A Regular Picture Palace Drama: Rivers of London

Today's post comes from a place of exhaustion, as I spent the last few days prepping for a BMDS cast party which came off last night. I'm so tired my eyelids have filed for divorce. However! I've never let that stop me before.

The bright eyed and bushy tailed among you - fiends that you are - will have noticed that Chaosium's Rivers of London features my work in its latest, In Liberty's Shadow. I just got my author's copy this week. God bless international shipping!

Some snippets for those of you who like snippets.

The title is borrowed from M.R. James' short story Haunted Doll's House, which is one of my favorite pieces of fiction. The story, as you might have guessed, is about a haunted doll's house which reenacts a hideous incident, and one of the characters says about it: 

... was I going to tell customers: ‘I’m selling you a regular picture-palace-dramar in reel life of the olden time, billed to perform regular at one o’clock a.m.’? Why, what would you ’ave said yourself? And next thing you know, two Justices of the Peace in the back parlour, and pore Mr and Mrs Chittenden off in a spring cart to the County Asylum and everyone in the street saying, ‘Ah, I thought it ’ud come to that. Look at the way the man drank!’—and me next door, or next door but one, to a total abstainer, as you know. Well, there was my position.

The scenario as published isn't exactly how I wrote it, but I'm not complaining. Editors do as editors must. However, it does give me an opportunity to publish here what wasn't published there, and as I'm in need of material, and as my eyeballs keep quivering in their sockets, time to data mine the lost and forgotten:

Cecil B. DeMille

Film director, producer, and one of the leading lights of Hollywood in the age of silent movies and early sound pictures, DeMille is best remembered for his spectacle films. Thousands of extras, purpose-built elaborate sets, and as much nudity as he could plausibly get away with were his hallmarks. 

The Ten Commandments, one of his best-remembered pictures and the second highest grossing film of 1923, featured—among other things—an Exodus set featuring a recreation in wood and plaster of the wonders of Egypt, pharaohs, sphynxes and all, put together by over 1,600 workers. It was left to rot and vanished under the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes in Santa Barbara; parts of it were rediscovered by archaeologists in the 2010s. 

Tom Mix

Thomas Hezekiah Mix was a genuine son of the West, an expert rider and pistolero, who made it big in Hollywood. In his day, he was one of the most famous and prolific Hollywood stars, appearing in hundreds of films, most of which are now lost. Radio, comic books, merchandise; Mix was a brand before anyone really understood what brands were. He had his own set, Mixville, complete with an Old West main street built especially for his pictures, and he performed most of his own stunt work. He was King of the Cowboys; the image of the wild and woolly West.

Deck of Cards

[note: as written, the gun store owner has magical interests and is also planning on writing a book about Montana gunslingers. That's how she knows about the Buntline's true worth and is also why she's very interested in anything to do with Montana gunslingers like Yestler. The deck of cards, along with other items, is at the gun store. It's intended to be a hint as to the gun store owner's true talents.]

This last item rests in a padlocked metal box welded to the bottom of the cabinet. An Art Deco pack made in the 1920s, it has strong vestigia (icy cold, wet, yelling; no roll required) and is haunted ... by a pale-faced man with a crooked smile and a hole in the back of his head. Whenever anyone uses the cards, shuffles them, or otherwise touches them, this man’s reflection appears in every reflective surface—mirrors, sunglasses, and similar—in the room.

According to Celia’s files, the cards were owned by Roger “Smiles” Miller, a 1930s-era Montana bootlegger turned bank robber who nearly made the FBI’s most wanted list. He was sought by FBI Special Agent R.D. Brown who pursued him across the state, through neighbouring Wyoming, and into Colorado. Smiles died under mysterious circumstances in Colorado, and the investigation ended. 

Culver City

[note: the home of Arrowsmith.]

Culver City is a relatively small township (less than 40,000 people) within the greater Los Angeles area. It’s the home of Sony Picture Studios—formerly MGM Studios—and the former home of RKO, Desilu Productions, and a whole host of others. This is where they shot King Kong, E.T., Hogan’s Heroes, and Jeopardy. Howard Hughes made airplanes here. The city has almost as many parks as it has people, is as pedestrian-friendly as it’s possible to get in a car-happy state, and is stuffed to bursting with art galleries, upscale restaurants, museums, and theatres. The Culver Hotel, a wedge-shaped 1924 landmark —which has hosted Reagan, Clark Gable, and the Munchkins of Oz in its time —is one of the city’s links with its storied past. Symantec and Apple Inc are headquartered in Culver City, along with NPR West and cannabis company MedMen. 

Tucked away in very private offices on Venice Boulevard is Arrowsmith, the film preservation corporation. Every once in a while, Arrowsmith hosts a film festival, funds a scholarship, or produces a play at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Nothing too flashy, just enough to keep up appearances. Ask the average Culver City resident, and they’ve probably never even heard of Arrowsmith. Ask the people in the know—city officials or the establishment—and they’ve nothing but good to say about the company.  Arrowsmith is a pillar of the community, above reproach.

Even from the street outside, a successful Sense Vestigia roll notices that there’s something potent inside Arrowsmith’s offices, but it’s not clear where. A successful Science (Engineering), Research, or Social skill roll obtains the building’s floorplans. Studying them notices that the film vault is remarkably over-engineered, even given California’s long history of earthquakes. It’s practically apocalypse-proof. Clean room conditions, museum quality protection, water-free fire suppression, security cameras throughout. There’s also private screening rooms, sufficient to show six films at once. Only Arrowsmith shareholders are allowed to use these private facilities.

The investigators may try to bluff their way into the building (a successful Hard Social roll) or break in (a successful Hard Locksmith or Stealth roll). Anyone who succeeds at the Hard Social roll is given the guided tour; they are shown almost everything except the film preservation vaults. Proprietary technology, they are told, is used to preserve Arrowsmith’s collection, and that technology must be protected at all costs. 

The floors are patrolled nightly by robot security guards whose programming instructs them to alert outside security at the first sign of trouble. Anyone who breaks in and trips robot security protocols—a failed Stealth or Locksmith roll, or frying the robots’ circuits with magic—will have about ten minutes before human security turns up in force. Armed guards—former military with combat service, provided by Silence Security—arrive with orders to forcibly remove any intruders and to prevent any damage to the film vault by whatever means necessary.

All of this top-notch security is because Arrowsmith preserves films ... It’s an incredibly difficult process, transcribing magical films onto ordinary film nitrate ... The process hasn’t gotten any easier with time, and digital preservation is a no-go. Arrowsmith has preserved every single film ... and only ever allows these films to be seen by Arrowsmith shareholders in the building’s screening rooms. Any attempt to secretly record these films and show them outside the building is punishable by loss of the defaulter’s Arrowsmith share. To date, nobody’s ever risked it, though there have been complaints from shareholders outside the US that travelling to Los Angeles is highly inconvenient. Some shareholders have asked for alternate venues; Hong Kong and Cannes have both been suggested. Discussions are ongoing, but Arrowsmith’s Board is, at best, unwilling to be persuaded. 

Investigators who try to hack Arrowsmith’s computer archive find it remarkably difficult. The company polices everything from scrap paper (which is shredded and incinerated on site) to individual computer use, including phones and portable tech. Any mobile device or laptop capable of connecting to the internet is not allowed in ... However, a successful Hard Computer Use roll gets into Arrowsmith’s system and discovers a peculiar list of film titles in its archive. The directors, actors, and crew are all familiar names ... but a lot of the titles aren’t; even those that are have the wrong cast and crew. One or two of the unrecognised ones might have previously been lost films—as in, they did exist once, but nobody has a copy now—but this many? Where did they all come from? 

Aldo Munoz

A bit of dialogue:

“Hell, it’s not just the boss men—I’ve heard talent, juicers, even the fucking crafties want a piece. Not because anyone in video fucking village has a hope in hell but because they all know, if they help the bosses get hold of the thing, it’s guaranteed job-for-life shit.” 

GM note: the “blow-out” was the Buntline theft. Talent = anyone on camera. Juicers = electricians. Crafty = works in craft services. Video village = the area in which viewing monitors are placed for the director and other production personnel, usually too full of people hanging round, hence village.

Operation Moses

Some unsung genius within the ASU came up with what ought to have been a simple scheme: make the enemy come to us by offering them what they want. A genuine magic item, up for auction. That should bring the pigs running to the trough, at which point they have a date with a sausage grinder. That is Operation Moses.

Which wasn’t a completely awful idea, but secrecy was the key and the ASU isn’t as good at keeping secrets as it thinks it is. That’s why everyone from Los Serpientes to those upstanding librarians out in New York know the ASU’s behind the auction. And no so-called leech is going to attend that auction in person, not when they can send a proxy—unless they’re desperate, of course.

That’s problem number one. Problem number two is that nobody within the ASU appreciated just how valuable the thing they’d gotten a hold of was. They were expecting perhaps half-a-dozen seekers into the mystery, and now all of Hollywood’s abuzz. Many ASU members in California work in the business—the talent, juicers, crafties, and video villagers Aldo mentioned. They all know how much the bosses want this thing. Some of them are wondering whether their devotion to the cause outweighs their desire for a rich and easy life.  

The City of the Pharaoh

[note: this scene assumed an auction would take place, which no longer appears in the narrative.]

Providing it takes place, the investigators may try to attend the auction, either to gather information or—if they haven’t managed to retrieve the Buntline—because they think it’s there. Then again, they may have some other reason to visit DeMille’s lost set.

The Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes, now a public park, are a unique ecosystem—a mix of uplands with sandy dunes, and wetlands with marshes and mud flats. The dunes are constantly monitored by conservationists, ecologists, and state-funded parks workers.

Back in the day when DeMille built his Exodus set—employing, among many others, Yestler—he buried the set after filming completed, to prevent anyone else from ever using it. This Lost City of DeMille was eventually rediscovered in the 1980s, and parts of it are on display in the Dunes Centre, a natural history museum dedicated to the park and its past. The vast majority is still out there, where DeMille entombed it.

The ASU plans to hold the auction at the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area, 5.5 miles (almost 9 km) of open beach and the only part of the park open for off-highway vehicle use. It’s also available for camping, which is why the ASU chose it; they’re conducting their auction in plain sight by pretending to be a group of campers.

If the auction goes ahead, it’s well attended, but not by the kind of people the ASU hoped to attract. Instead, it’s dozens of studio hangers-on, C- and D-list celebrities, influencers, bloggers, or crystal-gazing wackos, along with one or two who have links to magically-backed groups—pretty much all people who are not themselves talented. The ASU had hoped to get some useful intel, but even that’s going to be difficult with so many people here ...

The ASU auction is being handled by Thom Reich, a reality TV auctioneer who’s appeared on an A&E Network show. He’s not an ASU member, and hasn’t any idea what’s going on. He figures someone’s got hidden cameras out there somewhere and plays it as if he’s being filmed. His salt-and-pepper hair and Vegas charm is barely familiar to anyone who watches a lot of reality TV. Otherwise, he’s another well-tanned face in a town that’s full of ‘em. 

A handful of ASU intelligence gatherers move through the crowd, taking names and pictures. From the ASU’s perspective, the whole thing’s a bust. They’re not going to catch a leech, nor are they likely to get any useful intel ...

As the auction reaches its peak, any sensitive investigator—i.e., anyone with the Magic and/or Sense Vestigia skill, or a member of the demi-monde brave enough to risk attending—feels a peculiar kind of tension building. Something’s out there; something big. Then a susurrus begins to pick up, a wordless noise that gets louder and louder, as if hundreds of people just out of sight are chattering amongst themselves. Just as the noise drowns out Thom Reich’s patter, someone bellows “Go!”

That’s the cue for the lights, and every other electronic device, to go dead, their chips turned to dust in a heartbeat. Most of the vehicles will be completely inoperable. 

What happened was this: inadvertently, the ASU brought Cecil B. DeMille, the cast of The Ten Commandments, and the Exodus set itself back from the past, for one night only. The thing is, movies were very different before sound. There was no “quiet on the set.” So long as you weren’t in shot, it didn’t matter if you were talking. The actors could be mid-scene while the carpenters and set painters were still working on the scenery a few feet away—as long as the camera couldn’t see them, it was all good. “Go!” was DeMille signalling to the cast that they should start acting ...

Half a dozen bystanders take this as their cue to rush the truck and steal the Buntline. This isn’t an organized theft, just good old-fashioned opportunism. One of the [Chasers]—if present—may also have a crack at it, and will probably succeed ... The ASU goes into meltdown since all the notes they were taking vanished thanks to their now-dead cameras and tablets. A few of the C- and D-lists have hysterics and demand people pay attention to their needs ...

Cue a chase, Pink Panther-style, as everyone tries to get away from the scene of the crime. Park rangers show up after a while to take care of the crowd ... So long as nobody gets jittery, there will be no gunplay, but if some careless idiot looses a shot there will be return fire—not just from the hired guards but also from several in the crowd who brought their legally acquired weapons along. 

Of which there are many. This is California, after all.

That's it for this week. See you around!

The Night Eats The World - Protagonist Design

The Night Eats the World, a 2018 indie horror release starring Anders Danielsen Lie as zombie holocaust survivor Ben, and directed, in a first-time feature length effort, by Dominique Rocher, is an entertaining way to spend an hour thirty minutes, with a very misleading trailer. You'd think this was action, action, action, chock-full of tense thrills, and it really isn't. If anything, it's zombie-lite; you rarely see the walking dead, which combined with an intelligent monster design makes the ravening ghouls much more threatening this time out. It's more a bleak, character-driven drama about loneliness and dealing with trauma, which works on its own terms and draws you into its claustrophobic Paris apartment building.

It didn't work for me, though, and it's because I really have no sympathy with the protagonist.

Ben is a misanthropic music lover who wants to get his cassette tapes back from his ex-girlfriend. The ex has moved out of wherever she and Ben lived, and inadvertently packed Ben's stuff among her belongings. When he goes to her new apartment, he finds her place packed with partygoers and an inconvenient current boyfriend, a reminder of Ben's sexual failures. Ben wants his tapes, but party comes first, and she's more interested in being hostess than solving Ben's problems. So Ben gets mopey, and drunk, and more drunk, until finally she pushed him off into an office where all the boxes are. He finds the tapes, but is incapable of moving at this point so he passes out and misses all the zombie action.

This is the first ten minutes or so of the film. He spends the next hour twenty surviving on his lonesome and realizing how much he misses having people to talk to.

As a slow-burn tragedy it works, but because I thought Ben an unlikeable, miserable prick at the start, and didn't have much reason to change my mind for most of the narrative, I wasn't too invested in his adventures. I know people like Ben. You know full well that if you were silly enough to sit next to Ben at this party one of two things would happen: he'd get drunk and say nothing at all, or he'd get drunk and say something unpleasant about his former girlfriend, or the party, or life in general. Either way, about as attractive as a slug excreting into your beer.

Which meant I spent more time picking apart the film than I did enjoying it. I mean, how many times can you pull the 'it was all a dream' trick, anyway? Damn, that must be the best fire alarm in the history of fire alarms, to go off now when there's no AC mains supply. Those batteries really held out. Does Paris not have some municipal code that mandates the blocking of fireplace flues? Why, in God's name, are you using YOUR ONLY SHOTGUN to prop open a door while you make a stealth run through a zombie-infested street?

See, if I actually liked Ben, or found something to admire in him, I wouldn't even think about these little things. Well, I might grouse about the number of times 'it's all a dream' gets used as an excuse for plot bullshit.  I see the film's based on a novel by 'Pit Argamen' aka Martin Page, and I'm really hoping the novel has more depth. It feels as though it might be a story with plenty of internal monologue, which is always tricky to do on the big screen.

If you're going to spend any amount of time with a fictional character, it's important - vital, even - to find something likeable about them. Dirty Harry has plenty of flaws, and you probably wouldn't want to live in the same apartment building as him, but he does have bravery, and compassion for the victims of violent crime. That was enough for five films, even though the character was paper-thin and two-dimensional at the end of it - and didn't have that many dimensions at the beginning either.

All of which got me thinking protagonists, and RPG characters.

I don't listen to every RPG podcast nor do I watch every Twitch stream - there aren't enough hours in the day. However I've listened to and seen enough of them to ask myself how I'd design an entertaining character. If Ben's failing is that he's not attractive in any way, then what makes a character attractive and therefore worth spending an hour thirty with - or a dozen or so RPG sessions?

The Deadly Sins get a lot of love, but the Virtues aren't nearly as appreciated. Chastity, Temperance. Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, Humility - these are the things that make a character interesting, and each Virtue has modifiers that further elaborate the core tenets of the virtue. Some RPG systems lean heavily on this. Vampire presses the Humanity button repeatedly to make up for the evil nature of its protagonists, and Humanity is part of Temperance. However it's true across the board, whether explicitly part of the system or not. Persistence, making an effort - all part of Diligence. Forgiveness, Compassion, Bravery - Patience, Kindness, Humility.

To give you the longer version:

Chastity (purity, abstinence)
Temperance (humanity, equanimity)
Charity (will, benevolence, generosity)
Diligence (persistence, effortfulness, ethics)
Patience (forgiveness, mercy)
Kindness (satisfaction, compassion)
Humility (bravery, modesty, reverence/deference)

If there is to be anything likeable in a character, they ought to demonstrate at least one of these qualities. Nobody has to be a saint-in-training, but then you don't have to be a saint to be brave, or show forgiveness, or abstain from getting rat-arsed and falling into a self-pitying, boozy stupor when the zombie apocalypse shows up.

Gumshoe uses the Drives mechanic to give characters motivation, and these Drives can be tied to Virtues to make characters more interesting. A Drive without some kind of foundation is meaningless, but a Drive with a foundation in Virtue has meaning.

Using Nights Black Agents as a template: Altruism and Atonement are fairly obvious. Altruism springs from Temperance, perhaps Charity. Someone becomes altruistic because they have great humanity, benevolence, generosity. Atonement can have the same source, but comes at that source from a different perspective - one dark event that leads the character to seek atonement through humanity, or generosity. Comradeship from Humility, bravery, even reverence, in this case submission to the legitimate order of a superior. Mystery from Diligence, with its focus on persistence and effort. Nowhere Else To Go from Kindness, with compassion. Patriotism is Humility wrapped up in the flag. So on and so on, with odd ones like I Never Left, Programming and Collector linked to hidden Virtues, part of the cover story.

This doesn't have to be a ton of work. Remember the one sentence rule. Going back to an old post about hacking, I designed a character:

Kayo

One sentence: Former Nollywood actor and con artist shooting for the big leagues.

To make things interesting, add:

Virtue: Diligence (persistence). Kayo loves a challenge, and makes sure every hack he undertakes is carried out to the very best of his ability.

Adding that Virtue not only makes the character more interesting, it also adds extra roleplay hooks. By playing this Virtue, the Director gets extra ways to dig into Kayo's story, creating new plot paths designed with this Virtue in mind.

Enjoy!

Go See This Now: Train to Busan & Seoul Station

Let's kick the new year off with some quality zombie horror. 

Many of you will know about Train to Busan, the runaway horror film by South Korean director Yeon Sang-ho, released after a rapturous reception at Cannes 2016. You may not know about Seoul Station, the animated feature-length prequel released a month later. Both are very worthy of your time, particularly if you enjoy zombie apocalypses, and nail-biting action.

Train to Busan opens on a quiet, eerie note. A farmer's truck pulls up at an official stop. He's angry as hell, and wants to know why, for the umpteenth time, he's being stopped. Is it foot and mouth? No, the officials reassure him, it's just a minor industrial accident. One quick spray of disinfectant and he'll be on his way. Unappeased, the farmer drives off, but being distracted by his phone he fails to spot a deer on the road, and runs it over. Even more annoyed now, he leaves the animal to welter in its blood - and so does not see it get up on its feet again.

It's one of the most original openings for this kind of story I've ever seen, and really set the pace for the first act, and the film as a whole. Normal, normal, normal … what the hell?!? Followed by screaming.

The action shifts to working dad Seok-woo, played by Gong Yoo. He's a fund manager, an absentee father, and a fairly important cog in a larger machine with a phone full of useful contacts, and clients who rely on him to get the job done. He's snowed under with work, so when his young daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an) insists she be allowed to visit her mother in Busan, Seok-woo is resistant. He's in the middle of divorcing Su-an's mother, and the settlement's not going smoothly. However he's completely mucked up Su-an's birthday so far, having failed to go to her recital and bought her a Wii without remembering he'd already bought her one for Children's Day, so under pressure of parental guilt agrees to take her to Busan, by train.

This is day one of the zombie plague, and everything's about to go to hell.

If I had to choose one word to sum up Train to Busan, it's Trust. Seok-woo is completely untrustworthy, though he'd probably argue he's a stand-up guy. He works hard to provide for his daughter and elderly mother. Always finish what you start, is his motto. Yet this is the same man who calls his less wealthy and influential clients Lemmings, and keeps a special list in his phone's address book for Lemmings who might be useful. He calls one of those Lemmings later in the film, asking for a favour, offering hot stock tips if the Lemming will help him out of a jam. Just look out for yourself, don't try to help people, he tells his daughter. 

This is why mommy left you, she tearfully replies.

I won't go any further than that, because talking plot from this point forward would constitute massive spoilers. I will say that it averages over 1.2 kills a minute with a 118 minute runtime, yet shows surprisingly little gore. The action scenes are believable, the characters are smart and motivated - very, very motivated - and you won't want your favorites to die.  

Seoul Station starts in a very similar, low-key way. A homeless man staggers through the heart of Seoul, obviously injured. Though people see him, they don't bother to help - he's homeless, not worth their time. The man collapses in the train station as it's closing for the night, and only one of his fellow homeless tries to do anything to help him.

Of course, by the time he finally gets his injured buddy a bed for the night and some medical attention, it's already far too late …

The action switches to Hye-sun (Shim Eun-kyung), a young runaway who recently escaped a life of prostitution and his now living with her deadbeat boyfriend, Ki-woong (Lee Joon). Since Ki-woong's far too lazy to get a real job, he wants her to go back to prostitution so they can afford to lie around all day drinking, and he can go to the computer lounge whenever he likes. They have a screaming argument about this, and he kicks her out, but not before placing an advert online.

Her father Suk-gyu (Ryo Seung-ryong) sees this advert, flips out, and makes contact with Ki-woong. The young idiot thinks he can swindle the old man, not realizing that he's her father, not a customer. They meet. Threatening to beat the shit out of Ki-woong, Suk-gyu demands to see his daughter. Ki-woong explains that he doesn't know where she is, but thinks she might have gone back to the apartment.

By this time the zombie apocalypse is well underway. Will Suk-gyu find his daughter, before the whole world goes to hell?

If Busan was Trust, the one word for this film is Faith. Both religious faith, and faith in society as a whole. It is severely misplaced. There's nothing here for anyone, society is shit, and if you think there's a way out, you're wrong. But maybe, if you run far enough, fast enough …

The film nails this point very early on. In that opening sequence, two earnest young men discuss universal healthcare. It's a must, says one - society needs it. We need it. His friend agrees, but when the homeless man staggers past, clearly needing medical help, the two turn away as soon as they realize he's homeless. He stinks. Someone like him doesn't deserve help. 

As with Busan, this film is surprisingly gore-free, given the subject, and very brutal. Not, perhaps, as brutal as Busan, but you just can't kill as many people in 72 minutes as you can in 118.

One point worth mentioning: although this is a prequel, it's not really attached to the original in any meaningful way. It's very much its own film. I did wonder if Seoul Station would spend any time talking about the mysterious industrial accident that starts this all off, but that's not mentioned nor is it really what this film is about. Seoul Station focuses with laser-like intensity on Hye-sun, Suk-gyu and Ki-woong, and whether or not the two men will finally rescue Hye-sun. 

It's a remarkably intelligent film, just as Busan was before it. If a character opens a car door window, you can bet that this window will become important, even if it's fifteen minutes later. The characters are smart, motivated and do their very best to survive. 

I highly recommend Yeon Sang-ho's work. I've only seen a few of his films, but every time I've been amazed by his talent, his eye for a dramatic scene, and his action sequences. If you liked these two, you should check out King of Pigs or The Fake, both of which are quality animated films. 

Happy New Year!

Hitchcock & You (GUMSHOE, various)

As a film nut I often seek out interesting movie houses, film festivals and big screen entertainment, all the more because I don't get much chance to do so down here. I thought this time out I'd examine some classic cinema, and to give this a gaming twist I'd see which of these films is best suited to a Director/Keeper.

I'm going to concentrate on the films of British genius Alfred Hitchcock, whose big screen career stretches from the early days of silent film up to the 1970s. I may dwell on some of his slightly more obscure works, since I figure you've probably already seen Psycho at least once. I'm not going to consider films in which he wasn't the director, and if you're hoping I've somehow found one of his lost films, sorry, but no. I'm not that lucky.

Without further ado:

Sabotage (aka The Woman Alone). This 1936 drama stars Oskar Homolka as saboteur Karl Anton Verloc, Sylvia Sidney as his wife, John Loder as heroic detective Sergeant Ted Spencer, and child actor Desmond Tester as young Stevie. Karl is an agent for hire who agrees to carry out acts of sabotage in London. We first see him tampering with a power station, temporarily knocking it out. He's expecting a big reward for this but is disappointed to learn his bosses aren't best pleased, as his stunt did nothing except make London laugh when they wanted London terrified. This leads them to demand greater things of Verloc, and they supply him with a bomb which Verloc is supposed to plant at a train station. However Verloc gets nervous and, thinking he'll be suspected, he gives the disguised bomb to young Stevie to deliver instead. This kicks off one of the most suspenseful scenes in British cinema as Stevie, all unknowing, tries to get to his destination in time. We watch him get lost, get delayed, and all the while are screaming inside because at any moment the bomb could go off.

• Bookhounds Keepers need to see this film for its accurate and fascinating portrayal of London in the 1930s, particularly the street scenes.
• As an espionage thriller it's remarkable for three things: 
• Its portrayal of its antiheroes as misanthropic, greedy men, which is a more accurate depiction of actual traitors and spies than usually seen on film.
• Its portrayal of hero Ted Spencer, as a reminder of how we used to imagine the heroes of this kind of thriller. An archetype soon to be replaced by the likes of Michael Caine's Harry Palmer, Spencer is more a Bulldog Drummond type, but unlike the stock hero he abandons his principles pretty quickly when Mrs Verloc, the woman he loves, is in danger.
• The bomb-maker, who has to be seen to be believed. 

The Lady Vanishes. This 1938 tale sees Margaret Lockwood as carefree dilettante Iris Henderson thrust headfirst into mystery and death aboard a luxury train that might as well be the Orient Express. She's travelling across Europe back to England so she can marry a blue-blooded idiot, but falls in with octogenarian Miss Froy, a charming old lady who vanishes mysteriously. Iris' attempts to find out what happened to her are frustrated when all her fellow passengers say they've never heard of or seen Miss Froy, and Iris is accused of making the whole thing up. Knife-wielding magicians and sinister bandaged men follow in quick succession, as Iris dodges assassins and soldiers in her search for the truth.

• If you've ever wanted to run Horror on the Orient Express, this is the movie for you.
• The first appearance of comedy stock British characters Charters and Caldicott, who appear in several other films including wartime espionage drama Night Train to Munich. A master-class in how to make supporting characters memorable.

Saboteur. A wartime drama which kicks off with the immolation of a bomber factory, and one of the most cold-blooded cinematic killings of all time. As the factory goes up in flames, two would-be heroes rush to the rescue. The villain passes one of them a fire extinguisher, which is immediately grabbed by his friend who rushes in to fight the blaze. Unfortunately for him the extinguisher's actually full of gasoline, and he dies in a ball of flame. Admittedly as an assassination it's a bit cheesy - how did the villain know to have a trick fire extinguisher on hand at that exact moment? - but as a piece of cinema it's undeniably effective. Which is emblematic of the movie as a whole; because it's filmed in 1942 when everyone's at their patriotic height - filming started two weeks after Pearl Harbor - there are any number of Truly Heroic Moments And Brave Speeches, but that doesn't prevent this being a brilliant film. The climax alone, atop the Statue of Liberty, is worth the price of admission. 

• If Lady Vanishes is a master-class in making supporting characters memorable, this is a master-class in villainy. One character in particular, whose name I shan't mention as it might spoil his entrance - one of the best introductions of a major character I've ever seen - is superb. Charming, persuasive, and utterly ruthless, his defense of totalitarianism is chilling. Moreover for a wartime film about sabotage there isn't a racist Japanese or German stereotype in it, which is remarkable in and of itself.
• As luck would have it I'm reading Shermer's The Science of Good and Evil, and thought this was worth repeating: 'The real horror of Himmler is not that he was unusual or unique but that he was in many ways quite ordinary, and that he could have lived out his life as a chicken farmer, a good neighbor with perhaps some antiquated ideas about people.'
• Hitchcock's known for gorgeous set-pieces, but that moment atop Lady Liberty is undoubtedly one of his best. Better, I'd say, than a very similar moment in North By Northwest, though the latter film is more well known.

Torn Curtain. Paul Newman plays nuclear scientist Professor Armstrong in this 1966 drama, who plans to defect to the Soviets so he can continue research into an anti-ballistic missile defense system. Julie Andrews is his fiancé, who has no idea he's about to defect until the scheme is well under way. When she discovers his plans she follows him to East Berlin, and has to decide whether she'll stay with him or return to the West. Except Armstrong's got a hidden agenda ... Cue a race to East Berlin with the police and security apparatus hot on their trail.  This isn't one of Hitchcock's best loved spy movies but it has a lot of charm, not least because it hews faithfully to reality as opposed to overblown espionage tropes. Hitchcock took inspiration from the Burgess & Maclean defections when he made this one, especially the fate of Maclean's wife who went behind the Iron Curtain with their three children a year after her husband defected.

• Night's Black Agents Directors wondering what Dust mode looks like on film need look no further. One scene in particular, the murder of a security man, epitomizes the whole gruesome, exhausting business.
• Ever wonder what it's like to create Thrilling Contest scenes that aren't car chases or acrobatic parkour leaps from rooftop to rooftop? See how you can have a theoretical physics Thrilling Contest, or a cat-and-mouse with two buses.
• The race to the border is the very essence of an extended Heat contest, right up to the final moment when someone machine guns the plot.
• Much like The Lady Vanishes the supporting characters are memorable and interesting in their own right. My hat's off to unnamed tetchy ballerina played by actual ballerina Tamara Toumanova; now there's someone you have to feel a little sorry for!

Topaz. On the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a French intelligence operative is asked by an American contact to investigate potential NATO leaks within the French government. In doing so he runs foul of Topaz, a French spy ring that's been funneling NATO military secrets to Moscow. He has to use every trick in the book in his search for the truth, and even then it might not be enough, as his shadowy opposite number Columbine, head of Topaz, is so well connected that not even the strongest evidence may be enough to get him arrested, never mind convicted. Frederick Stafford, a spy film veteran, plays the heroic French lead Andre Deveraux, and at the time critics blamed his performance for the film's poor box office. Having seen the film I don't agree; his performance wasn't stellar, but he's unfairly blamed. No, to my mind the larger problem is that an audience used to Bond level heroics can't get behind a spymaster who actually behaves like a spymaster - that is, he gets other people to do all the dirty work. So the action scenes and heroics belong to other actors, and Stafford shows up only when the big scenes are over and done. Even at the end - and there are several possible endings depending on which version of the end you watch - he isn't directly involved. All the big moments belong to other actors.

• Night's Black Agents directors and players both need to watch this, to get a better understanding of Network. Deveraux is a master of this very important Ability; his agents and catspaws can be found all over the world, even in Castro's Cuba. It's thanks to them that he succeeds, and by that I mean it's often thanks to their shattered corpses, as it's a hard life being a Network contact. Deveraux's own Network pool is so exhausted that, by the end, he's recruiting family members, leading to a tense moment when one of them goes missing, presumed murdered.
• If yours is a Dust game, this could be a useful way of keeping Agents alive. After all someone's got to risk themselves, and many players would rather it wasn't their character. However it does mean that the big action scenes end up going to Network contacts rather than the characters themselves; the Director may wish to impose Stability penalties, or let players play Network characters for that all-important moment when the enemy spy is bearded in his den, just before the vampire counterspies turn up and make steak tartare out of everyone.
• In fact let me propose a device I'll call The Topaz Maneuver: If an Agent wants to create a Network contact but has no Network to spend, the Agent can spend Stability instead, provided that the Stability spend is permanent, just as Network spends are permanent. There is no refresh for Stability spent in this way; like Network, this lost Stability can only be bought back with experience spends.
• It's also useful for a look at how Solaces can work. In this case Deveraux's Solace is his wife Nicole, who leaves him halfway through the film when he goes to Cuba to commune with his agent and mistress, Juanita de Cordoba. Here we have a legitimately frayed Solace relationship, and see one potential consequence - in this case that she may or may not go over to the enemy, wittingly or otherwise.  

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

You've Got To Hear This Podcast

I wouldn't usually post on a weekday nor would I use the time to big up a podcast, but this is one you have to listen to if you have any interest whatsoever in cinema: The Secret History of Hollywood. This is by far the single best podcast I have ever heard, in any genre, and I'm not at all surprised that Audible has picked it up.

So what is this glorious thing? Briefly, it's one man's descent into cinematic obsession. This gent's knowledge of early cinema history is exhaustive; if ever you wanted to know anything about anyone in Hollywood before, say, 1960, this is the place to learn about it.

Moreover it's well presented. Despite the wealth of detail, it's not overpowering. The presenter is a pleasure to listen to, and the flow from moment to moment is seamless. I'm indulging in A Universe of Horrors, an in-depth study of Universal Studio's great horror experiment in the 20s and 30s and, while I know a lot of this material already, it's a treat to have it all laid out like a movable audible feast.

One caveat, and it's a fairly significant caveat: Ye Gods, these things are long. Like transatlantic flying time long. Universe of Horrors is over 7 hours worth of audio. I'm flying to the UK later this year, which is usually a 7 to 8 hour journey; I could plug myself in as soon as I board the plane, and may still not have finished listening by the time it lands. There are three separate episodes on Alfred Hitchcock, for over 18 hours total. And there's more ... and more ... and more ...

Leaving aside the obvious, the length of the episodes poses a device storage problem. Usually a podcast is, maybe, a handful of MB. Not so here. If you're so foolish as to download more than one you're looking at several GB worth of data. That takes time to download as well as space. Some mobile devices may find that difficult to swallow.

But!! If you let that put you off, you're really missing out. I cannot praise this enough. If you're a cinephile, this is a must-listen. It may be a constant companion for a week or so per episode, depending on how you devour your podcasts. In fact the biggest problem may not be listening to this one, but in finding time to listen to all the other podcasts you'll be ignoring while working your way through Secret History.

Enjoy!