One of three ancient fates playing with your scissors again
I have been so spoiled in recent months by the accessible obscurities of my local library systems that I took it personally when both internet archives and interlibrary loan wiped out on the 1954 source novel for "Dishonoured Bones" (1964), which I watched last night while falling down a rabbit hole of surviving episodes of the BBC's Detective (1964–69) thanks to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thisbluespirit. At least in fifty-minute anthology format, the mystery itself is a shoal of red herrings, but I was instantly taken with Alan Dobie as Martin Cotterell, an archaeologist-hero as pipe-smoking and untidy as any weirdo by Leslie Howard, especially with his awful walking hat knocked down over his eyes, characteristically rolling off one of his socks in the middle of a discussion of suspects with his old friend who has turned up as the sergeant on the case. (He's right to have suddenly noticed it was inside out and his friend is right that no one else would have noticed because his socks never match to begin with.) He has an artificial hand. It's treated so matter-of-factly, it's never even addressed as such until the rock-fall of the climax, which would have smashed a hand of flesh and bone and just leaves Martin wryly straightening his flattened tin fingers; otherwise the viewer notices eventually that he does most tasks one-handed, the other always gloved, impossible to tell which was originally his dominant hand. Its relevance to the plot is realistically zero. Trying to find any information on this elusive series, I am delighted to learn from its author's obituary that not only was John Trench more than literarily into archaeology, he was employed long-term, about a generation later, by the same advertising firm as Dorothy L. Sayers. They both worked on the Guinness account. I have a line on the novel and in the meantime am stuck with an interest in Alan Dobie, with his thin dented-in face that looks so much younger with his hat off, except when he's got a bandage around his head. Even if she doesn't have that much to do, you get early Judi Dench with this episode, too.
thisbluespirit. At least in fifty-minute anthology format, the mystery itself is a shoal of red herrings, but I was instantly taken with Alan Dobie as Martin Cotterell, an archaeologist-hero as pipe-smoking and untidy as any weirdo by Leslie Howard, especially with his awful walking hat knocked down over his eyes, characteristically rolling off one of his socks in the middle of a discussion of suspects with his old friend who has turned up as the sergeant on the case. (He's right to have suddenly noticed it was inside out and his friend is right that no one else would have noticed because his socks never match to begin with.) He has an artificial hand. It's treated so matter-of-factly, it's never even addressed as such until the rock-fall of the climax, which would have smashed a hand of flesh and bone and just leaves Martin wryly straightening his flattened tin fingers; otherwise the viewer notices eventually that he does most tasks one-handed, the other always gloved, impossible to tell which was originally his dominant hand. Its relevance to the plot is realistically zero. Trying to find any information on this elusive series, I am delighted to learn from its author's obituary that not only was John Trench more than literarily into archaeology, he was employed long-term, about a generation later, by the same advertising firm as Dorothy L. Sayers. They both worked on the Guinness account. I have a line on the novel and in the meantime am stuck with an interest in Alan Dobie, with his thin dented-in face that looks so much younger with his hat off, except when he's got a bandage around his head. Even if she doesn't have that much to do, you get early Judi Dench with this episode, too.
no subject
National Geographic has a series of documentary shows with Albert Lin as the host going on expeditions into far-flung wilderness areas in search of archaeological sites. I often wonder how much the shows play up the "peril" of his experiences, but they absolutely did not play up the caught-on-camera peril of a rockfall that snapped his prosthetic foot clean through at the ankle. The shots of Lin afterward sitting with the thousand-yard stare of a man reliving traumatic memories of the accident that cost him his foot in the first place (apparently involving an open-frame Jeep rolling while he was inside) were . . . memorable.
no subject
I can imagine they would be. How interesting that he kept them in.
(Martin, shaken but less traumatized, is suggested to see a doctor and responds that he just needs a blacksmith.)
no subject
Not only that, but intercut with some shots and comments about the previous accident. Of all the episodes I've watched, it's the only one that ever talks about why Lin has a prosthetic foot: the show doesn't attempt to hide it, possibly even makes a point of displaying it to you in an wordless "see, this doesn't hold him back" kind of way, but they don't make a story out of it. Until the episode where Lin would have wound up a double amputee had it been his other foot the five-hundred-pound boulder landed on.
. . . and then he shakes it off, goes to fetch his spare prosthetic from the van, and continues on.
(Not the only genuine disaster they've run into, I should note. An episode not long before that had them losing camera gear and very nearly a cameraman to some rapids, and then there's a jump and Lin explains that they encountered so much trouble afterwards that they canceled the expedition and tried again some months later. So I'm inclined to believe the rest of the peril is not entirely manufactured for the viewer's delectation.)
no subject
It sounds like at that point they would either have had to cut the entire incident or lean into the gonzo journalism, and I am glad he was up for the second.
HOLY MOLY
these sounds like fascinating watching, which I'm needing right now.