Absolution

Absolution is an intriguing film from the 60s, with a screenplay by that fascinating and varied writer Anthony Shaffer. It stars Richard Burton, as well as Dai Bradley (best known as the boy in Kes) and Dominic Guard. Billy Connolly, of all people, also makes an appearance.

In his entertaining memoir So What Did You Expect?, Shaffer describes it as “a twisted tale of the torture of a priest” involving the use of the confessional. It’s an odd story, in a number of ways, and this may be because, as Shaffer says, the film was “calamitously directed by Anthony Page". Certainly, the story, for all its interest, isn't in the same league as Sleuth.

Shaffer’s witty if brutal outline of the experience is memorable: “It was bad enough having a drunk for a leading man, let alone a director who was too much of a wimp...” He explains how, while the film was being made, he realised that a change needed to be made to the story-line, but Page rejected it. He says he learned that “not all thrillers are whodunits to be revealed at the very end.” Whether his comments about Page are fair or not, I don't know. I'd guess his book had the libel lawyers in thoughtful mood...

I tend to agree with Shaffer that the change he proposed would have improved the film. I’m not sure, though, that it would have turned it into a really fine movie. To my mind it is a curiosity, its bleakness a strength but also a shortcoming, and I suspect it’s one of those stories that seemed stronger in theory than in execution. All the same, I’m glad I watched it, because even though it does not match Shaffer’s best work, it benefits from his original way of looking at the world, even more than from his remarkable facility with plot.

Sleuth

The 2007 re-make of Sleuth is, unlike many re-makes, by no means a waste of time. For a start, the script is by the late Harold Pinter, who adapts the famous stage play by Anthony Shaffer with verve. The original film version starred Laurence Olivier as the novelist, Wyke, and Michael Caine as his young rival Milo. Now Caine plays Wyke and Jude Law is Milo.

Caine and Law have both played Alfie, and I noticed that Pinter managed to include ‘What’s it all about?’ as one of the lines – a nice joke! They both do a good job here, with Caine especially impressive. I really do like him as an actor.

Shaffer’s original play had quite a bit to say about the detective story form. Pinter largely abandons this, which is perhaps a pity. Shaffer co-wrote three very clever Golden Age mysteries himself, in the 50s. His co-author was his twin Peter, better known for Equus and Amadeus.

Overall, a fairly short, stylised and snappy film. The basic story may be familiar, but this version is distinctive enough to be worth watching. And you get the impression Caine and Law enjoyed themselves.

Before and After

Peter Antony’s short, snappy story in The London Mystery Magazine, 'Before and After', which I mentioned recently, is (as far as I know) the only short mystery to appear under that name, featuring the notable amateur sleuth Mr Verity.

This is a rare case where the author is more interesting than the story (though the story is a lot of fun.) For the pseudonym of Peter Antony concealed the identities of two brothers, Peter and Anthony Shaffer. They were twins, born in Liverpool in 1926 and they wrote three detective novels together in the 1950s which are firmly in the Golden Age tradition. How Doth the Little Crocodile?, The Woman in the Wardrobe, and Withered Murder are all very enjoyable. They all feature the same brilliant sleuth (though in the third book, which they brought out under their real names, they changed his name to Mr Fathom – all rather odd.)

The short story in LMM, is an impossible crime tale, a neat little snippet, and I am glad to have discovered it after much searching. Anthony went on to write the screenplay for Hitchcock’s Frenzy, as well as Sleuth, the rather less successful Murderer, and that horror classic The Wicker Man. He died in 2001, shortly after publishing his memoirs. Peter wrote a number of outstanding stage plays, perhaps most famously Equus and Amadeus. He was eventually knighted and survives his twin. I wonder if he ever looks back fondly on his early excursions into detective fiction. I hope so.

The London Mystery Magazine

I’ve heard of The London Mystery Magazine, but had never read it until the other day. For a long time I’ve been hunting for an ‘impossible crime’ short story by Peter Antony, and finally Bob Adey, the greatest of all experts on locked room mysteries, supplied me with a copy – which appeared in the LMM.

LMM was a quarterly publication and this particular issue was number 16. This issue was the first to appear under the house flag of Norman Kark Publications, and it included a foreword by Norman’s son, Austen Kark. Now, the name of Austen Kark was later to become well-known for a number of reasons, one of them tragic. Born in 1926, he became a prominent figure in the BBC, notably at the World Service. In 1954 he married for the second time, his wife being that very successful writer Nina Bawden. (Bawden wrote a couple of detective stories in the Fifties, incidentally; I’ve read The Odd Flamingo, which is atmospheric though now rather dated.) And, at the age of 75, he was killed in the Potters Bar rail crash; his widow, seriously injured in the same disaster, wrote a memoir Dear Austen, in which she inveighed against the failures that contributed to the tragedy.

In his foreword, Austen Kark set out the manifesto of LMM: ‘’We hope to present to our readers the best of the several genres which congregate under the banner of Mystery.’

Issue 16 contained reviews (sometimes scathing in tone – even the great Carter Dickson, aka John Dickson Carr, gets a real hammering), articles and stories. Contributors included such major names as John Collier and Gerald Kersh. And there was a fact piece about an 18th century murder case from a young barrister and novelist called Anthony Shaffer. Shaffer went on to write the classic detective puzzle Sleuth, and that masterpiece of horror The Wicker Man. But he was also one half of Peter Antony – more about him another day.