Thursday, December 10, 2009

Some thoughts of the Season - blogathon season


It's been over a week now, but I'm having trouble letting go of the Boris Karloff blogathon. Everything around me is all Boris, all the time.

It being thet time of year that it is, I got to thinking of what a wonderful Ebenezer Scrooge Karloff would have been. Seymour Hicks? Alastair Sim? Ha! Yes, I said "ha!" (and with an exclamation mark).

Boris could give us quite the cold and forbidding man of finance. Boy, could he give us cold and forbidding. And could he give us the warm and fuzzy old Scrooge of the reclamation? There would be no one warmer or fuzzier! However, Karloff could also be a perfect Marley's ghost. After all, we have seen him come back from the dead and fix us with a baleful stare. Oooh, that baleful stare. On the other hand, he could give us a most genial Ghost of Christmas Present. Karloff as everybody in A Christmas Carol! I believe Tiny Tim was not outside his talents.




This time of year is also a prime time for mysteries, particular mysteries shrouded in fog and set in Victorian England. Karloff as Holmes? Well, at the time he might have been considered for the screen the role was most felicitously taken over by Basil Rathbone and no matter how many Holmes there have been or will be, it is Rathbone's voice I hear when I read Conan Doyle or any of the countless pastiches and homages.

However, if Boris wearied of touring in Arsenic and Old Lace, surely a revival of William Gillette's Holmes would have proven popular. If not tackling S. Holmes, then perhaps Boris as a most diabolical Moriarty or Col. Sebastian Moran might have been fun.

Happy thoughts in the alternate casting line perhaps fueled by too much or too little Christmas cheer.










2 comments:

  1. I am rereading "The 7% Solution." Ever read it? Seen the movie? A different Holmes and Moriarty relationship. Mycroft has his hands in there too.

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  2. It is the time of year for Holmes, isn't it? I haven't read Meyers book in ages, but think I'll follow your lead into the new year.

    Karloff would have to bulk up some to play Mycroft. I'm not getting obsessive, am I?

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