I found a couple of shows on Youtube that made for rather enjoyable viewing. The main ones are several M.R. James ghost stories. Of these, I really liked "O Whistle and I'll Come To You My Lad" (first rate), "Lost Hearts" (Also high quality), and "Number 13" (Good, but perhaps not on the same level as the first two). Also, there is a three part documentary on M.R. James himself that is brief but well-done.

I would also recommend Dickens' "The Signal Man", which was part of the same BBC series. Likewise "The Woman in Black (I forget by whom), which I'm not finished with yet, but am enjoying so far...

In any case, James seems to translate rather well to film--which perhaps puts him in a unique category for the "Big 4 or 5" modern weird Masters.

That's all--hope you enjoy.

I assume you have read James, which makes your sentiment particularly shocking. James does not translate to film at all, for the simple reason that there is practically no physical action whatsoever in his stories. They are typically about the study of old manuscripts. Thus the BBC adaptation of "O Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad" consists of 45 minutes of watching a guy eat breakfast and go for walks, with some silliness at the very end. Another solution is found in "The Treasure of Abbott Thomas," where in desperation they introduce a slimy monster to spice things up, as nothing much actually happens in the original story.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
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> I assume you have read James, which makes your
> sentiment particularly shocking.

I love absolute statements like this. :) Why is it 'shocking' that someone might have a different opinion to your own? you seem to be suggesting that poor old dextarward lacks the taste or the intellect to fully appreciate MRJ. At least that is how I interpreted your opening. Apologies if I'm wrong. If you like or dislike the BBC versions that is fair enough. Indeed the case you make against them are also fair enough. But why bother with the rhetoric? dexterward is after all just trying to give the users of this forum a heads up as to some haunt-related freebies? Anyway maybe I'm just reacting because I personally like those BBC ghost stories, but then I'm not a huge fan of MRJ (who I find too flippant to be evocative), so maybe that explains it...

Anyway, you raise some interesting points. However, it seems strange to me to disregard screen adaptations of MRJ out of hand just because you regard them as unfilmable. Less filmable stories have been successfully adapted to the screen. As long as you are prepared to allow a film maker some creative leeway then anything is filmable - just don't be too precious over the source material. For example Hitchcock's 39 Steps deviates from the novel in many ways yet is still regarded as a classic. Blade Runner and Naked Lunch are two other examples. Of course they are nothing like the novels but still they work well if you look at them in isolation.

Well, well, my good fellow, it's a fortunate thing you didn't call my views "particularly shocking" in person, or I might have been forced to demand satisfaction from you.(Pistols or swords, your choice.)

Of course, joking aside, I must respectfully disagree that James doesn't translate to film. You don't get all the details of the story, obviously, but a good film can get something of the general atmosphere. I still say that the BBC's "O Whistle," while not precisely the pinnacle of "high art," is nevertheless not half bad.

Naturally a film does not have to be faithful to a literary source in order to be good---we should be thankful Kubrick's THE SHINING is not, for instance. An even better example than THE 39 STEPS is THE LADY VANISHES; the novel is unreadable.

But the claim was made that the BBC James adaptations are, in fact, faithful to their sources. That they are also poor in themselves is a different matter.

It's an exercise in futility to lament that certain authors can't be adapted to cinema (or TV), or have been adapted "poorly" -- a subjective judgment always. They are inevitably going to be adapted, as interest in supernatural fiction endures and maybe increases. (And with animation evolving rapidly, perhaps we'll see animated versions of CAS in the future.)

Lovecraft seems a good example to cite here. Despite the fact that his stories are generally conceded to be short on plot and long on atmosphere, there have been more than 70 movie & TV adaptations of HPL's fiction the last time I checked the IMDB. And some of James' work has been brilliantly adapted for film, most notably, Jacques Tourneur's marvelous Night of the Demon/Curse of the Demon. Many of the basic ideas are there, and Tourneur and his screenwriter added some material to make the story work for film. If it's not "the story pure," so be it. It does manage to impart James' incomparable sense of quiet dread throughout.

Gary Morris