Oh good: it looks like I have the opportunity not only to contribute to the Roundtable, but also continue my series on the surprisingly few film adaptations of books by the Golden Age mystery writer John Dickson Carr.
If it seems a little odd that I can use a Roundtable on French movies to talk about an Amercian author who spent most of his career turning into an Englishman, you’re right: it is odd. But then again, La Chambre ardente/The Burning Court (1962) is something of an odd film. As a late work of the great French director Julien Duvivier, the movie falls midway between his art films and his strictly-commercial ventures. Duvivier takes a few liberties with Carr’s novel… some of which were necessary to make the detective story filmable, some of which help the film stand on its own as an independent work, and some of which (including the most noteworthy) really don’t work so well.
#1 by Alaric on February 28, 2015 - 9:10 am
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You’ve succeeded in convincing me I have to read that book.
#2 by RogerBW on March 1, 2015 - 9:57 am
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Not a Carr I’ve read – as a native Englishman I find his attempts to be terribly English slightly wearing, and while I enjoy a good logic puzzle I do prefer more in the way of character development, so after a binge of fifteen or so of the things a few years back I stopped. But I might give it a go even so.
#3 by Braineater on March 1, 2015 - 9:08 pm
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He got even more wearing after the War, when the England he fell in love with ceased to exist even as a comfortable illusion (and then he had his stroke in the early 60’s, and became virtually unreadable… but that’s a different problem). You’ll be relieved to know that “The Burning Court” takes place entirely in Pennsylvania.
I admit that as I grow older, I become less satisfied with Carr. Every couple of years I convince myself I’ve outgrown him. Then I end up reading something of his again, and realize that in my mind I’ve let his weaknesses overshadow his considerable strengths.