I'd never actually thought of HPL being a cinema-goer!
Me neither! I have this image of him sitting with gritted teeth through the newsreels and cartoons.
The story this film puts me in mind of is "He", enough that I had to check the publication date on it.
I don't think I know that story at all. Tell me about it?
Am I right in thinking you see a lot less of 1784 Peter than his twentieth-century counterpart?
Yes; we see him in a sort of prologue before the bodyswap takes place and then we shift forward in time to follow 1933 Peter. He's never onstage again, but we hear from other characters that "contemporary" Peter over the last few days has been behaving incredibly strangely, drinking heavily, getting himself thrown out of clubs, swearing at everyone around him for being ghosts. A story which followed both of them would have been really interesting, but that missing other half is kind of what Lovecraft had to write for himself. With, you know, more aliens and unspeakability.
It sounds fascinating, bleaker than I'd expect from a Leslie Howard film.
See above to lignota! It wasn't bleaker than I'd expect from a Leslie Howard film, because the more I've seen of him, the more I think he's been remembered unfairly for a conventional role (Ashley Wilkes, Gone with the Wind) when in reality he starred in some really weird stuff, but it was orders of magnitude bleaker than I was expecting from a Depression-era time-travel fantasy. There's not even a consolatory present-day girl at the end. I thought those were de rigueur.
no subject
Me neither! I have this image of him sitting with gritted teeth through the newsreels and cartoons.
The story this film puts me in mind of is "He", enough that I had to check the publication date on it.
I don't think I know that story at all. Tell me about it?
Am I right in thinking you see a lot less of 1784 Peter than his twentieth-century counterpart?
Yes; we see him in a sort of prologue before the bodyswap takes place and then we shift forward in time to follow 1933 Peter. He's never onstage again, but we hear from other characters that "contemporary" Peter over the last few days has been behaving incredibly strangely, drinking heavily, getting himself thrown out of clubs, swearing at everyone around him for being ghosts. A story which followed both of them would have been really interesting, but that missing other half is kind of what Lovecraft had to write for himself. With, you know, more aliens and unspeakability.
It sounds fascinating, bleaker than I'd expect from a Leslie Howard film.
See above to