One of three ancient fates playing with your scissors again
May. 13th, 2025 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sovayI have been so spoiled in recent months by the accessible obscurities of my local library systems that I took it personally when both internet archives and interlibrary loan wiped out on the 1954 source novel for "Dishonoured Bones" (1964), which I watched last night while falling down a rabbit hole of surviving episodes of the BBC's Detective (1964–69) thanks to thisbluespirit. At least in fifty-minute anthology format, the mystery itself is a shoal of red herrings, but I was instantly taken with Alan Dobie as Martin Cotterell, an archaeologist-hero as pipe-smoking and untidy as any weirdo by Leslie Howard, especially with his awful walking hat knocked down over his eyes, characteristically rolling off one of his socks in the middle of a discussion of suspects with his old friend who has turned up as the sergeant on the case. (He's right to have suddenly noticed it was inside out and his friend is right that no one else would have noticed because his socks aren't matched to begin with.) He has an artificial hand. It's treated so matter-of-factly, it's never even addressed as such until the rock-fall of the climax, which would have smashed a hand of flesh and bone and just leaves Martin wryly straightening his flattened tin fingers; otherwise the viewer notices eventually that he does most tasks one-handed, the other always gloved, impossible to tell which was originally his dominant hand. Its relevance to the plot is realistically zero. Trying to find any information on this elusive series, I am delighted to learn from its author's obituary that not only was John Trench more than literarily into archaeology, he was employed long-term, about a generation later, by the same advertising firm as Dorothy L. Sayers. They both worked on the Guinness account. I have a line on the novel and in the meantime am stuck with an interest in Alan Dobie, with his thin dented-in face that looks so much younger with his hat off, except when he's got a bandage around his head. Even if she doesn't have that much to do, you get early Judi Dench with this episode, too.
thisbluespirit. At least in fifty-minute anthology format, the mystery itself is a shoal of red herrings, but I was instantly taken with Alan Dobie as Martin Cotterell, an archaeologist-hero as pipe-smoking and untidy as any weirdo by Leslie Howard, especially with his awful walking hat knocked down over his eyes, characteristically rolling off one of his socks in the middle of a discussion of suspects with his old friend who has turned up as the sergeant on the case. (He's right to have suddenly noticed it was inside out and his friend is right that no one else would have noticed because his socks aren't matched to begin with.) He has an artificial hand. It's treated so matter-of-factly, it's never even addressed as such until the rock-fall of the climax, which would have smashed a hand of flesh and bone and just leaves Martin wryly straightening his flattened tin fingers; otherwise the viewer notices eventually that he does most tasks one-handed, the other always gloved, impossible to tell which was originally his dominant hand. Its relevance to the plot is realistically zero. Trying to find any information on this elusive series, I am delighted to learn from its author's obituary that not only was John Trench more than literarily into archaeology, he was employed long-term, about a generation later, by the same advertising firm as Dorothy L. Sayers. They both worked on the Guinness account. I have a line on the novel and in the meantime am stuck with an interest in Alan Dobie, with his thin dented-in face that looks so much younger with his hat off, except when he's got a bandage around his head. Even if she doesn't have that much to do, you get early Judi Dench with this episode, too.
