Thief of Baghdad (1924)

13 Friday Aug 2010

Posted by in Films & trailers, Historical context

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The great fantasy blockbuster movie of 1924 The Thief of Baghdad (Fairbanks/United Artists, on general release from 23rd March 1924). Lovecraft must surely have seen this big-budget picture when he first moved to New York.

 
The film is now public-domain, and is available free on Archive.org.

 


 


 


 
Above: an undersea monstrosity encountered by the hero.

 
And the film’s depiction of the takeover of Baghdad by the Mongols finds a visual echo in the story “He” (written 11th August 1925)…

 

“swarming loathsomely on aerial galleries I saw the yellow, squint-eyed people of that city”

 


 
[ Hat-tip: John Coulthart ]

Lovecraft vs. Rand

12 Thursday Aug 2010

Posted by in Odd scratchings

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H.P. Lovecraft and Ayn Rand — separated at birth?

H.P. Lovecraft:

Hardened rationalist

Radical atheist

Strong interest in philosophy

Hard-headed sceptic

Wrote for the masses

Loved cinema

Took inspiration from popular media

Fascinated by science and men of science

‘Exiled’ from England

Loved cats

Wrote science fiction

Emotionally restrained protagonists

Protagonists at odds with the established social order

Fiction depicts lurking monstrosities that threaten humanity

Author lived in/near New York

Felt that society/civilisation was in sharp decline

Disdain for ‘primitive’ ways of life

‘Man is everything in the world’

‘Man is insignificant in the cosmos’

Yearned for an aristocracy based on manifest talent, not blood or race

Ayn Rand:

Hardened rationalist

Radical atheist

Strong interest in philosophy

Hard-headed sceptic

Wrote for the masses

Loved cinema

Took inspiration from popular media

Fascinated by science and men of science

Exiled from Russia

Loved cats

Wrote science fiction

Emotionally restrained protagonists

Protagonists at odds with the established social order

Fiction depicts lurking monstrosities that threaten humanity

Author lived in/near New York

Felt that society/civilisation was in sharp decline

Disdain for ‘primitive’ ways of life

‘Man is everything in the world’

‘Man is insignificant in the cosmos’

Yearned for an aristocracy based on manifest talent, not blood or race

Pre-Kong fantasy films

09 Monday Aug 2010

Posted by in Films & trailers, Historical context

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A new list of early fantasy/horror films that might have influenced Lovecraft…

King Kong – The Eighth Wonder Of The World [1933]

Frankenstein [1931]

Dracula [1931] ~ Bela Lugosi

Man Who Laughs, The (1928) ~ Mary Philbin

Metropolis [1927] ~ Brigitte Helm

Faust [1926] ~ Gosta Ekman

The Lost World [1925] ~ Wallace Beery

The Phantom Of The Opera [1925] ~ Lon Chaney

Hands of Orlac [1924] ~ Conrad Veidt

Die Nibelungen [1924]

Waxworks [1924] ~ Emil Jannings

The Hunchback of Notre Dame [1923] ~ Lon Chaney

Man From Beyond, The [1922] ~ Harry Houdini

Nosferatu [1921] ~ Max Schreck

Doctor Jekyll And Mr Hyde [1920] ~ John Barrymore III

The Phantom Carriage [1920] ~ Victor Sjostrom

Der Golem [1920] ~ Paul Wegener

Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari [1919] ~ Werner Krauss

Le Voyage Dans La Lune

H.P. Lovecraft search engine.

08 Sunday Aug 2010

Posted by in Housekeeping

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You can now search all the 250+ websites linked in my 2010 “Lovecraft on the web” directory (see below). I made a basic on-the-fly Google Custom Search Engine for all the links. It’s not as good as a proper Google CSE, but it’ll filter out most of the junk you’d pick up in a normal Google search.

After about three pages of custom results, you’ll be thrown back into the main Google search results. You may see Google’s AdWords ads, if you don’t run an ad-blocker add-on.