I have in my rather large Big Box VHS video collection a film called Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold from 1985, which I have yet to watch.
However, I've always been intrigued by this obscure Victorian super gent, a lost hero from another age and much older than the Golden age of comics and the likes of Namor and Batman!
Here's a potted history.
Quatermain first appeared in the 1885 blockbuster novel King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard, he of the later SHE.
An eon later Quatermain turned up in Alan Moore and Co's 1999 graphic comics The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen along with assorted meta-beings like The Invisible Man and Mina.
Moore's League was itself inspired by an earlier 1960 Jack Hawkins film, itself based on a 1958 novel called The League of Gentlemen by John Boland. Check out those balaclavas!
Coming right up to date, Quatermain next graced the screen in the form of Sean Connery in the oft-panned film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from 2003. Described as dieselpunk, I quite enjoyed this mash-up of monsters, Captains and mavericks.
Connery-Quatermain is the obvious leader of this Victorian Avengers and I particularly enjoyed seeing obscure supernatural characters like Mina the Vampire and Dorian Gray in a modern flick.
There is also Captain Nemo and a new Nautilus to be had. More of a sword than a sub, its completely different to what's gone before. Do you like it?
Nemo has his own FAB1 as well, the Nautilus car! What do you think?
I may have to watch it again now I've written this!
There's naturally more to say about the Gentlemen extraordinaire and Allan Quatermain but for now I'm taking a drive to Royston Vasey and may never be seen again!
Do you like Quatermain and the League?
Being a big comics fan and follower of Alan Moore, i read his version of TLOEG. I was somewhat miffed that being a creative person, he did not credit the out of copyright authors whose work had inspired him. Apart from that, i found the first volume an interesting read and liked his take on Alan Quartermain. I was very disappointed with the movie version which cast him as a standard hero, when Moore's version was a sozzled has-been. I guess that’s what you get when the star is also the producer. The rest of the film just made me annoyed, with too many bad choices in the writing and design departments to list here!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see a film of Alan Moore's Promethea -but i guess that would get messed up too!
Poor old Alan has had a rough ride with adaptations. From Hell, V for Vendetta, Watchmen and LOEG all had liberties taken with the original. LOEG probably came off the worst, adding Tom Sawyer and centering the action around Alan, when the story chiefly revolves around Mina. Mr Hyde in the comics is brilliant, especially in his confrontation with the Martians in volume 2. I became a bit disenchanted with the series after it evolved in the Century sequence, particularly the weird 3d parts in the last few issues. Moore is a brilliant writer, From Hell, The Lost Girls and the original Watchmen and V for Vendetta are testament to this, but he should not be judged by the abortive reworkings that have ended up on screen! Bill
DeleteWatchmen is just a brilliant film so the comics must be exceptional. Talking of The League of E Gentlemen, Dorian Gray is on the English Curriculum. I've never read Wild's book but a summary I saw on YT suggests its quite a complex book.
DeleteThe comic is infinitely better than the film, but the film does reflect the comic panels, really well, even if the script goes a bit AWOL
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