To Walk Invisible: Movies about Writing

PBS TIME!!!

To Walk Invisible is another biopic about the four Bronte siblings (a likely more accurate portrayal than the previous movie I watched). This one presents the four in a both codependent yet tumultuous relationship which all seems to go on completely under their well-meaning father’s nose (played by Jonathan Pryce). Quotes from letters to and from the sisters add to the realism of the movie.

Flashbacks reveal how the four were once so close and imaginative, yet the signs of their adult personalities are still there. The main plot starts with Branwell (Adam Nagaitis) and Anne (Charlie Murphy - no, not the Charlie Murphy who once played basketball against Prince) coming back home from positions after Branwell had an alleged affair with the wife of their employer. At the same time, a depressed Charlotte (Finn Atkins) and a fed-up Emily (Chloe Pirrie) are also back home after attending a school with practical questions of what will become of them when their father dies. Branwell is as he always is, a drunk who cannot commit to a path in life and is constantly bailed out by their father. Meanwhile, his three sisters both pity him and fear what their lives will be like when he will be in control of the family finances.

This brings the writing and publishing into play. That’s right! This film is actually about the women as writers -not made-up love triangles or scenes of pining out windows. Charlotte, having been inspired by a drunken rant by Banwell, decides that the three women should publish poetry under male names in an attempt to earn some income.

At first, Emily is appalled by this idea as her poems are private and she flies into a rage when Charlotte reads them without her consent. Anne is the peacemaker between her sisters and is happy just be writing. Still, Anne hate the idea of being credited as men and wishes they could just write anonymously. Charlotte and Emily insist that if anyone suspects that they are women, their writing will never be judged fa

The movie isn’t without it’s drama. The awkward love between Charlotte and her father’s curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls is somehow even sadder without the grand love triangle knowing their lives together would be so short. Branwell’s depression, love life, and abuse towards his family aren’t shown as everyone constantly catering to him. Instead, Emily chases him from the house with anger while Charlotte continues to plan ways for them to secure their own income. Emily is shy and secretive, yet the closest to Branwell. She is the one who does not wish to ever reveal herself, is the most critical of their brother, and the one who cleans up many messes. Anne is still left as the constant “third sister”, the one just on the outskirts who keeps everyone else taken care of. She’s even the one who suffers the most publishing wise. She is also the one who feels the most guilt and emotion over Branwell as he reaches new lows. *By the way, I finally read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and it’s fantastic. I actually like it better than Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights.

The publishing process of the mid-1800s shows how for a first book, the women had to pay to have it published, but still received the proof in the mail (just like now). I imagine contracts, terms of profits, and marketing were quite different, but some of the initial steps really haven’t changed. It also shows the hurt of publication rejection with that added realization that if the three sisters can’t be published they might not be able to survive after their father dies. They also cover topics of publishing fraud, unreliable editors, and subtle fame.

The movie imagines the issues that come with writing under pen names and trying to keep it secret in a small town when Charlotte’s The Professor is rejected but the agents agrees to print Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights. It also includes the idea of the Charlotte finally telling their father about Jane Eyre’s success in hopes that it will alleviate their father’s worries. He is proud of them and I have no idea if that would be how such a scene played out. This scene is also revealed that their pseudonyms are an attempt to protect Branwell’s feelings who never managed to write his own novel, even as Branwell falls into further debt and ill health. There's a difference to be shown here between professionals and family ties.

Overall, this is a much better version of the tale of the three writers although it end abruptly with post-scripts of their lives and little insight into their short lived lives after Branwell’s death.

Owned by BBC. Emily (Chloe Pirrie), Anne (Charlie Murphy), and Charlotte (Finn Atkins)

Goodbye Again: Movies about Writing

I came across this 1933 comedy by accident on TCM about a bestselling author whose entire life is kept in check by his secretary. Then a former girlfriend, who is now married, shows up in the midst of his book signing tour.

Kenneth Bixby (played Warren William) writes novels about women tragically in love and full of all the melodrama that would make him a bestseller. He’s come to Ohio with practical and funny Anne (Joan Blondell) as a promotion for his latest title Miriam. They don’t say much about the book other than it’s about a woman who cannot have children and his flame from nearly a decade believes the cynical tale is about her. This ex-girlfriend, Julie (Genevieve Tobin) convinces Bixby to spend the evening with her instead of attending his lecture, radio appearance, and book signing. Meanwhile, Julie’s husband Harvey (Hugh Herbert), Julie’s sister Elizabeth (Helen Chandler from the Tod Browning Dracula), and Elizabeth’s friend (Wallace Ford) are all attempting to track down both Bixby and Julie in hopes of avoiding scandal. This also comes about at the end of the film when Anne tells Julie that the character of Miriam was based upon a different ex-flame. Julie dramatically exits declaring, “You’ve killed the other me!”

First, about this movie in general. Blondell is has good comedic timing as the “straight man” Anne. My generation would probably recognize her better as waitress Viv in Grease, but she was once a darling of romantic comedies and later played the aunts or best friends in movies like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Desk Set. The character of Anne is both love lorn, but delightfully manipulative. There is a good exchange between her and a bellhop about attempting to find rye in prohibition Cleveland. Warren William is also amusing as the charming rouge Bixby. Bixby gives an air of dignity, intelligence, and poise as a public image when in truth his is a philandering mess. His persona is all a fabrication of Anne’s hard work.

This brings me to the main point of this blog. This is the comedy of errors that is the result of a public image versus reality. Bixby’s fans think of his him as this sophisticated man who understands women and the human condition. In truth he’s a large child who puts all of his emotion into his books. His imagination and people watching skills keep a popular author and everyone assumes he is like the characters in his books. People want the creators of their heroes to reflect the heroes. At one point he makes the joke, “Julie has to marry me to save my honor. Ha.” The reader suffers a broken heart over the truth of a flawed person, even when the reader is also an author. And then there comes the debate, can one separate the author from the work?

Twilight Zone (A World of His Own): Movies about Writing

Oh “Twilight Zone”! How do I love thee! Let me write a blog of one of my favorite episodes instead of counting the ways (because math is bad). Let me present “A World of His Own” about Mr. Gregory West, a playwright who gets very into his work and uses a dictation machine for recording his character development. In order to talk about how this episode relates to the personality of writers I am going to have to give BIG SPOILERS.

NO SERIOUSLY - SPOILERS AHEAD! I WARNED YOU!

Rod Serling fading away from reality (CBS owned image)

First off, this is a Richard Matheson episode so that might be partially why it is one of my favorites. It also features an adorable Asian elephant, but that’s not really important to this blog. Gregory West (Keenan Wynn) is having a comfortable and loving time with the sweet Mary (Mary . Then his wife, the stylish Victoria (Phyllis Kirk) see him and Mary cuddling on the couch only to storm into an office where only her husband exists. No Mary and no exit she could have sneaked out of.

What continues is a conversation about how writers dream up characters that are real to them; a conversation that turns out not to be practical not philosophical. “They [characters] become so strong, that sometimes they take over the whole story,” Gregory explains to his wife and adds that one of his earliest successful characters walked into the room one night when he was working. It turns out that when he describes a new person into his tape recorder, the fictional character comes to life in his office and gives him inspiration for his plays. Then, all he has to do to send them back into his imagination is cut the tape and burn it.

This is the origin story of Mary (and others in the episode as well), but he has difficultly getting his wife to believe this as she plans his commitment. And in the case of Mary, he has created a woman who fulfills his sentimental needs that his high fashioned wife neglects. Still, she has a mind of her own and questions her role in Gregory’s life as he keeps creating and destroying her.

Overall, this episode all about the imagination of a writer and how tempting imagination is over reality. More than that, it is an idea of using the power of imagination responsibly. Where Gregory could rewrite his life with every character he could ever want, he only uses it as a way to keep from being lonely. And yet, instead of finding a woman in the world he creates his partner to fit ideals he has learned through out his life. Most writers start this way. They start as children daydreaming about different lives surrounded by different people. And yet Matheson presents this idea in the form of a full grown man and established playwright. This adds a little humor to the scenario. It begs the questions of how many of us would spend time with our characters as flesh and blood instead of just the voices in our heads.

Old Acquaintance: Movie about Writing

OH. MY. SWEET. BABY. SLEIPNIR. This movie was. . . hard to get through. Before I get accusations about being a rube who doesn’t appreciate art, I want to point out that I usually love old movies. I thought, “A 1943 film I’ve never heard of staring Miriam Hopkins and Bette Davis based on a play by the same guy who wrote ‘Bell, Book, and Candle’. You son of a bitch. I’m in.” Then I started it. Then I turned it back off. Then I tried watching more the following day. Another ten minutes and I stopped. I think it took me a week to watch this film in it’s entirety.

It’s a melodrama so of course there are silly rivalries, a couple of love triangles, and other ridiculous fodder. The movie is about two childhood friends who both grow up to be well-known authors. Practical and good-humored Kit (Bette Davis) is a novelist and playwright who really only churns out products every few years. They don’t make her a lot of money, but acquire her a lot of fame since she chooses subject matters of society and feminism. Her work seems to be mostly popular with academics like college students. Meanwhile type-A personality Millie (Miriam Hopkins) mass produces best selling romance novels that make her a wealthy woman in only a few years. Although Millie is constantly jealous of Kit and feels they need to be in some kind of competition, Kit only wishes Millie success and makes many excuses for when Millie acts selfish or flies off the handle. A part of this comes from the backstory of Millie having brought Kit home from school one day so she wouldn’t have to go to her own awful life and from then on she became like a foster child to Millie’s family. Kit feels a constant gratefulness for this because she credits any parts of her happy childhood to Millie.

Millie also the wife of some kind of successful gentleman with a thin 40s mustache (played by John Loder) who not-so-secretly pines for Kit. Together they have a daughter, Deirdre, (played by Dolores Moran as a teenager) who is named after the main character in Millie’s books and also seems to love Kit more than her emotional mother. Then, when Deirdre is a young woman, she and Kit fall in love with the same man (Gig Young) and Kit stands aside for her would-be niece. See. Drama. So. Much. Drama.

The pair of women have several literary conversations throughout the film that always start off interesting and realistic. They range in topics from editing and peer review to confidence in writing and when you have to let of of a project (just publish already) *note: I feel personally attacked every time this comes up in a film about writing. I will finish when I’m ready. Stop judging me, TV people! And even the ideas of marketing and publicity. Then the conversations turn into a thinly veiled fight with Millie constantly insulting Kit without realizing it. Still, Kit keeps trying to save Millie’s relationships with her husband and child, despite all of Millie’s tantrums.

I feel like if this was just a drama that only focused on the two authors and their friendship versus the differences in their careers, I probably could’ve gotten behind this film. Even if it was about how Kit was constantly trying to save Millie’s personal life in the midst of success and a character study of how Millie is so oblivious, I’d probably have felt this was a smart film about interesting writers. Instead, I found myself zoning out as there were long speeches involving words like “I can’t! I simply can’t” and discussing the moral implications of all the messes of their lives. Music swelled, people started to talk in passionate tones, and I would go get a snack. When I’d come back they’d still be talking about love affairs and suicide attempts. And I got really sick of this martyr routine they gave to Bette Davis. And it goes on for years! The movie takes place over nearly two decades and, although she does have success as a public figure, is never a bestselling author and of all the things she wants in life the only thing she gets to have in the end is her toxic friendship with Millie.

Image property of Warner Bros.

Long Groan (an attempt at a blog)

I am currently in the middle of a movie about two authors for this blog. But I am having a lot of trouble getting through this movie. I’ve literally watched it 15 minutes at a time and then I need a break. Sooooooo no blog this week. Enjoy this picture of a construction working mouse obtained from Pixaby.

New Girl (Socalyalcon vi): Movies about Writing

Nick is preparing for the Southern California Young Adult Literature Conference and Jess is helping him. I wanted to do this episode as a blog especially because conferences, library appearances, and conventions are the indie-published author’s bread and butter.

Nick spends too much time deciding what he’s going to wear for an outdoor, tented event. I’ve never done that. Never ever. Ever. Okay, I have, but I live in a state will unbearable weather. You need to pick a top that will breath, but not show the sweat of the 110 degree weather.

The look of this made-up convention is legit. Rows of booths with single tables and different color schemes with people milling about, some in costume. As is it 2021 and there has not been one of these events in almost a year for me, I got weirdly nostalgic looking this over-crowded TV mimicry of what is essentially a chunk of my life.

What the TV show does not reveal is the strain of selling in an environment with people who are all in the same boat as you. There’s the conversations, the elevators talks, the short pitches, and the awkwardness. The wonderful, business awkwardness.

Image owned by Fox

New Girl (Young Adult): Movies about Writing

Let’s power through some more of these Nick as an author episodes of “New Girl” for the month of January. This episode has a lot going on (Schmidtt is hiring an assistant based on pretentious qualifications, Cece is starting the moving process, and Winston finds out his cat has been cheating on him with another family), but A-plot involves Jess trying to get her students to treat her the same way they did as a teacher now that’s she’s their principal. She finds in when she overhears several junior high girls discussing their love of Pepperwood after reading the copies Jess left in the school library. Quick note - again, how are these books surviving a single reading as we know they were just printer pages glued into cardboard?

Nick is going through writers block, yet is not welcoming the idea of catering to teenage girls. Then, when the young ladies express why they love his book, he gets excited about writing once again. However, Jess has to come to terms that her students want to discuss some heavy and adult subjects around her because of the book’s content. Wait. Why did she put copies in her school’s library? Are there angry parent phone calls? I feel like there would angry parent phone calls.

As a writer watching this episode, I get how the excitement of these young fans breaks Nick’s block. However, I don’t really agree with him bouncing ideas for future books off of them. That could get into some legal gray areas like fan fiction does.

As for Jess’s experience through this, she becomes “too cool” because she’s not the member of school staff who is roommate’s with the kids’ favorite author. Of course, she loses all authority and has to punish Nick and his tween girl fanbase. Nick then convinces the students to apologize for their behavior. This isn’t so much about writing, but I feel this is good lesson about dealing with teenagers.

Image belongs to Fox

New Girl (Glue): Movies about Writing

In the next episode in the saga of Nick Miller, writer, we find Nick in the attempts of self-printing. I am going to keep this one very short because otherwise my rants about the sheer ridiculousness of it will go on until doomsday.

Nick receives a publisher rejection and falls into despair. Reagan suggests self-publishing and printing the book himself after she finds a bookstore to sell them. Not in a normal, send to a professional printer and order a set number of copies way. Nope. That’s just too easy for a sitcom. Jess and Nick decide to MAKE THE BOOKS THEMSELVES! This involves a lot of glue that they get high off of the fumes from and then silliness is abound and sitcom shenanigans continue in their scripted sitcom ways.

I’m not focused on the shenanigans. I’m focused on the reality of this entire freakin’ scenario! Let us begin with the idea of a local bookstore agreeing to sell a book through a phone conversation and then requesting thirty copies! No bookstore would request THIRTY COPIES of a first-time author’s work unless it was part of a publishing/agency deal and no publisher or agent would take that risk with a first time author. No consignment allows for thirty copies. Especially from a small, local operation. They can’t afford to lose that much shelf space. As the owner of the bookstore saying in the episode, “Please, buy things. We’re dying.”

Let me explain the reality of the consignment process for those writers who have not delved into this yet. It usually starts with a contract that includes a long list of rules and conditions. These conditions generally includes a length of time they are willing to carry the title, information about what they will do with your unsold copies (do they get sent back to you, do they clearance them out, is there an expense for you to come get them, etc.), and how much they make off of the sale’s price of each copy sold. This document will then ask you to give all of the book’s information like the title, summary, author’s name, publication date, and ISBN. I don’t want to be condescending, but my point about the ISBN is going to come up again later, so I’m aware that most writers know what that is yet I’m going to explain it. Also that was a really long sentence that I’m not planning on fixing. The ISBN is like the social security number of a book. Only your title has that specific number and it is number you purchase or your publisher purchases for you as a part of your book. No book is legitimately published without out and technically does not exist in the sales world if it doesn’t have one.

This imaginary consignment of Nick’s book is also including a reading of the book the same night as the deal was made. What bookstore is going to ask for a reading from a new author that they have never met AND request that reading be the same day as the consignment? In the words of the tenth Doctor Who, “WHAT?!” You need time to advertise that crap! To build an interest and get people to come to the reading. Plus, most small bookstores don’t ask a new author to do a local reading until they’ve seen the book. Maybe we’re suppose to assume there was a cancellation becuase realistically no one should be coming to Nick’s unplanned, unadvertised, unknown book reading.

Now for the actual assembly of the book, a process as I stated previously Jess and Nick do themselves using printer paper and glue. HO-LY SHIT IS THIS UNREALISTIC!!!! The first time I saw this episode, I needed a drink. Upon re-watching, I need a sedative.

First, they literally just printed thirty paper copies of what looks like a 800 page book! That would cost more than just sending it to the printers. Plus, did the check their margins? Widows and orphans! DID THEY TURN OFF THE WIDOWS AND ORPHANS! I NEED TO KNOW THIS FOR MY OWN SANITY (see Sidney Reetz’s formatting guide if you are uncertain of what I speak). How are the pages staying together? They didn’t do them in folded chunks like a real book. It just looks like a stack of paper. Did they glue every sheet of paper together at the edge? Or did they just straighten the stack and glue the whole thing to the (what looks like) card stock cover?

Oh and let us discuss that cover. They have a drawing of a lobster in either crayon or colored pencil (it’s actually a good drawing, but it makes the book look more little kiddy or like one of those business books that are trying to trick people with common sense disguised as jargon). Then they have pasted on the title, the spine, and Nick’s name. The back cover is blank. No blurb (how will anyone know what the book is about?), publisher, and NO ISBN! How will the book be sold without an ISBN? No bookstore would take this! Nick would barely be able to sell that book out of the back of a creepy van without an ISBN! I mean, he could try, but most readers aren’t into creepy van purchases.

I said I’d keep this short so I’ll stop ranting now. Nick sells his first book to a 12 year old (then remembers that he wrote a graphic sex scene), Jess looks at pop-up books while high, happy ending, blah blah blah. Plot line to be continued.

New Girl (The Cubicle): Movies about Writing

Time to continue the tale of NIck Miller of the sitcom “New Girl” and his attempts at becoming a published author.

When last we left our slacker hero, he’d returned from New Orleans with his first completed manuscript about detective Julius Pepperwood. The episode entitle “The Cubicle” involves Nick trying to convince his girlfriend, Reagan, to actually read this finished product. There are of course other things happening in the episode. Jess is feeling guilty that her current boyfriend has to pay for hospital bills for an accident that was technically her fault. Cece is running her modeling agency from the loft living room (yes, she and Schmidt bought a house but they spend most of season 6 renovating it). And Winston accidentally recruits Cece’s only client for the police academy.

The episode starts with Nick suggesting he use Cece’s new client to be on the cover of his book and everyone agrees that the male model would make a great Gator. Reagan then asks why no use a real gator. The table gets very gaspy as they realize that she hasn’t read the book or she’d know that Gator is Pepperwood’s best friend… and a man, not a reptile. Winston declares that she must clear the next 24 hours. Nick says it’s no big deal, but the rest of the roommates peer pressure Reagan into take a hard copy of the novel and start reading.

Nick tells her, “Don’t feel any pressure to like it, even though I spent 7,000 hours writing it.” I tried calculate this into days which would mean he spent several years on it. This would he mean he was probably working on it off and on since season 2 (which is a common practice for me and several writers I know). Or the number was an exaggeration and I did math for nothing.

Anyway, he’s clearly nervous about her reading it and she’s clearly not very keen on reading it. They look for ways to put off her quiet time with the giant novel by helping Jess with the medical bill issue. Eventually, she goes back to reading and Nick starts by staring at her the whole time. Realizing he shouldn’t be doing this, he exits the room, then instantly comes back in when he realizes Jess is fighting with her boyfriend in the living room. When comes back to the bedroom where Reagan is reading she’s fast asleep with very few pages of the book turned. He then goes to hide in Cece’s cubicle and is joined by Jess.

“I’m taking the gin with me, though. Alcohol is kind of a cubicle for the insides.”

“Nick, you’re like a drunk Maya Angelou.”

“Not the first time I heard that.”

Nick and Reagan finally discuss her falling asleep on his book and she confesses that she’s never like fiction. But she also tells him that she wants to keep trying to read it. Nick agrees to read some of it out loud to her and she smiles, saying she’d like that. It’s a nice compromise where she still shows interest and he is hopefully able to do some editing (this isn’t a judgement I’m just always looking for ways to multitask).

This whole episode was about caring about the opinions of significant others and coming to terms with the artistic aspects of sharing. For me, it’s easier to have a stranger read my work then someone I love. Of course, I still want that person to buy my work. Let’s not be crazy here.

Image belongs to Fox… or Disney… or someone

New Girl (House Hunt): Movies about Writing

Continuing the journey of Nick Miller from New Girl (for the start of this plot line go back to the blog New Girl: Eggs).
This episode is all about changes of setting in adult life and a minor plot of it involves how those changes can lead to a successful writing endeavor. So yeah… This will be a short one.

While Jess watches her friends move on with their lives being serious long distance relationships and buying houses (hence the title), she struggles with the realization that (spoiler alert) she is not over roommate Nick. Nick has been away in New Orleans with his girlfriend Reagan (played by Megan Fox and I was weirdly impressed). When he shows up at home a month early, he’s excited to tell Jess something. Feeling far too awkward for excited attitude she flees. This is then followed by the usual sitcom shenanigans.

By the end of the episode, Jess decides she can avoid Nick forever when he reveals that he was writing 200 pages a day “by hand” in New Orleans (then the wind blew the pages away so he started over on a computer). And so Nick finally finished his first legitimate book in season 6 of the show.

The point I want to make in this episode and why I’m including it in this blog can be broken into 2 ideas. First that Nick was inspired by the change in scenery to finally finish something he started several seasons earlier. This is sometimes true for a specific book or even some writers. The other is - his pages blew away and HE STARTED OVER. That’s always the woooooorrrrrrrrsssssssstttttttt. It makes you feel like giving up and wanting to blow something up at the same time. Something big. That would would make a loud bang. But the show pointed out how he started again and learned that maybe he should back up files on a computer (but I don’t trust computers so I generally also back them up on a usb drive and send them in an email to friends…but that’s just me).

The Man Who Invented Christmas - Movies About Writing

Time for some more Dickens! Most of my friends know how I adore Dickens as a writer (but am conflicted with a few of his actions as a person like how he treated his wife). But this film a micro-biography. A look at an isolated time of his life long before all of that. I’m talking about when he wrote A Christmas Carol, a book I love so much I can recite it. Do you want to hear the open paragraphs about “dead as a doornail”? No. Oh. Okay. Then I guess I’ll just keep typing then.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is about the few weeks in which Dickens (played by Dan Stevens) worked to write, lasting holiday story in the midst of bankruptcy and dealing with his irresponsible father (played by Jonathan Pryce) who wants to be a part of his family life once again.

Before I get too far into the this blog, I do want to point out the only inaccurate historical detail in the film that drove me absolutely insane. John Dickens, Charles’s father, buys the family a pet raven as a sign of goodwill and holiday cheer, in the winter of 1843 when he’s writing A Christmas Carol. Here’s my issue with it. The real Dickens family had their pet raven years before that. Grip, the beloved pet raven, is featured heavily in Dickens’s 1841 novel Barnaby Rudge (which, yes, I’ve red. I’m that much of a fangirl plus I REALLY love ravens). Grip died that same year and Dickens replaced him with Grip II and eventually Grip III. These second and third ravens were not nearly as clever and fun as the original Grip and the children didn’t care much for them, but Dickens himself felt that ravens made the best pets and wanted to set an example. This had nothing to do with his father. Even so, I wish the movie had made a reference to the original Grip. the beloved raven that Dickens made a central character in one of his books (granted one of his hardest to get-through books but . . .)

Off my historian soapbox I get. Back to the film. There is so much I could say about this one involving the writing process and the life of an author. There’s Dickens facing ruin after his last two books didn’t sell well. There’s his weariness at facing the criticism of other writers like William Makepeace Thackeray (you know, the guy that wrote Vanity Fair). There is the way Dickens observes and takes notes on names and events around him in search of inspiration. The idea of deadlines keeping an author on task. And of course there are the little distractions in the midst of writer’s block like playing the concertina accordion. I think I need an accordion. But let us get down to writing A Christmas Carol itself and how it’s portrayed in the film.

The movie jumps between the reality of Dickens writing, the flashbacks of his troubled childhood, and his imaginary interactions with Scrooge the character. He draws upon the men he meets at his charity lectures and on the streets of London to develop the old miser, using direct quotes he hears from a “self-made” businessman who believes the poor would be better off dead. He is equally inspired by the supernatural Irish tales he overhears a maid telling his children.

When his publishers doubt that they could print such a book in time for Christmas, what is considered a minor holiday in Britain at this time, Dickens declares that he will self-publish. This is totally true. Dickens really did believe that Christmas should encourage charity and giving and he wanted this new book to inspired people in time for that holiday. Therefore, he printed it at his own expense (which he didn’t even do in a cheap way when he insisted that his book be a hardcover with a gilt title). By the way, Dickens aficionado Simon Callow (see the Unquiet Dead blog) has a cameo as the book designer Leech. Charles’s friend John Forster (played by Justin Edwards) advises him against his, but still goes along with the idea. Historian note: Forster was well-known in his own right as a newspaper literary critic. I don’t think he was Dickens’s business manager like the movie shows, but they were close friends and he owned several original manuscripts that Dickens gave to him.

The best parts of the film are when Dickens interacts with a Christopher Plummer Scrooge and the other characters of his novella portrayed by the people who inspired them. This includes how Tiny Tim came from the illness of his nephew Henry Burnett Jr. (the son of his older sister and a popular singer, Fanny, a name also used in A Christmas Carol for Scrooge’s kind sister). Sadly, in reality both Fanny and Henry Jr. would die in 1848 so their being included in the movie feels rather bittersweet.

Most authors do have a way of speaking to their characters or at least being forced to listen to them. However, I’ve yet to have Christopher Plummer show up in my office. Maybe I’m doing something wrong.

Image belongs to Parallel Films and Rhombus Media. Dan Stevens and Christopher Plummer as Dickens and Scrooge respectively

Christmas in Connecticut: Movies about Writing

I know this might seem like a strange choice, but I love this movie and it is technically about a writer. Now, please keep in mind I am talking about the 1945 feel-good-while-there’s-a-war-going-on picture NOT the remake that Arnold Schwarzenegger directed.

This is about a woman name Elizabeth Lane, played by the amazing female icon Barbara Stanwyck. She is such an icon that I can spell her name correctly every time, where as every time I’ve typed “Connecticut” in this blog I’ve needed to double check it. Lane writes a wildly popular home and cooking article for a magazine all about her quaint Connecticut farm life with her husband and new baby. She gives detailed recipes that make cooking sound romantic and fun.

The problem is Elizabeth Lane ACTUALLY lives in an urban apartment, dresses in the latest fashions, does not keep house, does not have a husband or baby, and can’t cook. All of her recipes comes from her Uncle Felix (S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall) who owns/runs a top-rated restaurant. Quick soap box side note: The movie is from 1945 so of course all of the main characters are white. However, something I noticed as an adult is how the director inserted a little scene of Felix, a Hungarian man who struggles with English at times, goes to his waiter Sam (played by Emmett Smith, an African American actor who spent most of his career playing train porters and jungle tribesmen) for definitions of words he doesn’t understand. Sam gives him an exact definition and origins of the word and I can’t help feeling like this was a little bit of a screw you to the racist standards of the time. Okay, tangent done! Back to the story.

Lane is forced by her publisher (Sydney Greenstreet) to invite himself and a soldier, named in the tradition of WWII propaganda homespun Americana, Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan) , to her house for Christmas. Feeling like her job and the job of her editor are at stake, Elizabeth finally accepts the marriage proposal of wealthy architect friend, John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner) who REALLY DOES have a farm in Connecticut. And then the usual comedic foibles take place complete with mixed-up borrowed babies, pancakes on the ceiling, and jokes about a cow’s rump. Through all of this, Elizabeth is falling in love with the soldier, but wants her publisher to think she’s married to Sloan (who keeps trying to sneak a judge into the house so they can be legally married before Christmas).

Images belong to Warner Bros.

As writers go, one thing that stands out to me in this is how all of Elizabeth’s fans remember what she wrote in her column better than she does. She writes for a serialized publication and includes details that even she can’t keep track of for her made-up life. I love this as a writing detail, because first is shows an example of fandom and second it show how writer sometimes can’t remember what they wrote.

There is also how she writes about cooking using her uncle’s recipes. She says that someday she’ll learn to cook and Felix tells her that she won’t like it. He points out that she will discover that it’s not the same as how she writes about it and better to stick with cooking on the typewriter. As far as stereotypes of 40s women go, this is important. She is a writer, not a domestic person, and Felix knows this. He doesn’t try to change her or push her to be the good little woman. He knows that’s she should just keep writing, because real cooking would not make her happy. I associate with this because every time I have to cook anything that takes longer than 20 minutes, I think “I could be using this time for writing. Ug. If only I didn’t need to eat to live. What a waste.”

Barbara Stanwyck at her typewriter

Doctor Who (Unquiet Dead): Movies about Writing

What? A Doctor Who episode about Charles Dickens! Okay, twist my arm.

For those you are clearly not friends with me, Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction show about a time traveling alien who can regenerate and collects companions for the many adventures. Oh. I just made it sound creepy. Well. . . it is British therefore the budget on some of the special effects are creepy in their cheapness.

“The Unquiet Dead” is an early episode from show’s revival the mid-2000s. The Doctor (played for a single season by Christopher Eccelston, remember him) and his new companion Rose (Billie Piper before I found she had been a pop star) arrive in Victorian England during the holiday season in time to see Charles Dickens do a reading of his classic A Christmas Carol. Dickens is played by Simon Callow, a Dickens aficionado who has played the role before on the lives stage.

Dickens, by the way, really did travel the country doing live readings throughout his life. He loved the theater and believed that drama helped sell his books. However, this particular reading is interrupted by the figure of a blue-face old woman who is revealed to be a walking corpse.

As this is Doctor Who, the dead woman is not a zombie, but a body inhabited by a gaseous alien in search of a host. The alien race has taken residence in the gas lamps of a funeral parlor, the owner and maid of which are at a complete loss as to how to cover up the incident. The maid, played by Eve Myles (which is a another Doctor Who tangent I could go off on), has a connection to the aliens (the Gelth) through her sixth sense abilities.

Dickens insists on helping with the mystery, at first declaring it all illusion. Dear old Boz may have written about ghosts, but didn’t really believe in them. He questions whether his lifetime of work was truly the change he wanted it to be if the world was so much bigger. He tries to stick to his sense of reality as he points out his objections to spiritualists of the era. Authors and celebrities were often against the popular mediums of the day using tricks to make people believe they could speak to the dead. These performers were seen by many as taking advantage of the grieving.

The episode focuses a lot on the connection between the maid and the Gelth. Still, the writers made sure to repeatedly show the intelligence of Charles Dickens. Once he does accept the reality of the Gelth, he understands the concept of beings from another world pretty quickly. The Doctor repeatedly praises Dickens’s brilliance, but he does take a moment to criticize the “America” scene from Martin Chuzzlewit (which really is fair - Dickens writes about 1800s USA as if it’s a third world country). Dickens takes offense to the single criticism which is less than fair.

Instead of going into more and spoiling the whole episode, one last note on Charles Dickens depicted in this television show. The show does like so many time traveling shows do and expression Dickens’s desire to use the adventure as inspiration for his latest novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. But the most significant is the quote when thinking like a writer in the below image.

Christmas Getway: Movies about Writing

This is not meant to insult anyone, but Hallmark Christmas movies are not my cup of tea. Sure, they were a cute, guilty pleasure to watch with the moms when this trend first stared WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL. But it’s now been twenty years of the same formula being released under twenty-five different titles each year. I get that they are mindless, non-anxiety causing entertainment, but come on! No one needs hundreds of these things. Calm the hell down, Hallmark! Also, when are they going to start incorporating some other December holidays like Kwanzaa and Hanukkah? Where’s “Have a little Imani in Me” or “The Man who came with Dreidel ”? I want one completely based around Yule where the characters fall in love while burning crap and dancing naked in the snow! But no. That’s not Hallmark’s demographic. I’m not Hallmark’s demographic. So… this will probably be painful.

I was already off to a great start when I was only two and a half minutes in when my boyfriend heard the music and dialogue from another room and accusingly shouted, “Are you watching a Hallmark movie?”

I picked Christmas Getaway because it’s about a travel writer (a subject I haven’t explored in this blog yet) and it stars Bridget Regan who I remembered from “Legend of the Seeker”. The plot involves her going to write about an old fashioned American Christmas in a town called Pine Cove. Pine Cove appears to be a mountain town where affluent white people in perfectly fitted winter coats. At the same time, a widower/divorcee (maybe I should have been paying more attention) played by someone named Travis van Winkle has come to Pine Cove in order to give his daughter and mother a special Christmas. I know these characters must have names, but I haven’t learned any except that the single father is Dad.

The movie got an ominous feel when the little girl goes to play outside and her dad calls out that he loves her. He says it like it’s a goodbye! Is she coming back? Don’t go out that door, little girl! Your father has clearly set up rabbit snares to get out of the way! And then he will have all of the Christmas cheer to himself (insert evil laugh). Oh wait, the kid survives.

And then, oh no, the two main characters have been accidentally booked into the same cabin and there are no other places available! Who could have possibly seen that coming? Anyone who saw any other Hallmark movie. That’s who.

The writer tries to start on a book she’s been playing with about her travel experiences and all of the world traditions she’s experienced, however she is distracted by the warm glow of family bonding created by the father and daughter. She decides to use them as the central point of her “old fashioned Christmas” article. They go to cut down their own tree at a farm that let’s people do that. . . without signing a waiver first.

This followed by ice skating, decorating, cookies, making snowmen, gingerbread house building, and other montage worthy events set to generic holiday music. Like one song would stop, then another would instantly began. I started to have retail PTSD. The idea of all this happy memory making is that the writer has worked every Christmas on assignment (which she technically still is so. . . what was the point again?). I guess that she’s with people? But honestly, I’d imagine a travel writer who knows so many traditions from other countries probably got invited to a few strangers’ holidays before that. I seriously can’t imagine that she was in a place like Italy at Christmas and didn’t get awkwardly invited to someone’s house for dinner.

The travel writer’s boss/best friend says that the writer and the single dad clearly have a thing because “you can’t fake chemistry”. This quote made me laugh out loud as it feels like what the director of every one of these movies has to scream at the actors on set.

Eventually all of this jaunty public domain music and holiday sap inspire the travel writer to. . . you know . . . write. Personally, if I had a paid vacation to a cabin the woods with hot chocolate I might get some writing done too. That is, if my allergies don’t try to kill me like the last time I tried writing in a cabin in the woods. I think I did more dreaming about writing in my antihistamine haze, but we saw a bear!

Okay, back to the movie. The writer expresses how shThers feeling inspired to finish the book by settling in one place for a while. Of course, she tells this to the eligible single father before they (gasp) nearly kiss. Side note:They still haven’t kissed! There’s 30 minutes left of this thing? uggggg, but my squirrel instincts want to look at interesting shinies. Bored!

Therefore, let’s wrap this up. Guy loses girl through misunderstanding. Girl decides to get guy anyway through magic of Christmas. I think a car had the safest spin out on an icy road EVER. Blah blah blah. Back to the writing stuff. Turns out the trip was a ploy by the main character’s boss/best friend so she could take a break and get some emotion back into her writing. That was nice, but the rest of unbelievably sap-tastic and I’m going to go throw up now. It will be festive. I promise.

Knives Out: Movies about Writing

This one is a going to have spoilers - so you’ve been warned.

I love this movie so this will be written with bias. Knives Out is what happens when a bestselling mystery writer kills himself and leave everything to his kind nurse instead of the spoiled members of his family. I can’t do this film justice in a blog, so I won’t go into intense detail, but here’s the background. Christopher Plummer plays Harlan Thrombey, a self-made millionaire with his own publishing company and house of fabulous oddities based on his many novels. His family is made up of a whose who of great actors (including Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, and Chris Evans) in a traditional Agatha Christie style.

This comes with their own quirky private detective Blanc (Daniel Craig takes this role and runs with it in a fantastic way) working with the exhausted police investigators (one of whom is notably played by LaKeith Stanfield). At the center of all of this is Marta, the quiet, young caregiver played by Ana de Armas. Also, Frank Oz has a cameo as the lawyer at the will reading. Side note: I just imagine this moment on the set of Star Wars the Last Jedi where Rian Johnson fanboyed over Frank Oz and slyly asked if he wasted to play the snarky attorney. If this is not how the casting occurred, I don’t want to know. Let me have my geek dream.

This movie is Rian Johnson’s love letter to Poirot, Colombo, Jessica Fletcher, and the film Clue. So, he includes so many of the tropes needed, while mixing in it a unique story of socioeconomic status.

Let’s look at the author/victim of the mystery first. Harlan Thrombey fills his house with a mix of oddities and objects from his novels. He raised his family in this attempt to make his own life more interesting as his daughter talks about his love of games and how he regrets giving them all too many handouts that they don’t seem to appreciate. For example, when he finds out that his son-in-law is having an affair, instead of coming out directly with the information, he writes in a secret message to his daughter that he promises to deliver if the husband does not come clean.

Therefore, when Marta thinks she’s accidentally poisoned Harlan with morphine, he is determined to save her in a way that is full of all the complications of a mystery novel, after he considers how this form of murder would work well in a novel. He refuses to allow her to call the police as her mother is undocumented. Instead, he tells her to leave the house so everyone sees her, sneak back in, pretend to be Harlan so everyone thinks he was still alive after she left, and then sneak back out. All of this while he has slit his own throat to make his death appear as a suicide. This, by the way, is not the actual twist of the film. All of that is revealed in the first 30 minutes.

Going back to the idea of a successful mystery writer being the center of a murder mystery. I’ve mentioned the house and property full of wonderful eccentric relics. This is meant to mirror his personality and the themes of his novels. The reason why I point this out is because it is the beloved goal of every writer or artist to be able to afford a house big enough to fill with all of the weird items of our dream lives. Mine would have a secret bookcase door, a cast iron spiral staircase, and a giant mural of either a Gustav Dore’ picture or a N.Y. Wyeth illustration.

None of this has to do with the plot of the movie (well, it does, but you need to watch the movie to find out how). I’m just saying - I want Harlan Thrombey’s house.

New Girl (Pepperwood): Movies about Writing

Time to continue the sage of Nick Miller’s writing career on “New Girl”. If you are wondering what I’m talking about, check out the previous blog New Girl (Eggs).

In this episode, Jess is feeling triumphant when one of the adult students in her fiction writing class finally comes up with some decent (albeit repetitive) imagery. At first Nick scoffs at this saying, real writers don’t need classes or need to read (which is why he has yet to write anything decent). He also calls the story “amateur hour” due to the simplistic font. This made me laugh and took me back to the simpler time. When I was twelve and trying my first hand at writing a novel, I stuck mainly to Time New Roman, but there were so many pretty fonts to be used in-between. Comic Sans, Papyrus, Baskerville, and Chiler all must have looked like they were trying to gang up on the reader and shout “Boo” with the way these random fonts appeared. Sigh.

Nick reads this student’s story and instantly feels concern when he realizes that the violent description of the main character stalking then killing a large-eyed deer is talking about Jess. She rights this off as him being dumb so Nick does the Nick-thing and comes to her class. He announces himself as “Julius Pepperwood, ex-cop, ex-marine, from Chicago”.

Before going on I should point out that this episode isn’t so much about the writing process as it is about finding inspiration for writing. As usual, spoilers ahead.

Property of Fox

After Nick makes a murder board of drawings the student has of a large eyed deer covered in blood, Jess gets upset that he’s going ruin the only relationship with a student she currently has. The pair go to the home of this student using less-than-stealthy techniques. They are instantly freaked out by the man’s mysterious locked shed and large duffel bag. Of course, this leads to hilarious misunderstandings, discovering that the student is actually working on a graphic novel and Jess had the look he needs for the victim character.

At the end, Nick actually starts writing a new novel based on their investigative teamwork - about Julius Pepperwood, zombie detective and his partner Jessica Night. This is going to be the basis of the rest of Nick’s work throughout the show and lead him to a successful writing career (hey, it’s a TV show and it could happen).

The common theme between both the writing student and Nick is the idea of taking inspiration from life, then learning when it’s TOO CLOSE TO LIFE. Nick even states that the character of Jessica Night is a “work in progress” suggesting he’ll make her less like his real-life friend as he goes (he doesn’t, but the point is the inspiration).

Some writers love taking directly from life. Some like taking directly from experience. And some like amalgams, drawing inspiration from various people and experiences to help create something original. Even in a zombie detective novel, real life experience or observation needs to be drawn upon to make a good story.

Of course, as Nick points out, Zombies don’t really need detectives since they are already dead. Work in progress.

Auntie Mame: Movies about Writing

Auntie Mame is one of my favorite films of all time so this blog was probably just an excuse to watch it again. This 1958 film isn’t entirely about being a writer, but the subject does take up the entire third act of the plot. Auntie Mame the movie is based on a book by Patrick Dennis and then a popular play. The stories are mostly fictional, but he wanted to make them sound true so he used the character’s name as a pen name (the author’s real name was Edward Everett Tanner III and Auntie Mame was loosely based on an actual aunt he had). Just to show how this was a runaway hit, the book was written in 1955 and by 1958 they already had a major motion picture.

First, the main story: Patrick Dennis (played by Jan Handzlik, then Roger Smith as older Patrick) is sent to live with his Bohemian Auntie Mame (Rosalind Russell the fabulous) after his uptight alcoholic father dies. The nine year old is exposed to new words, bootleggers, fancy parties, New York actors, Asian culture, modern art and philosophy, how to make a good martini, and other ideals considered eccentric in the late 1920s. However, despite it being an odd environment for a child, his aunt adores him, lavishing attention and time on the youngster.

This surprises all of Mame’s friends who have never seen her ever-changing interests so focused with so much love. That is, until her deceased brother’s lawyer demands Patrick be sent to boarding school. Mame is forced to agree and cannot fight against the lawyer when the stock market crashes. In the midst of the Great Depression, the fun-loving Mame gets a job and from there more antics ensue. I’m not going to give away the whole middle part of the story, so let’s just skip to the part where she become a writer.

Because this is the last part of the film, there will be some SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

After the accidental death of her husband, an oil tycoon with a heart of gold (one way you know this is fiction), college-aged Patrick wants to keep Mame distracted with a new project. With the help of family friends Lindsay (a publisher played by Patric Knowles) and Vera (an actress played by Coral Browne) they set-up Mame with a Dictaphone, typewriter, and personal secretary, the frumpy and naive Agnes Gooch (Peggy Cass). Agnes is at first at a loss to be thrust into the eccentricities of the Mame Dennis life, begrudgingly calling herself the “sponge”, but eventually grows envious of all the excitement she has never experienced herself. Lindsay declares the book will be a bestseller, however Vera is an immediate skeptic, pointing out that Mama has “never finished a postcard” so how could she finish her own autobiography.

This brings up my first “writer observation” in this film. Patrick wants his aunt distracted from her loss (and probably a bit from his social life) therefore he sets up everything he thinks she will need from the get-go, including hired help to keep her on-task. Personally, I would feel weird having a woman following me around, writing down my every word, but maybe it’s different for rich people. Either way, he tries to keep her excited for her new project and not make it seem like a chore to just keep her from being a mourning widow. There is also the check-ins from Lindsay to keep Mame on track. I love writing check-ins, the guilt of when I haven’t met my goals makes me work harder.

Joining Mame and Ages is a collaborator, which is really a fancy word for in-house editor in this case. Enter poet Brian O'Bannion (Robin Hughes), an attractive Bohemian in his own right. O’Bannion’s pretentious style of creativity is really more of an excuse for him to hang around Mame’s apartment drinking her fancy alcohol and eating her fine food (among other activities hinted at, but not stated out-right; must keep to the Hays Code you know).

O’Bannion is THAT GUY - all creative circles have one. Fellow artists, you know what I’m talking about. THAT GUY is the one who says things like “court the muse” with complete seriousness. THAT GUY is one who finds any writing style not his own to be “drab”. THAT GUY who criticizes anyone who uses a specific style of notebook or band of pen. Even as a child watching this movie, I did not like Brian O’Bannion. As an adult, I can only tolerate this real-like counterparts in short doses.

Eventually, Mame also gets tired of O’Bannion, realizing that he isn’t doing much to help her work and pouts when he doesn’t get his way. I never really understood the idea of having hired him since Mame’s character is well-read and cultured. They could have had one of Lindsay’s editors looked over the book with her. This is what they probably ended up doing after Brian disappears following a night on the town with a drunk Agnes - a plot line which is better for you to see in the movie than have me relate to you.

The final observation I want to make on the process of Mame writing her book is how proud everyone is when it is finally published. When Lindsay show up with the first copy, Mame announces, “Look everyone! I’m in print just like Edna Ferber!” This is a good joke on being excited about publication as Ferber was a famous screenwriter, member of the Algonquin Round Table humor group, and a PULITZER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR. Sometimes just being published makes you feel like an instant success.

Image belongs to Warner Bros. Here’s Mame (Rosalind Russell), Agnes (Peggy Cass), and Brian (Robin Hughes) in the writing process.

The Muppets (Bear Left then Bear Write): Movies about Writing

Anyone who knows me is well aware of my adoration for this group of cloth characters and their brand of humor. It only stands that I would have one of these blogs using one of their many enterprises. Sadly, this is from one of the shorter live Muppet shows (which you can blame the Mouse for the per-emptive cancellation - I really don’t get why Disney bought the Muppets when they don’t use them for anything good).

For those who missed this one: “The Muppets" was a late night, mockumentary sitcom about a late night talk show hosted by Miss Piggy and produced by her ex-boyfriend Kermit the Frog, think of it as “30 Rock” meets “The Office”. The other Muppets plays supporting roles as the shows writers and staff (save for Statler and Waldorf who sit every night in the audience making fun of the show for some traditions must be upheld). This concept also gave them the opportunity to easily insert human guest stars such as Elizabeth Banks, Dave Grohl, Mindy Kahling, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, and Joseph Gordan Levitt. The plots were mostly satirical humor, but the relationship between Kermit and Piggy actually was used for a small amount of drama that somehow worked in the format. But greatest of all was the use of Uncle Deadly as Piggy’s wardrobe manager and shoulder to “hi-ya” to.

Quick side note: Uncle Deadly, who those who don’t know, was a character created for the Vincent Price episode of the original “Muppet Show”. He was meant to be suave and creepy. Re-imagining him as a fashion guru was possibly the best idea the writers of this show had because the further you get into the episodes, the more amazing his lines are. To this day, the Uncle Deadly twitter account gives biting fashion advise and lets claws out.

Image property of Disney - Uncle Deadly with Gloria Estefan the penguin

This episode focuses mostly on Kermit and Fozzie Bear. Fozzie’s job on the show is to warm up the audience with jokes, then announce Piggy’s entrance, but he wants to be a part of the writing staff (which is led by Gonzo, Pepe, and Rizzo). Kermit spends the first first minutes of the episode avoiding Fozzie because the bear has written a skit so bad, he doesn’t even know how to spin it a form of constructive criticism. Most of all, he’s worried Fozzie will want the stinker script performed on the show. In hopes of sparing his friend’s feelings, Kermit lies saying that Fozzie should take time to flesh out the skit into a movie script because he thinks would make a better motion picture.

Fozzie, out of trust and love of his friend, takes this advice literally and quits the show to work on a movie full time. Kermit reveals the truth in hopes of getting Fozzie to take his job back, but this also backfires. Fozzie becomes determined to prove Kermit wrong and that he can write a fantastic film by going into the woods with no supplies. His logic is that bears should be inspired by the great outdoors.

Interestingly, while all of this is going on the actual writers on the show are having a conversation about whether the President lives in the White House or the Wide House, to which Gonzo responds that if they’re having this talk, maybe they shouldn’t be writing political humor. A write what you know joke! You don’t hear those too often.

SPOILERS ALERT: In the end, Kermit tells Fozzie they will put the skit on the air, pointing out that they can edit and work on it together to make it camera ready (and not stink). This is what Kermit should have done in the first place. Constructive criticism people! Never just tell a writer that something sucks. These are artist. Artistic personality can be broken very easily. There have been times I’ve thought of wandering into the woods and stealing campers food in justification of my own work that other have told me was bad. Okay, not quite that, but I might try it next time. You can just outright reject something, especially a first draft. There is always something good within a piece of writing that could be worked on.

And now - back to watching the Muppets.

Image property of the “Mouse”. Here’s Fozzie and Kermit discussing the script at Rowlf’s bar

The Shining: Movies about Writing

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir: Movies about Writing

Time for a movie about creative collaboration! Except that this one is about a writing project between a recently deceased sea captain and a Edwardian widow.

First, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a part of a film education by my mom from a young age. I highly recommend it if you like character studies and unusual ideas of love. Gene Tierney plays Lucy Muir, a woman who feels suffocated by the family of her late husband. In a bid for independence, she uses money from a mine her husband invested in and moves into a seaside cottage with her maid and daughter (played by Edna Best and Natalie Wood respectively). Before even renting the house, Mrs. Muir discovers that it’s haunted by the previous owner, Captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison), who has made it his afterlife’s mission to scare people away from his home. He’s bitter that his accidental death by gas was ruled as a suicide and wants to keep his swarthy, uncouth ways even with women in the house (there’s a lot of argument about the language he uses).

Instead of being frightened, Lucy finds her new living arrangements fascinating and calls out the ghost in an attempt to reason with him. Captain Gregg is equally fascinated by her quick responses and the demands she makes of him - a spirit. Their shared love of the house also allows them to start understanding each other, although Lucy still demands that the Captain not allow himself to be seen by her daughter Anna (by the end of the movie you find out that he broke that promise constantly in order to tell Anna marine-time stories at bedtime).

Before I go on with this and get to the part of the movie about books, writing, and publishing, I want to point out something strange to me. Several years ago a company reprinted the book by R.A. Dick which was the basis for the film. Naturally, I read it. And I did not like it! This very rarely happens that the movie was better but- Holy crap! THE MOVIE WAS BETTER! In the movie, Lucy craves independence and could survive on her own and the captain fosters that within her. At the same time, she very logical about her life. She loves her daughter and mourns her husband who was a good man, although she never really loved him, and wants her life to be on her own terms even with a ghost in the house. The book had this as a main idea at first, but as it kept going, she was constantly fighting with her son (a character left out of the film), almost abandons her life for a man she barely knows, and goes back to being passive about most decisions she makes. I did not like Lucy in the book, where as in the movie she was someone I admired as little girl. The movie was better. So there.

Back to the plot! Lucy finds out that her investment is no longer paying out and is likely the lose the house. Captain Gregg, deciding he wants her to stay, declares that they will write a book together based on his life experiences. His confident that his time at sea was sensational enough to become a bestseller and supplement Lucy’s income.

Their collaboration on the book is what I want to discuss first. It involves a great deal of the captain dictating while Lucy (whom he calls Lucia) types and gives criticism. This involves her having to use language she disapproves of (a mysterious 4 letter word that she declares conveys a meaning that she has never had to use a word for). Each time he gives an action, she will ask him questions, beta reading as they go.

Most collaborations involve both parties creating, but since she is essentially the ghost writer for the ghost Lucy is in the role of editor. Her comments and questions help keep him on track and make the story of his “unvarnished life” clear to a reader who has never met him (and never will since he’s dead and all). He tells her to “change the grammar all you please, but leave the guts”.

Writing and editing as you go is hard, but it’s but easier when there is another person in the room. The only problem with this is that when it’s time to argue about plot or sentence structure you are right there in it. You can’t take some breathing room. The difference her is that two fictional characters are falling in love as they write a book together and learning about each other. Most people who agree to collaborate on something already know one another and have an idea of each person’s styles and preferences. And even then collaborators argue. The movie make this whole process seem so nice and full of friendly banter. It’s the only “creation” they can have together and therefore the writing process is romantic endeavor. I have never found the writing process particularly romantic. More hair pulling. But, hey Hollywood. You do you.

Lucy takes the book to a publisher who refuses to see her, believing she has written a cookbook or something equally “feminine”. Enter the rake! George Sanders shows up as a children’s book author named Miles Fairley. He helps her get in the door as a way to flirt. Of course, when the publisher at last reads the manuscript Blood and Swash, he is instantly taken with it and reads it all in one sitting (because that’s realistic). He still doesn’t believe she wrote the book and Mrs. Muir doesn’t correct him and they credit it to the pseudonym Captain X.

This idea that women or people of specific backgrounds only write one genre is still around today. Most people expect a book written by a woman to be romantic which is why so many fantasy and science fiction writers use pen names that are male or simply made up initials.

Even Mrs. Muir thinks she must have dreamed the book when she questions her own sanity about the captain’s ghost. For how could a good Edwardian lady ever write anything so scandalous!