Padme's Library: 10/17/14

Friday, October 17, 2014

Friday's Film Adaption: The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle

Summary:
Brother and sister buy a sinister house in Cornwall, haunted by the ghost of a woman believed to be a paragon--but was she? Could a young girl's pure love triumph over the dread forces of evil and hatred that made Cliff End a place of never-ending terror? Seeking to escape the demands of London, Pam Fitzgerald and her brother, Roddy, an aspiring playwright, discover a charming house in the west of England, overlooking the Irish Sea. The house, Cliff End, has long been empty, and they are able to purchase it at a suspiciously low price from crusty Commander Brooke, the village curmudgeon. The reason is soon apparent: the house has an unsavory reputation. Fifteen years earlier a murder may or may not have occurred by the gnarled tree that can be viewed by the parlor window. Slowly the Fitzgeralds begin to sense the evil spirit that still inhabits the house, announcing its presence with a sudden, bone-chilling cold.

Made into a movie in 1944 with Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey. Original British title (1941), "Uneasy Freehold".

Author Bio:
Dorothy Macardle was born in Dundalk, Ireland in 1889 into a wealthy brewing family, famous for their Macardle's Ale, and was raised Roman Catholic. She received her secondary education in Alexandra College, Dublin – a school under the management of the Church of Ireland – and later attended University College, Dublin. Upon graduating, she returned to teach English at Alexandra.

Macardle was a member of the Gaelic League and later joined Cumann na mBan in 1917. In 1918 (during the War of Independence), Macardle was arrested by the RIC while teaching at Alexandra; she was eventually dismissed in 1923, towards the latter end of the Irish Civil War, because of her anti-Treatyite sympathies and activities.

When the republican movement split in 1921-22 over the Anglo-Irish Treaty, MacArdle sided with Éamon de Valera and the anti-Treaty Irregulars. She was imprisoned by the fledgling Free State government in 1922, during the Civil War, and served time in both Mountjoy and Kilmainham Gaols.

While working as a journalist with the League of Nations in the 1930s she acquired a considerable affinity with the plight of pre-war Czechoslovakia. Consequently she differed with official Irish government policy on the threat of Nazism, Irish neutrality during World War II, compulsory Irish language teaching in schools, and deplored what she saw as the reduced status of women in the 1937 Constitution of Ireland.

Macardle recounted her Civil War experiences in Earthbound: Nine Stories of Ireland (1924). Macardle became a playwright in the next two decades. In her dramatic writing she used the pseudonym Margaret Callan. During this time she worked as a journalist at the League of Nations.

She also researched her mammoth book The Irish Republic which was first published in 1937. Her political opponents and some modern historians consider her to be a hagiographer for de Valera's political views. Murray considers that: "..de Valera’s ambitious scheme was eventually implemented by Dorothy Macardle, his devoted follower and lifelong apologist, whose book The Irish Republic conforms closely to the overall plan outlined by de Valera in prison, and even incorporates many of its details. The outline originally proposed by de Valera was extremely detailed, incorporating a carefully planned chronology and headings from which the chapters were to be developed."

She died in 1958 at the age of 69 of cancer in hospital in Drogheda. Though she was somewhat disillusioned with the new Irish State (in particular, regarding its treatment of women), she left the royalties from The Irish Republic to her close friend Éamon de Valera, who wrote the foreword to the book. De Valera visited her when she was dying.

Film
The Uninvited 1944
Directed by Lewis Allen
Produced by Charles Brackett
Screenplay by Frank Partos & Dodie Smith
Based on Uneasy Freehold by Dorothy Macardle

Cast:
Ray Milland as Roderick Fitzgerald
Ruth Hussey as Pamela Fitzgerald
Donald Crisp as Commander Beech
Cornelia Otis Skinner as Miss Holloway
Dorothy Stickney as Miss Bird
Barbara Everest as Lizzie Flynn
Alan Napier as Dr. Scott
Gail Russell as Stella Meredith

Music by Victor Young
Cinematography by Charles B. Lang
Edited by Doane Harrison
Production company: Paramount Pictures
Release date: February 10, 1944
Running time: 99 min.
Country: United States
Language: English

Trailer:

I've never read the original book but I have seen the movie and it's one of my favorite ghost films. It helps that I love Ray Milland. A little bit of romance, a little more mystery, and throw in a great ghost tale and it's an amazing film.

Rating:

Goodreads

Book

Amazon / Goodreads TBR

Film: Amazon

Friday's Film Adaptions: The Passionate Witch by Thorne Smith

Note: Since I was under the weather last Friday and didn't post my Friday Film Adaption, I'm posting 2 today. This is post #1.

Summary:
This early work by Thorne Smith was originally published in 1942 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Passionate Witch' was James Thorne Smith Jr.'s last novel and was left unfinished at the time of his death in 1934, it was finally finished by Norman Matson. Mr. T. Wallace Wooly, a self-important tycoon, but at heart a shy brown rabbit of a man, meets his future bride when he rescues her from a hotel fire. Readers might think this situation poses unique challenges to a couple just getting acquainted, but it probably helped that the soon to be Mrs. Wooly was completely naked at the time. Mr. Wooly is the most public, most consequential man in town and so respectable that the well-publicized rescue of the nude Miss Broome thrown over Mr.Wooly's shoulder as he rushes from the burning building sets tongues wagging. (You sly dog.) Mr. Wooly is aghast at the rumors, but Miss Broome is after all, bewitching, and Mr. Wooly is soon under the spell of her red lips, lustrous black hair, and slanting yellow eyes. It isn't long after their marriage that Mr. Wooly begins to question the wisdom of their hasty union when he sees his new wife climbing down the trumpet vine outside their bedroom window, riding the goat through the apple orchard in the moonlight, and killing chickens. Among other things. What follows is a whirlwind romance, a string of disastrous 'accidents' and the uttering of a fateful curse.

Author Bio:
James Thorne Smith, Jr. was an American writer of humorous supernatural fantasy fiction under the byline Thorne Smith. He is best known today for the two Topper novels, comic fantasy fiction involving sex, much drinking and supernatural transformations. With racy illustrations, these sold millions of copies in the 1930s and were equally popular in paperbacks of the 1950s.

Smith was born in Annapolis, Maryland, the son of a Navy commodore and attended Dartmouth College. Following hungry years in Greenwich Village, working part-time as an advertising agent, Smith achieved meteoric success with the publication of Topper in 1926. He was an early resident of Free Acres, a social experimental community developed by Bolton Hall according to the economic principles of Henry George in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. He died of a heart attack in 1934 while vacationing in Florida.

Film:
Directed by René Clair
Screenplay: Robert Pirosh & Marc Connelly
Novel: Thorne Smith & Norman H. Matson (completion upon Smith's death)

Cast
Fredric March as Jonathan Wooley, Nathaniel Wooley, Samuel Wooley, and principally Wallace Wooley
Veronica Lake as Jennifer
Cecil Kellaway as Daniel
Susan Hayward as Estelle Masterson
Robert Benchley as Dr. Dudley White, Wooley's friend
Elizabeth Patterson as Margaret, Wooley's housekeeper
Robert Warwick as J.B. Masterson

Music by Roy Webb
Cinematography by Ted Tetzlaff
Edited by Eda Warren
Production company Paramount Pictures
Distributed by United Artists
Release date: October 30, 1942
Running time: 77 minutes
Country: United States
Language: English

Trailer:

I haven't read the original book but once again the film is among my favorites. One can't help but make comparisons to the future television classic, Bewitched. Love the humor mixed in with a little witchcraft and an age old family curse. Veronica Lake and Fredric March aren't exactly on par with Loy/Powell but very perfect for the movie. A true classic.

Rating:

Amazon / Goodreads

Book

Amazon / Barnes&Noble / Goodreads TBR

Film: Amazon

Strangers for the Night by CJ Fallowfield

Summary:
My name is Logan Steele. I’m devilishly handsome, seriously ripped, well hung, charismatic and highly sexed. Women just can’t resist me. So when I lost my job in the construction industry and was struggling for cash, I decided to put my assets to good use.
By day I’m a private personal fitness trainer. By night I’m a high class gigolo.

I don’t advertise my sexual services anymore, I have a long client list that come to me through word of mouth. I’m that good I’m booked months in advance. Scores of women pay me extortionately high fees to fulfill their fantasies. And for the most part I do. I have a strict set of rules that I abide by, which are provided in the full contract that you’ll receive along with the booking form, if accepted. I've bullet pointed an abridged version below, just so you’re clear before you send me an email request:

Rules my clients must comply with are:
I must see a picture in advance.
I can decline the booking request without explanation.
I can only be booked for the night.
All sexual acts must be consensual.
I will provide you with a report to complete, then I will choose the setting for our meeting based on your scenario.
I am flown first class or by private jet if I am required to work abroad.
In the event of the above, I will provide my dietary requirements in advance.
I will perform a full background check.
I base my variable charge on the scenario being requested.

“No” rules that I stipulate are:
No bareback.
No minors.
No physical violence.
Nothing illegal.
No form of emotional attachment during or after the event. I am merely performing a sexual or companion service.
No contact after the event, unless it is for a new booking.

And my absolute number one rule, without exception is:
Full payment up front which, is non- refundable. There is no requirement for a refund clause, I never fail to perform.

So, now you are aware of my rules for the night and are about to contact me, all that remains to be asked is “Who do you want me to be?”

‘Strangers for the Night’ is Camilla Domville's idea of the perfect fantasy. Meeting a hot guy in a bar and going back to his hotel room for a night of unbridled passion, that’s if they even make it to the hotel room before Logan seduces her.

Downright raunchy, saucy and hot, Logan's sexcapade with Camilla threatens to be his last, as she's set her sights on him and is determined to be his one and only client moving forwards. But Logan's main mantra is “Never get emotionally attached to your client.”

While this works with Camilla, a booking with a future client has him looking forward to it in a way he never has before.

‘I’m not one for crowds, Miss Camilla. I’m best in a one to one situation.’ I lifted the corner of my mouth into a smile.
‘One to one? Are you trying to seduce me, Sir?’ she gasped, acting all affronted.
‘There is no trying,’ I countered as I leaned in and placed an elbow on the bar, the other on my knee as I spread my legs in a masculine pose. ‘If I wanted to seduce you I would. I’d rip those tiny green knickers you’re wearing to shreds and impale you on my cock before you had a chance to beg me.’
‘And what makes you think I’d be interested?’ she asked as she uncrossed her legs and parted them slightly.
‘The fact that you’re dying to know just how large I actually am that it’s made your tiny little cunt drip with arousal, every man in this bar can smell it, you’re watering for me, aren’t you? Desperate for a stranger to fuck you and take you to heights you’ve never seen.’ I angled my fingers to trail slowly up the inside of her thigh and her eyes glazed as her breathing quickened. ‘Blow off your party, I’ll show you a far better time that you’ll remember for years to come.’
‘Only if I can blow you off,’ she whimpered as my index finger reached the sodden lace. ‘We’re in a public place,’ she whispered as her eyes went wide when I started to stroke. I smiled, this was the reason I refused scripts for the entire night, I only agreed to use certain words or phrases if that really got them off. There had to be some spontaneity or where was the fun? She’d not been expecting me to rub her clit as she sat at the bar in her father’s hotel.
‘That was a given, Miss Camilla. I’ll want you on your knees with your hands tied behind your back as I fuck your throat and you’ll swallow me with no complaint, I may even save some for that pretty face of yours.’
‘O fuck,’ she groaned as she closed her eyes.
‘Not quite yet, but it can be arranged very shortly if you so desire,’ I advised as I slowly trailed my fingers back down her thighs. I heard her gulp as she opened her eyes and nodded at me. I stood up and fastened the button on my jacket, leaving her eye level with my chest as I held out my hand to help her off the stool. She took a sharp breath in, she’d felt it, the elusive crackle that everyone spoke about when they met their perfect match. Despite the number of women I’d had, that crackle still evaded me. I put my hand in the small of her back and steered her out of the bar, aware that many eyes were on us. ‘You live dangerously,’ I observed as we made our way across the cavernous lobby.
‘For accepting the offer of a stranger?’
‘That, and the fact that you’re brazen enough to do it in this hotel.’ I wasn’t supposed to bring up the fact that I knew who she was. ‘You’re not worried people will think you’re a prostitute, dressed like that?’
‘How dare you!’ she hissed as she glared up at me.
‘A high class prostitute, one I’d happily pay good money to fuck,’ I shrugged. ‘Lucky me to get you for free.’
‘I’m paying you arsehole,’ she snapped, breaking cover, as we stood in front of the lift door and she rummaged for her key.
‘Did you never question why the price was so high?’ I asked as I trailed a finger up and down the inside of her wrist making her swallow again. ‘You’ve never been fucked by a real man Camilla, a man so large he could split you in half with one thrust, who can make you come multiple times in seconds just with his fingers, let alone his tongue and thick cock. I’m so large, I’ll stretch you so wide that you’ll have to resort to dual penetration in your cunt to feel half of what you felt with me when you fuck anyone else. I’ve even made a woman come just by telling her what I was going to do to her. Tell me you’re not dripping down your thighs right now at the thought of it? That your little clit isn’t screaming for me to touch it properly without that lace in the way?’
‘Logan,’ she mewled as she swayed on her feet and dropped the private lift key card. I dropped to one knee next to her and stooped to pick it up, pretending to steady myself by clasping the back of her right leg, taking the opportunity to press my thumb against the little known erogenous zone at the back of her knee. I smiled as I heard her pant as my thumb worked while I picked up the key card with the other hand. I released her leg just before she had to reach out to palm the lift door to keep upright. I placed my hand back on the small of her back as I swiped the card, then leaned closer to her and breathed on her neck, making all of her hair stand on end.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ I whispered as the doors opened and I steered her into the far corner, keeping my back to the hidden camera somewhere on the wall behind me. ‘How about we unwrap your surprise right now?’
‘Please,’ she begged.

By CJ Fallowfield:

The novella’s are told in alternating points of view of Logan Steele, and his client, or clients. You can pick up any of them for a complete short burst of heat, however in order to fully enjoy Logan’s development they should be read in the sequence that they are released. Starting in October 2014, the author will release one per month in the For The Night Series:

Strangers for the Night

Virgin for the Night
Filthy for the Night
Ménage for the Night
Sophisticated for the Night
Biker for the Night
Dominant for the Night
Actor for the Night

Author Bio:
I write contemporary erotic romance, with humour, which are full of emotion and plenty of drama. I am a 44 year old female from the United Kingdom and live in the wonderful countryside of Wales, surrounded by rolling hills, trees and fields full of sheep and cows. Writing aids include chocolate, Ben & Jerry’s and copious amounts of coffee, wine or cider.