The shapes we take don't fit the games you play

[sovay]

"Peter had succeeded in getting his pipe to draw, and, with both hands in his trouser-pockets, was observing the actors in the drama with an air of pleased detachment."
—Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon (1937)



"Well, now you have me. It's that thing called charm. Without it, there is a not particularly personable, slightly skinny gent in an old loose tweed jacket and trousers with a patch on the seat and tortoise-rimmed glasses, pulling on a blunt pipe. With it, there is Leslie Howard."
—Ruth Rankin, "Leslie Howard – Perennial Charmer" (1936)



I still can't believe Busman's Honeymoon was filmed in the UK in 1940 when Leslie Howard was still alive and didn't star him. Every now and then I consider subjecting myself to it because I imagine Robert Newton was an ideal Frank Crutchley and then I remember everything else I have ever read or heard about it and I just re-read the novel.

Comments

[skygiants]

The timeline absolutely doesn't, but I truly believe "I want to marry you, if you can put up with me and all that" / "That makes forty-seven, but I admit I've never been proposed to by a dead man before; that at least has the air of novelty" has legs and if Dorothy had the courage of her convictions she could have run with it! (No offense to Strong Poison as it is, already in and of itself a delightful book of course.)

[sovay]

I truly believe "I want to marry you, if you can put up with me and all that" / "That makes forty-seven, but I admit I've never been proposed to by a dead man before; that at least has the air of novelty" has legs

I think you should absolutely request this for Yuletide, because the prospect of Peter investigating a murder while—at least part of the time—officially dead is not logistically sillier than the prospect of Peter investigating a murder while—at least part of the time—successfully maintaining a double life.

(I forgot until this comment that he wears horn-rims while being Mr. Bredon. Damn it, Leslie Howard.)