Forgotten Book Friday: A CIVIL CONTRACT, LADY OF QUALITY and THE CONVENIENT MARRIAGE by Georgette Heyer

I doubt those of us who love Heyer would have forgotten her books, but it is hard to remember all the individual titles since she was a very prolific writer. Heyer not only wrote Regency romances, but 18th century ones (the era of powdered wigs) as well and also some rather good mysteries. (If you're not into romances, then for goodness' sake read the Heyer 'contemporary' mysteries, they're wonderful and are readily available in re-issues.)

The main thing I love about Georgette Heyer's historical romances (besides the topnotch characterizations and intriguing plots) are the good manners. These British societies of the past thrived on societal strictures (okay, occasionally inane strictures to be sure), but I'm convinced it was the insistence on good manners that helped keep everyone in line.

I'm of the opinion that there's nothing like a well-written romance novel to fix whatever ails you. The Regency romance was invented for the doldrums of winter. When you've read one too many mysteries and need a change of pace from murder most foul, the Regency is a perfect alternative. (Although there are occasionally some fancy dressed fops up to no good in these books, if anything as sordid as murder occurs, it's off the page and usually far, far away.)

A CIVIL CONTRACT (1961) is, for all intents and purposes, one of the best (if not the best) marriage of convenience stories ever written (I think I know whereof I speak since I've read a million of 'em). In this book I recognized many plot contrivances and twists of romantic fate that other writers would go on to 'borrow' for their own 'm.o.c.' plots over the years.

While Harlequin and Signet and the rest of 'em were/are publishing Regencies and other historical romances on a monthly basis - books I unashamedly gobbled up then and occasionally now - the authors, I realize, had lots to thank Georgette Heyer for. It was Heyer who set up the formula for these stories, a formula which even now is followed pretty rigidly. (Well, it was probably Jane Austen who perfected the original formulation, but you know what I mean.) Never mess with perfection.

Why? Because the reader expects certain things to happen in these sorts of books and hell has no fury like a thwarted romance reader.

A CIVIL CONTRACT is not strictly a 'romance' as we typically think of them. There's more here than may, at first glance, meet the eye - keen social observation for one thing: the occasionally unpalatable mix of marriage, social standing and the harsh realities of economics. Money is at the heart of the story of Miss Jenny Chawleigh - daughter of a very wealthy 'Cit' who, at the urging of her ambitious father, marries the financially strapped Viscount Lynton thereby saving his family home and lands. Though the 'm.o.c' motif is one which usually leads to romantic entanglements between the two main characters who remain unaware of said 'entanglement' until the happy ending - in this case, Georgette Heyer has given her likable characters a more realistic 'happy enough' ending.

Captain Adam Deveril, honorable officer and gentleman, one of the Duke of Wellington's men, must leave the field of battle when his father, the Viscount, is killed in an accident. Deveril inherits the family title and thus, since he is the only son, cannot risk being killed himself even if the battle to oust Napoleon is still on-going.

Unfortunately for Deveril, his feckless father was a wastrel who gambled away the family fortunes. Without money Deverill will be forced to sell off everything he owns, including the much beloved family home. Not only that but he is now unable to offer for the beautiful woman of his dreams since she, not to put too fine a point on it, must marry money as well though her family is in less straitened circumstances than Deveril's.

Enter Jonathan Chawleigh, one of Georgette Heyer's more vividly inspired and likable creations - an enormously rich but vulgar 'working man' with multiple dealings in the City and a rather plain daughter whom he wishes to see advance in society. Chawleigh, having hoped for an Earl, settles for a Viscount.

The daughter turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to Adam Deveril, though it takes him a long while to realize this. And while she may not be the love of his life, it turns out that the 'love of his life' was not especially suited to the life Adam would have wished to live. After all, a man must be comfortable to be happy. Very wise of Heyer to note this.

I have two other Heyers to recommend, books I've just finished reading during my own personal Georgette Heyer Mini-Read-A-Thon:

THE CONVENIENT MARRIAGE (1968) is set in the years before the Regency when men were wearing heels, jeweled frock coats and both sexes wore white wigs piled high and Marie Antoinette was still Queen in France - the grumbling of the 'lower classes' still fairly subdued.

Horatia Winwood, a daring seventeen year old chit of a girl devises a plan to save her older sister from a forced marriage to the Earl of Rule. The plan works better than the impulsive girl had hoped and therein lies the tale. Lots of fun, good manners, a duel, a kidnapping and a terrific love story.

A LADY OF QUALITY (1972) Set in the city of Bath, in the last days of the Regency, this is the story of twenty nine year old Annis Wychwood, beautiful, rich, outspoken and independent. Having refused all offers of marriage (she values her independence too highly), she is quite content to remain 'on the shelf' in charge of her own life.

But fate has other plans. Due to a series of haphazard circumstances, Annis is put temporarily in charge of a naive young girl on the run from her suffocating family and eager to sample the delights of society. The girl comes complete with a forbidding guardian (don't they always?) who is rumored to be the 'rudest man in Bath.'

Though, admittedly, both main characters are not as likable as many of Heyer's other inventions, it is still fun to read about their trials and tribulations - you know how it goes with the path of true love. As is usual with Heyer, the vibrant secondary characters almost steal the show.

Since we're expecting snow over the weekend, it will be a perfect time for me to settle in with a bunch of Georgette Heyers, cups of tea and some serious snacking.

Care to join me?

Also, don't forget to check in at Todd Mason's blog, Sweet Freedom to see what other Forgotten or Overlooked Books other bloggers are talking about today. Todd is doing the hosting duties for Patti Abbott this week.

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Background: 'The Gossips' by Norman Rockwell

While searching for something else, I found this wonderful post on Rompedas, an art blog I'd never heard of before. (Isn't that always the way?) So I bookmarked the blog. But I was so taken (and intrigued) by one of the posts that I decided to share it with you with due credit given. Please use the link to read in detail about this wonderful piece of work by one of our greatest illustrators.

The Gossips cover was the most popular Rockwell Post cover in thirty-three years and sold the most magazines in five years. Rockwell had the idea for it twenty years earlier but he couldn’t quite get the ending until he thought to have the subject of the gossips (posed for by Rockwell) hear the story about himself at the end of the circle. Thousands of letters were sent to the Post asking what the gossip was they were passing along. An answer was never given. In an interview in December of 1948, Rockwell remembered that the woman who posed for the first lady in the picture, the one who had started the gossip, was still a little peeved at him. Not all of his subjects were critical. One model told a reporter, “It’s more fun posing for him than going to the movies. Norman keeps you in stitches with his funny stories.”

(NORMAN ROCKWELL MUSEUM at nrm.org) 

The original sketch by Rockwell for the cover.

The photo lay-out with models in position.

The final painting.

Norman Rockwell himself.

Again, Norman Rockwell.

Some of the reference photos used by Rockwell.

What a delight to be able see behind-the-scenes of one of Norman Rockwell's most famous and most beloved works of art. It was lucky for Rockwell that he apparently had an endless supply of colorful friends and neighbors to pose for his many commissions. Isn't it interesting how so many of these accommodating people had that 'typical American mid-western' look to them? It's almost as if they came straight from 'Central Casting'. This is how the early part of the 20th century looks to us in memory. I wonder if a lot of that is due to the heavy influence of Rockwell's art.

See more and read more about Rockwell and his contemporaries, at this link to the

Norman Rockwell Museum 

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Tuesday's Overlooked (or Forgotten) Film: THE THIRTEENTH GUEST (1932) starring Ginger Rogers and Lyle Talbot

It's Overlooked (or Forgotten) Film day once again. Todd Mason, our genial host, will have all the links at his blog, Sweet Freedom, so don't forget to check in and see what other films, television or other audio/visuals, other bloggers will be talking about today. It's always an eclectic mix.

My entry is the 1932 mystery, THE THIRTEENTH GUEST, a film directed by Albert Ray and starring, of all people, Ginger Rogers.

Ginger looking befuddled and who could blame her?

This is one of those movies where the mysterious bad guy goes around dolled up in black from head to toe so we can't see who he is. The garbed killer spends most of the movie lurking in a secret room from whence he can watch what's going on in the deserted old house and oh yes, by the way, electrocute anyone who picks up a certain phone, while occasionally letting out a hideous screech just to let us all know he's supposed to be nutso. I love it.

Here's the situation: Thirteen years before the current story opens, a macabre dinner party was held in said old house belonging to the Morgan family. Thirteen settings were arranged around the table but the thirteenth guest never showed up. The head of the family (the father of girl who grew up to be Ginger Rogers, our plucky heroine) dropped dead as soon as he finished reading his proposed and rather strange will. The police soon determined though that the death was not murder but death by natural causes. Convenient - huh?

His wife is so stricken by the event that she seals up the house, leaves everything exactly the way it was - including the dinner table with chairs pulled up and settings still in place - and moves away. The house is left deserted by the family for thirteen years.

Ginger wondering, "Am I de trop?"

When Lela Morgan (Ginger Rogers) the heiress, turns 21 she receives a call from the family lawyer to go to the deserted house and meet him there. (She also has a letter from her dead father with a mysterious set of numbers.) And of course she goes at night when the house is most mysterious and spooky - I mean, wouldn't you?

Almost immediately thereafter there's a case of mistaken identity (not fairly revealed with observable clues but it's not that sort of story), and an unpleasant murder in which the body is found propped up at the dinner table.

The cops, of course, are flummoxed so what does the police chief do but call on his old friend, private detective Phil Winston (Lyle Talbot) for help. The smirking Winston works hand in glove with the cops (even giving orders and throwing his weight around) and they rely on his sleuthing smarts to solve the case - just like in real life.

When the family lawyer gets murdered and propped up at table as well, it's obvious that the killer is after the very same guests who were at the original dinner. Why? Well, that's never really explained even in the end. These sorts of movies never make much sense anyway, that isn't the reason I watch them. Murder with all the trimmings is to be expected, but if you also expect logic, then these are not the movies for you.

At any rate, I would have liked it if a couple more murders had occurred and showed up at the dinner table too, but you can't have everything.

My favorite scene - watch out Ginger!!

The cast is so/so except for Ginger who is always fun to watch. But I'm a fan of this sort of thing and I'm not all that picky, so I enjoyed myself and so will you if you're like me and don't expect too much except a darkly mysterious old house, a disguised killer, a group of assorted suspects, a will steeped in stupidity and murder most foul and illogical.

The movie is available to watch for free at youtube.

P.S. This story has been filmed a couple of times under slightly different titles, so don't be confused and misled. Hold out for Ginger Rogers.

P.S. PS. If you expect to find out who the thirteenth guest was or was not in the end - don't hold your breath. You get an answer but typically, it makes little sense.

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Martin Luther King Day

'The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.'

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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12 Seascapes I'd Love to Own

American painter Winslow Homer (1836 - 1910) 'Breezing Up'

British painter Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775 - 1851) 'Snowstorm' 1842

American painter Frederick Judd Waugh (1861 - 1940) 'At the Base of the Cliff' 1908

American painter/illustrator N.C. Wyeth (1882 - 1945) for 'The White Company' by Arthur Conan Doyle pub. 1922

Italian painter Pietro Fragiacomo (1856 - 1922) 'Nocturne'

American painter Albert Bierstadt (1830 - 1902) 'Puget Sound' Detail

American painter Don Demers (1956 - ) 

American painter/illustrator Howard Pyle (1853 - 1911) 'An Attack on a Galleon' 1905

German/American painter/illustrator Anton Otto Fisher (1882 - 1962) 

British painter Geoff Hunt (1948 - )

British/American painter Edward Moran (1829 - 1901) 'Sailing by Moonlight NY Harbor'

British painter Joseph Mallord William Turner 'The Fighting Temeraire Being Tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken Up'


We've featured landscapes, still lifes, portraits (male, female and children) and today we're going down to the sea mostly in ships.

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Happy Birthday, A.A. Milne!

Drawing by E.H. Shepard

Today is the birth date of A.A. Milne (1882 - 1956) who created (both literally and figuratively since the boy in the story is based on Milne's son Robin) the beloved characters we all know so well.

"People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day." 

A.A. Milne - 'Winnie the Pooh'

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My Twenty Five Dollar Mistake.

Okay, I admit it, sometimes my memories (faulty as they are) of a movie are actually better than the movie itself - MUCH better. Yeah, it happens. Sometimes movies are best left locked away in a vault, never to see the light of actual day again. There's a reason why God invented memory haze.

But no, I kept thinking of a certain trilogy with a certain actor, so sure that I needed to view the movies again. Have you ever felt that way? When I couldn't find the movies anywhere online - did that stop me? No. My movie memories are infallible. (Ha!)

So I threw caution to the winds and plunked down some cash.

I remember WHISTLING IN THE DARK (1941), WHISTLING IN DIXIE (1942) and WHISTLING IN BROOKLYN (1943) starring Red Skelton, Anne Rutherford and Rags Ragland  as light-hearted mystery comedies kind of in the style of Bob Hope's THE CAT AND THE CANARY and/or THE GHOSTBREAKERS. I was eager to view them again - that's my only excuse. I was in a mood that required instant film gratification. (Or almost instant.)

My friends, even Conrad Veidt playing a charismatic cult leader and low-life bad guy could not save WHISTLING IN THE DARK, the first film in the trilogy. Worse yet, even the great Eve Arden can't save this thing. The plot is not only non-sensical (which is really par for the course and to be expected in these sorts of 'fun' mysteries) but it is totally lacking in FUN.

In all three films, rubbery-faced Red Skelton plays radio personality Wally Benton. He is known as 'The Fox' a howling (literally) radio detective who supposedly sees all and knows all about murder - there's not a plot he hasn't turned into a radio play performed by himself, his girlfriend Carol Lambert (Anne Rutherford) and an assortment of actors, live at the radio station. Each film has the same set-up, Wally is just about to run off and marry his long-suffering girlfriend when a real crime interrupts their elopement.

In the first film, Veidt and his cohorts kidnap Wally, Carol and another woman (the sponsor's daughter) in order to force Wally to invent a fail-proof murder plot (as he does on the radio weekly) which the bad guys will then use to kill a guy who stands between them and a million dollar inheritance. (This was back when a million bucks was a chunk of money.)

Told you it made no sense. But with such a good cast, it should have worked. (In my memories it was a light-hearted romp.)

Except for an amusing first ten or so minutes (better than the rest of the film) in which Conrad Veidt's nefarious character conducts a tree planting ceremony before a worshipping, gullible audience of elderly women all garbed in white robes, the rest of the movie is not only deadly dull but completely unfunny.

Even so, I held out hope for the second and third films, still to be viewed. I hunkered down with a bowl of popcorn and Rocky at my side.

Let's get to the main point which I seem to be avoiding: the young Red Skelton. This is definitely not the puckish and very talented comedian who went on to star in some MGM comedies (usually with Esther Williams) and later became part of television history with a weekly comedy show. My family and I were great fans.

To my surprise, the young Red Skelton, in these early films, comes across as someone lacking not only screen presence, but finesse, timing and oh yeah, talent. At least talent enough to carry a movie. In addition, he makes for a dismal 'romantic lead'. There is no reason why any woman would want to marry him.

Skelton is all bumbling technique and no warmth. You and I both know that if you're going to 'bumble' you need warmth to carry the day. See Cary Grant in BRINGING UP BABY, as an example. But here Skelton just seems weird, klutzy and unlikable. (It might be that with his red hair he needed technicolor, but that wouldn't explain his enormous success later on b/w television.)

If Skelton was meant as a potential rival to Bob Hope, who was working in films at the same time, Hope had nothing to worry about. Hope was always likeable and oddly attractive, even at his most cowardly and egotistical. He was also superb at physical humor. And as for delivering quips, well, Hope was the master of that particular art form so maybe it's unfair to compare.

I'm rambling, I know. But it's been a long time since I watched movies which lived so well in memory and disappointed so much in reality.

The second film, WHISTLING IN DIXIE takes place in Georgia and has an even less sensical plot than the first but contains one sequence which works pretty well: Wally, his girlfriend and a couple of others are trapped beneath a fort in an underground room which is slowly filling up with water. Very well done. But not enough to save the movie.

As for the last film in the trilogy, even the Brooklyn Dodgers can't save WHISTLING IN BROOKLYN. Yes, the 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers, Leo Durocher and his boys. There's a ridiculously unfunny sequence which takes place at Ebbits Field, the old stomping grounds of the Dodgers once upon a time, in which Wally (in disguise) is forced to pitch an inning while trying to save a police inspector from being killed. NOTHING about it works.

Okay, you may ask: why did I sit through these three stultifying movies?

Besides being a glutton for punishment, I guess I wanted to make sure that what I was seeing was what I was seeing, that it wasn't my mood that was tarnishing the films, that my expectations weren't too high. Dammit, I was eager to enjoy them.

All I can say now is I wish I had my twenty five bucks back again. But I learned my lesson. No more impulse movie buys based on memory. Never again. 

But of course, there may be someone out there who disagrees with me completely and actually LOVES these movies. Hey, it's possible. I'm no arbiter. If so, please let me know and I will happily send you the three films (which came packaged together) free of charge, just because I'm a nice person. If there be more than one of you, leave comments and I'll use that number thingy to pick the 'winner'. The films are brand new, only viewed once. I don't want them in the house as a reminder of my folly.

Worse comes to worse, I can donate them to the library.

Has this sort of thing ever happened to you? Come on, 'fess up. We're among friends here.

P.S. As for the 'whistling' in all three titles, it has nothing whatsoever to do with anything. Go figure.

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