Terrific Victorian-Gothic Mystery & Historical Film-Noir - The Woman in White

Project Gutenberg ^ | 1859 | Wilkie Collins

[CharlesOConnell]

Charles Dickens commissioned the author of The Woman in White to write the book for his literary magazine, this proto-mystery, before Miss Marple, Father Brown or Inspector Hercule Poirot.

Do yourself a favor, the book is a cliff-hanger (I'm losing sleep over it), read the book before seeing the movie.

Send to Kindle http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/583

The Woman in White (1948) 1:48:57 Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Sydney Greenstreet, Agnes Moorehead, Gig Young https://ok.ru/video/310903900814

[CharlesOConnell]

The fat man, Count Fosco, is one of the most devastatingly manipulative villains in literary history, easily keeping miles ahead of his victims, a Professor Moriarty with manners. (Sydney Greenstreet, American, doesn't quite manage to capture Fosco's oleaginous charm.)

[CharlesOConnell]

(Sorry, Poirot wasn’t an inspector.)

[kosciusko51]

There was also a miniseries of the The Woman in White on PBS which my wife and I liked.

[ontap]

I'm pretty sure he was a retired inspector!!!

[Dr. Sivana]

My wife read his novel “No Name”, which I had gotten from my old employer, having no idea of its contents. She found it readable, though nt on the same level with Dickens. It was also long. Maybe we’ll give “The Woman in White” a try.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Netflix is purging their DVD library and The Woman in White (1948) with Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Sydney Greenstreet, Agnes Moorehead, and Gig Young is not available. They do have some 1997 and 2018 versions which I'm sure are real stinkers.

However, they DO have:

I can't tell if that is a #MeToo violation or not.

[SMARTY]

I loved reading Wilkie Collins... also ‘The Moonstone’, ‘Haunted Hotel”...

[Liz]

Very good movie.......nice and scary.

Sydney Greenstreet always adds such depth to a movie plot.

[Cicero]

Yes, Poirot was a Belgian inspector, before he retired and became a detective. And he is often referred to as Inspector Poirot.

[drpix]

For those who prefer a free audiobook version...LibriVox

[Chad N. Freud]

I’ve never read Wilkie Collins, though I have seen a film version of The Moonstone. He doesn’t get wide credit, it seems, for creating the character of the detective.

Dickens, I read, who was friends with Collins, understood the usefulness of a detective character for plot exposition, and introduced a detective (Inspector Bucket) into “Bleak House.”

[mass55th]

I watched it too, and enjoyed it.

[gattaca]

I liked it as well.

[drpix]

Collins’ detective in The Moonstone was one of the earliest(1860s) and long before Conan-Dolye’s... but Edgar Allen Poe beat him by decades with his detective in The Murders on the Rue Morgue (1840s). But Poe was ahead of his time on so many things.

[Kommodor]

Plenty of good, free reading material at the ol’ Gutenberg. Someday I’ll have to finish Dumas. It just got so tedious, though.

[CharlesOConnell]

The X Files' Gillian Anderson is terrific as Lady Honoria Dedlock in Bleak House, the "detective" being the solicitor Mr. Tolkinghorn who, however, is murdered by a Frenchwoman. Lady Dedlock's Secret, YouTube

(Recycler of old letters, blackmailer, Mr. Smallweed, interviewed by Mr. Tolkinghorn, "Shake me up, Judy".)

[drpix]

You're thinking of Inspector Bucket, who originally seems to be working with the villain Tolkinghorn, but after relentlessly following every lead he solves the mystery and become a hero.

[Savrola]

He did, indeed. Did you ever the see the BBC series ‘Dickensian’ from a couple of years ago? It was good fun. Inspector Bucket had to investigate the murder of Jacob Marley in a city packed full of characters from Dickens’ novels.

[MikelTackNailer]

While most remember Agnes Moorehead as Endora from “Bewitched” she put in a killer set of performances as a member of Orson Welles’ ensemble players in many of his films.

[YogicCowboy]

I enjoyed Rebecca. Perhaps I will try this.