The Musketeers (2014) season 1

I heard about the latest version of The Three Musketeers and was interested.  I saw that it would be on the new channel, BBC First, which was billed as a premium drama channel - which left me cursing - premium means "charge you a ton of money".  The Musketeers was a ten episode season, so even if we got a free sample I would only get to see a few episodes.  So I figured that I wouldn't get see the show.

However, BBC First was included in my package, happy days.  Next I find that the first ten hours of BBC First would be the entire season of The Musketeers. Even better. Except for Peter Capaldi (the latest Doctor Who) I'd not heard of any of the actors.  (However, I later discovered that the actor playing Aramis, Santiago Cabrera, had been Lancelot in The Adventures of Merlin)

 It's been awhile since I last read Dumas but this version contains a great deal of expanded information about our four heroes.  I also liked the hints about the shared history between Captain Treville and Cardinal Richelieu, such as Marie de Medici's attempt to overthrow her son the King.

Each episode was a stand alone adventure, and was a crackling good swashbuckling adventure.

With Capaldi, off to play Doctor Who, season two will have to find  a new schemer to work in the background.   I really enjoyed his Richelieu - he is not  only the Cardinal of France but he is the First Minister, and we see something of the drive and ambition of the man - he seems to always be working in the best interests of France.   I suspected in the episode The Exiles, had Marie de Medici offered him a better deal he might have taken it.

Ryan Gage as King Louis was a treat,  the King is this strange mixture of ruler and little boy.  He relies heavily on the council of the Cardinal .

The series as a whole was beautiful and I loved the Musketeer Uniforms.

Well worth watching.

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886) by Fergus Hume

Before Sherlock Holmes, there was The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.  From what I can gather it was very successful at the time and in the introduction to the revised 1898 edition Hume tells stories of his arrival in London and finding out that people were impersonating him.  It was like a prototype of The Da Vinci Code.  (want to see what was popular and has gone out of favour go to a charity book sale - I've seen entire tables of The Da Vinci Code, Twilight and 50 Shades.)

After Conan Doyle read this story, he was inspired to write the Sherlock Holmes stories.  Doyle was less than impressed with the novel, calling it 'a slight tale." But the sales of Hansom Cab were greater than A Study In Scarlet.

It's one of the first Australian works to be successfully sold internationally.

The story opens with a murder - a dead body is found in a hansom cab.  Victorian State Detective Gorby is assigned to the case.  He successfully identifies the body as Oliver Whyte and discovers that Whyte was chasing Madge Frettlby who is in love with Brian Fitzgerald.  Fitzgerald, oddly enough, took exception to Whyte chasing his girlfriend. and had been reported to have made threats against his rival. 

Gorby finds out that Fitzgerald saw Whyte on the night in question but has no alibi for the time of the murder and Whyte's missing glove is found when he is arrested.  The trial is a sensation and is the talk of the colony.  It is revealed that Fitzgerald does have an alibi and the witness arrives on the last day of trial. 

I feel poor Gorby gets the short end of the stick in this story -  his arrest is perfectly reasonable.  Fitzgerald is seen with victim, and the cab driver says Fitzgerald got in the cab with the victim. His arrival home fits with the timeline. 

It's only for that Fitzgerald's barrister Carlton hiring Gorby's rival police Detective Kilslip to continue the investigation that we ultimately discover who the killer was and his motive.

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab is not just a murder mystery but a family drama as the investigation of Oscar Whyte's death brings to light many secrets of the Frettlby family as we discover secrets from when Madge's father was a young man and just what connection he had to Oliver Whyte and why he was so keen to marry Madge off this man he hardly knew.

I won't spoil it but one of the themes of the novel is that the suns of the father are visited on the children and that destiny can be changed.

Fergus Hume wrote a lot of other novels and I may dip into his other works.  I wonder if he revisited Gorby or Kilslip in any of them.


There was once scene that had me intrigued - Carlton is trying to get Fitzgerald to reveal his alibi and mention that he telegraphed "I telegraphed home to a friend of mine, who is a bit of an amateur detective, ‘Find out the name and all about the woman who left England in the John Elder on the 21st day of August, 18 — as wife of Oliver Whyte.’ Mirabile dictu, he found out all about her, and knowing, as you do, what a maelstrom of humanity London is, you must admit my friend was clever."

I wonder who this clever amateur detective could be? 


After I watched this I was able to watch the 2012 TV movie made by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation - It was excellently cast and I really enjoyed it.

The Three Musketeers (1948) Gene Kelly, Lana Turner

When you say Gene Kelly most people think of him as a dancer - dancing with Jerry Mouse in Anchor's Away or singing and dancing in the rain from Singin' in the Rain - which is accurate but there is much more to him.  In Singin' in the Rain he plays Don Lockwood, a Hollywood star who started as a stuntman.  So I was surprised at how swashbuckling he was.

So I decided to rewatch The Three Musketeers.  I'd watched it many, many years ago as a young lad but didn't remember much.  I remembered enough to get my youngest to watch it with me.  His fight with Rochefort at the start of the movie was a joy to behold, Kelly displays a great athleticism as does everyone involved but Kelly is clearly having the time of his life.  He leaps around, whacks his opponent on the bum with his sword.  Both my daughter and I were laughing at this, and I said to the wife "this is how they should do fights. None of this jerky cam business we see today."

I felt the movie lost some momentum after D'Artagnan recovers the Queen's jewels, It may be that I felt that was the conclusion of the story (crisis averted) or it might have been that the daughter was getting restless.  (Looking at the summaries on IMDB that seems to be the dividing mark for 1974 The Three Musketeers/ The Four Musketeers ) 

At 38, Gene Kelly was probably too old to play D'Artagnan but that didn't worry me too much, I was constantly reminded of Mandy Potempkin in The Princess Bride (although the inspiration would be the other way around) watching him.

I really enjoyed this movie, seeing a very young Angela Landsbury as Queen Anne was a pleasant surprise.  I now have a hankering to rewatch the 1993 version (Don't judge me) and check out the 2011 version to compare the versions.

Farewell Nikola (1901) by Guy Boothby

With this I finish up the five Dr Nikola books by Guy Boothby.  In many ways Boothby has taken us back to the first book A Bid for Fortune.  Richard Hatteras is traveling with his wife Phyllis and his friend The Marquis of Beckenham who all appeared in the first book. The trio and Phyllis' companion Gertrude Trevor are visiting Venice when they encounter Nikola on the streets of Venice.

Nikola is certainly holding no ill will towards his opponents from five years before and they don't seem to hold anything against him, frequently joining him on social events.

We discover much of Nikola's history as he reveals to his new friend about the South American governor who wooed his mother and then abandoned her.  After the death of his mother, the Governor unknowingly adopted Nikola as the companion for his son.  The son was encouraged to mistreat Nikola and Nikola still bears scars from his mistreatment.

As luck would have it the son, using the name Don Jose de Martinos, happens to be in Venice fleeing from his misdeeds in Central America.  Nikola is taking advantage of this to get his revenge by turning the Don into a beast man.

Through the intervention of  Gertrude, Nikola is persuaded to abandon his revenge and he retires to a Buddhist temple in Tibet.  It is implied that Nikola will try his immortality experiments one more time and that he will age prematurely.

In the first two books Nikola gets away with what he wants.  In the third book, he is thwarted and in each successive volume this seems to keep happening.  I have a fondness for Nikola and even if I disagreed with his methods it was interesting to follow his quest for immortality. 

The first book was the one I liked best of the series but Dr Nikola's Experiment was interesting to finally see what Nikola's long term plan was. Nikola has since appeared a few times since this book Doc Savage: Doom Dynasty and The Soldier Legacy's Strange Tales and Sherlock Holmes Dark Detective.  Kim Newman makes a very quick mention of Nikola in Anno Dracula.

Dr Nikola's Experiment (1899) by Guy Boothby

In hindsight my review of the previous Dr Nikola novel A Lust For Hate might have been a bit harsh as it establishes Nikola's manservant Ah Sing.  It's a fine adventure story with plenty of excitement. And it offers a different view of Nikola.

However Dr Nikola's Experiment is a full Doctor Nikola novel and is a follow up to the novel Doctor Nikola, in that novel Dr Nikola infiltrated a Chinese Society to steal their secrets and ends up being hunted by their enforcer with one ear, Quong Ma.

In this story, Nikola hires a down on his luck Doctor Ingelby to assist in an experiment.  It appears that not only did Nikola steal the anaesthetic he used in A Lust for Hate but a process for  reversing aging.  Nikola is using the process to experiment on a very aged Don Miguel de Morano.  The experiment is successful physically but what is the mental cost? 

Making things harder is the fact that Quong Ma has finally caught up with Doctor Nikola and causing problems at Allerdyne Castle including killing Ah Sing and releasing Nikola's menagerie of biological freaks (last seen in A Bid for Fortune - the first novel)

It's interesting that in the first two novels Nikola was ultimately successful in his quests, these last two novels have had Nikola thwarted in his plans.  This novel finally reveals Nikola's long game - immortality for himself.

I can't wait to see what Farewell Nikola, the final Nikola novel by Guy Boothby brings us. (After that I'll be reviewing Doc Savage The Doom Dynasty a comic book miniseries pitting Doc Savage against Dr Nikola and The Soldier Legacy's Strange Tales which I've mentioned earlier).

A Lust For Hate (1898)

So when we last saw Nikola, he had used the Chinese Prayer Stick he got in the first book to gain access to the Chinese Secret Society to find an improved anaesthetic.  So in A Lust for Hate, I was waiting to see what he would do with that.

He uses it to murder people.  Nikola is running a revenge operation using his specially designed carriage to murder people who have wronged others (hey Nikola, there's a woman in The Hamptons who could use your help, Emily Clarke, er Amanda Thorne or some such)

Nikola is such a minor character in this story appearing about a third of the way through to offer his services to the narrator Gilbert Pennethorne who had been swindled out of a great fortune and then again at the end to  try and extort some money from Pennethorne (60 Thousand Pounds to be precise), that it almost seems a cheat to call this a Nikola novel.

There is a theory that this was an already completed novel that Boothby edited to quickly add Nikola which I cannot dispute.  In this story Nikola is an outright villain killing for money with an interesting method to gain the capital for a new scheme.

I'm about to start on the next book and I hope to see Nikola back to form.

Dr Nikola (1896) Aka Dr Nikola Returns by Guy Boothby

When last we saw Nikola he had gotten the Chinese Prayer stick.  In Dr Nikola, we discover that he uses it to gain entry to the secret society known as The Three. 

In the story he hires Wilfred Bruce, an out of work Englishman in China, to assist him in making their way through China disguised as Chinese men.  In the first book Nikola was clearly a villain, kidnapping young women for the ransom of the Chinese stick, in this book Nikola is more of an adventurer and dedicated scientist.

In 1896, an Englishman posing as Chinese was acceptable (I seem to recall hearing tales of  Richard Burton disguising himself as an Arab to explore that part of the world)  but to modern eyes it comes off as wrong.  I'd be intrigued to see how well received the next Mission: Impossible movie would be if Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt disguises himself as a Korean to infiltrate North Korea to find some McGuffin.

This felt like a really long book, it took Nikola and Bruce a long time to get to the monastery where the Three reside.  Once there Nikola gains some of their secret knowledge including a new aesthetic.  Then they are discovered to be imposters and they have to run for the final part of the novel.

I prefer Nikola as an honourable villain, while it was interesting to see Nikola in a different light this book wasn't very satisfying.   I wonder what plans Nikola has for his ill-gotten knowledge

A Bid for Fortune (1895) by Guy Boothby

First serialised in The Windsor Magazine, one of the rivals of The Strand Magazine this story introduces us to the master villian Dr Nikola.

Nikola isn't in the story much but his actions influence most of the narrative.  The story is narrated by Richard Hattaras, a young man from Thursday Island (making him a fellow Queenslander).  Hatteras falls in love with Phyllis Wetherell the daughter of the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales but the engagement is blocked her father.

It turns out that Nikola has designs on something that Wehterall owns and his plan is to get this item.

Nikola is a great villian.  I found myself quite liking him, there were several times where Hattaras intervened with Nikola's plans and Nikola had Hatteras and his allies in his power and it may have been more efficient and expedient to kill them but Nikola keeps them alive and sets them free.

At the end Nikola gets what he wants but lets everyone go.

At the end Hattaras and Phyllis are married and Nikola gets them a very nice wedding gift.

The story hops around globe starting in England across Europe to Australia and finishes in the South Seas Islands.

Guy Boothby was an Australian writer who was very successful back in the day but largely forgotten today.  There are four more Nikola books and I look forward to reading them.  I want to see what Nikola has planned for his prize.

Welcome to my new blog

Hello and welcome to the latest version of my blog.  It was formerly hosted over at Opera Blogs but with the decision to close those down I decided to move the blog over to Blogger.

As you can see I've changed the name of the blog from The Serial Vigilante Blog to Brad's pulpy blog.  Recently, I've felt that the scope of the Serial Vigilante Blog was somewhat too limited focusing as it was on the characters who appeared in the paperback racks of the 70s and 80s.  I'd been reading and thinking about those characters for nearly a decade and was starting to feel a little burnt out.  I found that my interests and tastes had expanded somewhat beyond that framework.

Serial Vigilantes will always be part of this blog but I want to expand beyond that especially with my involvement in the New Pulp Movement.  I was always able to justify that there was some tangential connection when I posted about New Pulp, Classic Pulp,or even Pulp Precursors (the amount of justification I felt the need to make for Don Pendleton's introduction to a Sherlock Holmes story).  With the change to Brad's Pulpy Blog if I want to post about something pulpy I can.  Something I may not have posted about on the old blog such as Katy Perry's jungle girl as seen in the videoclip for Roar is fair game here.

Hopefully for you the reader this means a more interesting blogging experience with a greater variety of material and more frequent blogging from me.

What becomes of the material on the old opera blogs?  Well I've tried to import them across but for whatever reason it hasn't worked so I'll be grabbing some of the posts off there and reposting here. Some will be posted as is (the two interviews being the first to come to mind)  others may be rewritten and new photos added but I'll make it obvious what is being reposted and what is new.