Fruits of an idle hour

I read somewhere that birdwatchers (twitchers) deprived of easy access to the outdoors had turned to spotting birds on TV programmes.
I was watching an episode of The Kaiser Report (available on YouTube) today and saw on the bottom of Max and Stacey's bookcases a collection of, what I'm fairly sure are, LECs. The quality wasn't really sufficient to make out any titles other than The Dead Sea Scrolls; others, more keen-sighted, may be able to recognise which books are on the shelves.
Here we have a whole new bibliophilic hobby...and it's cheap.

I'm fairly certain The Sea-Wolf is on the bottom camera left shelf, the third book to the left of the divider.

I think the red one on the bottom right shelf could be The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.

Edit: on second thoughts, probably not: it looks a bit too tall.

>1 Constantinopolitan: I had never heard bird watchers called "twitchers" before. Apparently (not surprisingly) it's a British thing... here in the USA we call bird watchers "birders" which makes sense. Why do the British rarely make sense? ;)

>4 astropi: The OED tells us that a twitcher is: "A birdwatcher whose main aim is to make sightings of rare birds; esp. one who travels great distances to do so, or who ticks off observations on a list; an enthusiastic or obsessive birdwatcher." So, perhaps they should have been called tickers? But seeing their excitable anticipation "twitcher" is wonderfully appropriate.
As for us Britons rarely making sense...I asked my wife; she said that she couldn't speak for the nation but if people judged Britain by me she wasn't at all surprised if they thought we were senseless. Hard words of course, but what can you expect from someone whose role model is Mrs Rumpole (She Who Must Be Obeyed) of the Bailey.


Marion Mathie and Leo McKern

>5 Constantinopolitan: haha :)
I do love ol' Rumpole. By the way, slightly off-topic, Easton Press released a signed edition of Rumpole which can be found online at super affordable prices.

Likewise, I am a huge fan of Horace (Rumpole, that is, although I also enjoy Quintus Horatius Flaccus, just not as much). One of my most prized possessions is a first trade edition of Rumpole and the Angel of Death. John Mortimer came to Pasadena's local bookshop, Vroman's, and was autographing copies and was gracious enough to spend a few minutes with each buyer to hear them talking about how perfect Leo McKern was in the role.

When it was my turn, I asked him how he liked working with Otto Preminger when he and his wife wrote the screenplay for "Bunny Lake is Missing." He was quite interested in why I mentioned it, and I told him about my meeting Preminger when I was still a student and he came to the university and showed the film (which met with a somewhat hostile reception from the audience). We talked for about 15 minutes until one of the signing sponsors mentioned that it was time they moved on to Hollywood where he had another signing session. I'm pleased to say instead of just an autograph (not that John Mortimer's autograph would have been insignificant to me) he personalized it. Lovely man.

>6 astropi: Thanks for the tip about the signed Rumpole
>7 Django6924: Robert, that's a great account of meeting John Mortimer and also Otto Preminger. I don't know "Bunny Lake". Why wasn't it approved by your fellow students?
If Rumpole had a wealthy admirer who could afford to print a private press book for him, surely it would have to be the "Q" edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse. In the absence of this philanthropist perhaps the LEC Robert Frost might have pleased him.

Also slightly off-topic, but related to randomly finding books -- I once saw/found a copy of the Easton Press edition of Moby Dick in... a video game!
It was in a Lovecraftian game of all things - and that cover was unmistakable! I honestly wondered if they had permission to use the cover, and if I had to guess I would say the answer is "no" and they likely thought the image was public domain or simply didn't care :)

>8 Constantinopolitan:

Well, it was the 1960s and the Student Revolt was under full sail. The first film in that semester's film series was "Help!" which was, of course, hugely popular, next was Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lily?" which was so popular that a third screening had to be arranged, and immediately before "Bunny Lake" an evening of Experimental "Underground" films: Robert Downey's "Chafed Elbows," Mike Kuchar's "Hold Me While I'm Naked" and Kenneth Anger's "Scorpio Rising," all of which seemed to promise a more liberated cinema where nothing was off limits and the people on the screen would all look more like students than middle-aged "movie stars."

When Otto Preminger came and screened a fairly straightforward mystery thriller (which lacked the technical punch of say, Hitchcock's "Psycho") and featuring a very aged Laurence Olivier, the audience thought this was more of the stale old Hollywood bologna. One of the students in the question-and-answer period asked the director "Mr. Preminger, if you were still alive, would you be making underground films?" Which got a laugh from th students and confused Preminger at first, but he quickly recovered with "I prefer to be making above ground films."

>10 Django6924: Thanks. It's nice to recall some wit and repartee from the equally rebellious '60s. You've a great memory...or diary.
I don't imagine the reputation of many of those underground films has continued to flourish, if they ever did.

>11 Constantinopolitan:

No--and it's not because, as those filmmakkers claimed, they were denied distribution deals by the evil studios (not that there wasn't a measure of truth in that). They were pretty tedious fare then because, to paraphrase Browning, their reach far exceeded their grasp, and it wasn't a very far reach, anyway. They were into sensationalism and beyond that there was really nothing much to watch. Back in the 1980s Z Channel in Los Angeles had a retrospective of underground films, and I couldn't get through most of them. It would be like watching your uncle's home movies (if your uncle filmed his wife parading in the nude).

I haven't seen Bunny Lake (and yes, she is still missing...) since that screening, and I don't know if I would think more highly of it if I were to see it now. A film that came out about the same time and had certain similarities of theme was, to my memory, much more effective: "Seance on a Wet Afternoon." Preminger made some very good movies, and two that I have frequently revisited and still regard as classics, "Laura" and "Anatomy of a Murder." I remember thinking watching "Bunny" that the director was in second gear.

An interesting feature of Bunny Lake was the appearance of the Zombies who, I recall, did three songs and are now somewhat revered and still reunite occasionally. A problem with the film is that it dated quickly because, while information needed for some essential fact couldn't be obtained because it was a weekend, shortly after it was made that was no longer the case.
Still I enjoyed it very much. Of course, Carol Lynley was someone I could watch at length! I think an appeal of the film is that it switches from being a mystery to being something of a pathological thriller, getting darker as it goes. Who better than Keir Dullea to play the creepy, perhaps incestuous brother/
But Preminger's "Laura" cannot be topped.