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Adaptations Of Sheridan Le Fanu's Gothic Tales
Unfortunately, there haven't been as many adaptations as there should have of Sheridan Le Fanu's works on television, radio, film, or stage. Here are the few we are aware of and, more importantly, only those worth mentioning.
Strange Event In The Life Of Schalken The Painter
This ghost story was adapted by the BBC and originally broadcast on 23 December 1979 as a Christmas television special. A film by writer/director Leslie Megahey, this 70-minute-long adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's gothic tale was listed as part of the long-running BBC arts strand Omnibus. It was an exquisitely shot, atmospheric horror film which explored the uneasy relationship between art, commerce and erotic desire. The superb cast included English actor and musician Jeremy Clyde and English character actor Maurice Denham, OBE.
The DVD for this BBC film was released as part of the BFI's acclaimed Flipside series, whose mission is to rescue weird and wonderful British films from obscurity and present them in newly mastered High-Definition, high-quality editions. BFI Flipside, launched in May 2009 and published by the British Film Institute's Video label, is a series of Dual Format Editions i.e. DVD and Blu-ray released together.
Strange Event In The Life Of Schalken The Painter is a disturbing story of a man returning from the grave to claim his bride in the old folkloric motif of the demon-lover. This tale was inspired by the atmospheric candle-lit scenes of the 17th-century Dutch painter Godfried Schalcken, the hero of the story. Godfried Schalcken, or Gottfried Schalken, was a genre and portrait painter who was noted for his mastery in reproducing the effect of candlelight. He painted in the exquisite and highly polished manner of the Leiden Fijnschilders ('Leidse Fijnschilders'), or The Fijnschilders (literally 'fine-painters'), the Dutch Golden Age painters, who, from about 1630 to 1710, strove to create as natural a reproduction of reality as possible in their meticulously executed, often small-scale, works.
This ghost story was adapted by the BBC and originally broadcast on 23 December 1979 as a Christmas television special. A film by writer/director Leslie Megahey, this 70-minute-long adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's gothic tale was listed as part of the long-running BBC arts strand Omnibus. It was an exquisitely shot, atmospheric horror film which explored the uneasy relationship between art, commerce and erotic desire. The superb cast included English actor and musician Jeremy Clyde and English character actor Maurice Denham, OBE.
The DVD for this BBC film was released as part of the BFI's acclaimed Flipside series, whose mission is to rescue weird and wonderful British films from obscurity and present them in newly mastered High-Definition, high-quality editions. BFI Flipside, launched in May 2009 and published by the British Film Institute's Video label, is a series of Dual Format Editions i.e. DVD and Blu-ray released together.
Strange Event In The Life Of Schalken The Painter is a disturbing story of a man returning from the grave to claim his bride in the old folkloric motif of the demon-lover. This tale was inspired by the atmospheric candle-lit scenes of the 17th-century Dutch painter Godfried Schalcken, the hero of the story. Godfried Schalcken, or Gottfried Schalken, was a genre and portrait painter who was noted for his mastery in reproducing the effect of candlelight. He painted in the exquisite and highly polished manner of the Leiden Fijnschilders ('Leidse Fijnschilders'), or The Fijnschilders (literally 'fine-painters'), the Dutch Golden Age painters, who, from about 1630 to 1710, strove to create as natural a reproduction of reality as possible in their meticulously executed, often small-scale, works.
The Wyvery Mystery
Sheridan Le Fanu's contemporary sensation novel The Wyvern Mystery was made into a two-part television film by the BBC and originally broadcast on 5 March 2000. Set in the 1820s, the film was directed by Alex Pillai, the highly-acclaimed Newcastle-Upon-Tyne-born television and film director. The teleplay was written by English screenwriter, film producer, film critic, and novelist David Pirie. Starring in this atmospheric, Victorian classic were British actress and film producer Naomi Watts as the beautiful young Alice Maybell, and English actor and stage director Sir Derek Jacobi, CBE as as Squire Fairfield, who are the two leading characters in this story.
As an aside, a wyvern (sometimes spelled wivern) is a legendary winged creature with a dragon's head (which may be said to breathe fire or possess a venomous bite), a reptilian body, two legs (sometimes none) and a barbed tail. It is often mistaken for a dragon, which has four legs and a pair of wings, as opposed to a wyvern, which has no more than two legs and a pair of wings. However, the wyvern may be deemed to be a member of the dragon family. It has been said that the word 'wyvern' is used in gothic fiction to mean something truly sinister.
Sheridan Le Fanu had re-worked and expanded his 19th-century horror tale The Wyvern Mystery from his novella A Chapter In The History Of A Tyrone Family (a story said to have possibly influenced Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre). The Wyvern Mystery is a gloomy gothic story filled with dark psychological twists, about a beautiful heroine who marries the heir to a local estate. The horror unfolds inside the house the heroine is living in, which is haunted by past secrets and also present danger.
Sheridan Le Fanu's contemporary sensation novel The Wyvern Mystery was made into a two-part television film by the BBC and originally broadcast on 5 March 2000. Set in the 1820s, the film was directed by Alex Pillai, the highly-acclaimed Newcastle-Upon-Tyne-born television and film director. The teleplay was written by English screenwriter, film producer, film critic, and novelist David Pirie. Starring in this atmospheric, Victorian classic were British actress and film producer Naomi Watts as the beautiful young Alice Maybell, and English actor and stage director Sir Derek Jacobi, CBE as as Squire Fairfield, who are the two leading characters in this story.
As an aside, a wyvern (sometimes spelled wivern) is a legendary winged creature with a dragon's head (which may be said to breathe fire or possess a venomous bite), a reptilian body, two legs (sometimes none) and a barbed tail. It is often mistaken for a dragon, which has four legs and a pair of wings, as opposed to a wyvern, which has no more than two legs and a pair of wings. However, the wyvern may be deemed to be a member of the dragon family. It has been said that the word 'wyvern' is used in gothic fiction to mean something truly sinister.
Sheridan Le Fanu had re-worked and expanded his 19th-century horror tale The Wyvern Mystery from his novella A Chapter In The History Of A Tyrone Family (a story said to have possibly influenced Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre). The Wyvern Mystery is a gloomy gothic story filled with dark psychological twists, about a beautiful heroine who marries the heir to a local estate. The horror unfolds inside the house the heroine is living in, which is haunted by past secrets and also present danger.
Uncle Silas
The story of Uncle Silas is a macabre mystery and a classic of Victorian gothic horror. However, the story does not involve the supernatural, despite a few creepily ambiguous touches, but does show a strong interest in the occult, as well as the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish scientist, philosopher, theologian, revelator and, in the eyes of some, Christian mystic. Uncle Silas is in fact notable as an early example of the locked-room mystery sub-genre. As such, you could call it a mystery-thriller. Like many of Sheridan Le Fanu's novels, Uncle Silas is a much extended adaptation of his earlier novella Passage In The Secret History Of An Irish Countess, with the original setting of Ireland changed to Derbyshire for the novel.
A film adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas was produced by British film studio Gainsborough Studios and released in the UK on 8 October 1947 under the same title. Directed by Charles Frank and starring Jean Simmons, Katina Paxinou and Derrick De Marney, the film was released in the US as The Inheritance on 10 February 1951.
The story of Uncle Silas is a macabre mystery and a classic of Victorian gothic horror. However, the story does not involve the supernatural, despite a few creepily ambiguous touches, but does show a strong interest in the occult, as well as the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish scientist, philosopher, theologian, revelator and, in the eyes of some, Christian mystic. Uncle Silas is in fact notable as an early example of the locked-room mystery sub-genre. As such, you could call it a mystery-thriller. Like many of Sheridan Le Fanu's novels, Uncle Silas is a much extended adaptation of his earlier novella Passage In The Secret History Of An Irish Countess, with the original setting of Ireland changed to Derbyshire for the novel.
A film adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas was produced by British film studio Gainsborough Studios and released in the UK on 8 October 1947 under the same title. Directed by Charles Frank and starring Jean Simmons, Katina Paxinou and Derrick De Marney, the film was released in the US as The Inheritance on 10 February 1951.
The Thames Television anthology series Mystery And Imagination included three of Sheridan Le Fanu's gothic tales in their programme. Transmitted on their ITV television network, the feature-length adaptations were The Flying Dragon (aired 5 November 1966), Carmilla (aired 12 November 1966) and Uncle Silas (aired 4 November 1968).
Mystery And Imagination was an anthology series of classic horror and supernatural dramas with a total of five series broadcast between 29 January 1966 and 23 February 1970 on ITV. The programme was originally produced by ABC Television. Thames Television took over its production for series four and five. |
Another film adaptation of Uncle Silas, entitled The Dark Angel, was produced by the BBC. The film was transmitted in three parts and originally broadcast on 4, 11 and 18 January 1989 on BBC Two.
Arguably the archetypal Gothic thriller, The Dark Angel is a sensual and stylish adaptation of Uncle Silas, Sheridan Le Fanu's influential Victorian literary masterpiece. Starring Irish stage and film actor Peter O'Toole in a wonderfully rich performance as the dangerous, scheming and perhaps quite mad Silas Ruthyn, this three-part drama is elegantly directed by English actor and television director Peter Hammond. Featuring in the film as well are English television actress Beatie Edney as the unfortunate Maud, British actress Jane Lapotaire as the grotesquely sinister Madame de la Rougierre, and English actor Tim Woodward as the brutal Dudley. In this adaption, English film and television actress Barbara Shelley, The First Leading Lady Of British Horror and Hammer Horror doyenne, plays her final dramatic television role. |
Carmilla
This novella tells the story of a young woman's susceptibility to the attentions of a female vampire named Carmilla. Set in central Europe, this story was to greatly influence Bram Stoker in the writing of his Dracula, twenty-five years after Sheridan Le Fanu first wrote it.
Camilla has been adapted many times in many languages but mainly for cinema.
This novella tells the story of a young woman's susceptibility to the attentions of a female vampire named Carmilla. Set in central Europe, this story was to greatly influence Bram Stoker in the writing of his Dracula, twenty-five years after Sheridan Le Fanu first wrote it.
Camilla has been adapted many times in many languages but mainly for cinema.
British film production company Hammer Film Productions released The Vampire Lovers on 4 October 1970 in the UK. This English gothic horror film was directed by Roy Ward Baker and starred Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt, Madeline Smith, Kate O'Mara and Jon Finch. Part of The Karnstein Trilogy of vampire films released by Hammer Films, the other two were Lust For A Vampire (1971) and Twins Of Evil (1972). At the time, the three films were considered somewhat daring, explicitly depicting lesbian vampire themes.
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French director Roger Vadim directed the French version Blood And Roses, which starred Mel Ferrer, Elsa Martinelli, Annette Stroyberg, and René-Jean Chauffard. First released on 14 September 1960 in France, this film is only loosely-based on the Carmilla novella, with Sheridan Le Fanu's original setting of 19th-century Styria changed to 20th-century Italy.
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Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer directed and wrote the French-German version Vampyr which was first released on 6 May 1932 in Germany. Co-written by Christen Jul, the film was based on elements from Sheridan Le Fanu's collection of supernatural stories In a Glass Darkly, which included the novella Carmilla. Nicolas de Gunzburg, who starred in the film under the name of Julian West, among a mostly non-professional cast, funded the film. He plays the role of Allan Grey, a student of the occult, who enters the village of Courtempierre, which is under the curse of a vampire.
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Belgian director Harry Kümel directed the Belgian version with English dialogue Daughters Of Darkness which was first released on 28 May 1971 in the US.
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Spanish director Vicente Aranda wrote and directed the Spanish version The Blood Spattered Bride (La Novia Ensangrentada) which was first released on 30 September 1972 in Spain.
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Italian director Camillo Mastrocinque directed a more-or-less faithful adaptation of Carmilla. The film was produced in Italy and Spain and first released on 27 May 1964 in Italy under the title La cripta e l'incubo (Crypt Of The Vampire).
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Still To Come...
An upcoming film Styria, or The Curse Of Styria, is the latest adaptation of Carmilla albeit set in the late 1980s. This multi-national indie-film is currently in post-production stage. I say multi-national because the lead roles are played by Polish actress Julia Pietrucha, British actress Eleanor Tomlinson and Irish actor Stephen Rea. Then there is the rest of the multi-national cast and crew, which makes quite a long list in itself. Also, filming was done in Budapest, Hungary, and the film was written and directed by Americans Mark Devendorf and Mauricio Chernovetzky.
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Set to be released some time in 2014, the film has taken close to six years to produce. Mark Devendorf and Mauricio Chernovetzky spent a lot of time researching the story, and then, two years writing the script. For the filming-location, they chose the abandoned Schlossberger Castle in the small town of Tura, about forty-five minutes outside of Budapest. Approximately eighty percent of the film was shot in the castle and the surrounding woods.
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By the way, you can visit kickstarter.com for a sneak preview, or read the interview of Mark Devendorf and Mauricio Chernovetzky by Katherine Sweetman. We believe this adaptation will be brilliant!
Here are the few television adaptations we could find.
- Russian director Janusz Kondratiuk directed the sixty-eight minute Polish black-and-white made-for-television film adaptation which was broadcast in Poland in 1980 under the original English title Carmilla.
- American actress and television producer Shelley Duvall featured a medium-length film adaptation, Carmilla, on her television anthology series Nightmare Classics which showcases adaptations of classic horror stories. The film was broadcast on 10 September 1989 in the US and directed by British director Gabrielle Beaumont.
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