I read...

ROBUR THE CONQUEROR
MASTER OF THE WORLD
FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON
THE PURCHASE OF THE NORTH POLE

Then, while in high school, I found a pair of his novels in one hardbound, loaned it out, and read the 2nd book!

AROUND THE MOON

I realized that Herge had basically swiped the structure of Verne's 2 books for his 2-part Tintin story, DESTINATION MOON / EXPLORERS ON THE MOON ...except Herge actually had them land on the Moon, Verne... DIDN'T!!

But what really blew my mind, was that Verne had somehow accurately predicted APOLLO 13 decades before it happened.



MANY years later, while riding the train back and forth to art school, I read 3 more Vernes...

20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH
THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND

In retrospect, I must say I currently prefer the Disney and Harryhausen films to Verne's Captain Nemo novels.

By the way, if you ever get a chance to read the 3 connected "Gun Club" books, the big surprise for me was... THEY'RE FUNNY AS HELL!!!  This sets them apart from the other Verne books I've read.

The premise of the 3rd one, THE PURCHASE OF THE NORTH POLE, may be the most absurd.  Technically, it's played serious, despite the ridiculous idea they want to pull off... but the book ends on a hilarious surprise, in a similar way to houw JOURNEY does.

From scanning over all those Mexican comics digests, my impression is that nothing fascinated Verne more than travelogues. This is pretty interesting considering, from what I've read, Verne NEVER left France in his entire life!  But apparently, he did a ton of research, and was determined to put ALL of it within the confines of his adventure stories.



To get past the "travelogue", you might enjoy some of the comics adaptations I've posted at my blog.  I think I have about a DOZEN different versions of "20,000 LEAGUES", and most of them are based on the novel.  There were at least 3 based on the Disney movie, but one of those was from overseas, and I've only seen a couple panels from it.  Frank Thorne did the Dell Comic movie adaptation, while Jesse Marsh did the newspaper version (which looks much more authentic).

JESSE MARSH:
http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2014/03/jules-verne-part-6.html