THE PALE BLUE EYE AND EDGAR ALLAN POE

The Pale Blue Eye

This 2022 Netflix film is worth watching for the strong performances of Christian Bale, Toby Jones, Timothy Spall and especially Harry Melling as Poe himself. It’s based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Louis Bayard. (The 17-year gap between publication and film release must give hope to many an author!)

It’s 1830 and (alcoholic – aren’t they all?) retired detective Augustus Landor (Bale) is asked by the military to investigate the hanging of Cadet Leroy Fry at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Landor is a widower who lives alone since his daughter Mathilde left him a few years earlier.

After Fry was hanged, his heart was removed from his body. In the morgue, examining the corpse, Landor finds a small fragment of a note clutched tightly in Fry's hand. Also, marks on Fry's neck and fingers suggest that he did not hang himself, but was murdered.

With the permission of Superintendent Thayer (Spall), Landor enlists the help of Edgar Allan Poe (Melling), another cadet at the academy who has expressed an interest in the case. Poe and Landor deduce from the writing on the note fragment that it was summoning Fry to a secret meeting. Then another cadet, Ballinger, goes missing and is later found hanged; he is also mutilated and organs removed. A third cadet, Stoddard, who was a colleague of the two victims, then disappears, and it is presumed by Landor that this man had reason to believe he was next in line to be killed....

Landor and Poe begin to suspect the family of Dr Daniel Marquis (Toby Jones), who was first brought into the investigation to perform the autopsy on Fry. Particular suspicion is placed on his son Artemus (Harry Lawtey) and his daughter Lea (Lucy Boynton)…

Melling tends to steal every scene he’s in, no mean accomplishment against Bale. His look, voice and mannerism are mesmerising. Certainly, the film prompts the viewer to seek out Bayard’s book.

Poe’s influence on other writers is considerable, notably Conan Doyle, Verne and Lovecraft. I too am not immune. I wrote a noir western as a homage to Poe, Coffin for Cash (2016), which contains several allusions to his life and work. These can be viewed in this blog:

October 2017 Dark Echoes

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com/2017/10/dark-echoes.html

 

February 2016 – Book review of The Tell-Tale Heart

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com/2016/02/book-review-tell-tale-heart.html

 

July 2020 – Disinterring Coffin for Cash - 1

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com/2020/07/disinterring-coffin-for-cash-1.html

 

July 2020 - Disinterring Coffin for Cash - 2

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com/2020/07/disinterring-coffin-for-cash-2.html

Disinterring Coffin for Cash - 2

This is the second article offering some illumination on several background inspirations for Coffin for Cash (published 2015 by Beat to a Pulp).

Here, we’ll look at The Lenore Casino owned by Baron Hans Von Kempelen.:

‘Long before they reached the entrance to the casino complex, Cash and Corman rode past dozens of white-painted wooden posts, all lined up neatly: “Setting out the lots for the baron’s town plan,” Corman explained.

            ‘Finally, an entrance arch of Doric columns declared “The Lenore Casino”. From here curved a wide drive bordered with sagebrush flowering yellow, red, pink and orange; mixed with these were sego lily and larkspur. The drive led to a long two-story building, its veranda graced with a series of Corinthian columns. A rooftop terrace commanded a view of the surrounding countryside, and above the entrance doors, rising from the center, was a latticework tower with a huge clock-face showing Roman numerals; a big metal pendulum swung below, partly visible through a long narrow window above the entrance.

            ‘They tethered the horses at hitching rail at the front steps.

            ‘A good distance away on their right was a marble edifice, with a life-size winged angel on top.

            ‘“That’s the baron’s little mausoleum,” Corman explained, his voice thick and laced with gravel. “It’s where his wife’s buried – minus her heart.”’ (Coffin for Cash, p70)

***

Kempelen’s casino was based on the Prussian nobleman Count James Pourtales’s Broadmoor Casino near Pikes Peak in central Colorado. There is no resemblance between the fictional baron and the real Count Pourtales.

 

Pourtales was smitten since he first met his cousin Berthe in Prussia. Apparently they married young in those days: he wed Berthe in 1866, when she was fourteen and he was about the same age!

On reaching maturity, he was anxious to find some good investments to build upon his inherited wealth in Europe and found himself in Colorado, where, in 1887 he bought a failing dairy farm – about 2,000 acres – called the Broadmoor, intending to make money by selling milk and butter to the nearby growing town of Colorado Springs. As that didn’t work out so well, he then decided to establish a resort town on that land, calling it Broadmoor City. He built a dam to create a lake and felt that nearby Cheyenne Mountain would be a big beautiful attraction.

Seeking to lure prospective buyers to purchase lots, he built a pleasure palace, the Broadmoor Casino upon the dam.

The casino was enormous and grand, some 244ft alongside an artificial lake stocked with trout.

There were thirty-two Corinthian columns and it had a rooftop terrace.

The double staircase led to a grand ballroom and concert hall, three dining rooms and a salon for the ladies, plus two game rooms. There was a resident orchestra and he had acquired a French chef.

He installed gaming rooms on the first floor but intended making his profit on the sale of liquor since nearby Colorado Springs was a dry town. Whiskey was only sold as medicine in drug stores; there might have been a lot of people needing medicine, we can imagine.

The opening was on July 1, 1891. By the Fourth of July more than 15,000 people had visited the resort. Unfortunately, there were not many buyers of plots and, some eighteen months later, Colorado’s silver mining was affected by the financial panic of ’93. Pourtales declared bankruptcy. Four years afterwards, in 1897, the Broadmoor Casino was destroyed in a fire which started in the kitchen; witnesses reported hearing the booming of barrels of wines and liquors stored in the cellars.

While visiting Italy in 1908 the count died unexpectedly, aged 54; Berthe pre-deceased him in 1905.

 Coffin for Cash

Cash Laramie has been in plenty of tight spots, but this – being buried alive – may be his last! 

It all started innocently enough, as a favor for his boss, accompanying a rich woman in her search for her brother. The trail leads to The Bells, a strange hotel run by a brother and sister team, which just happens to be adjacent to the funeral parlor and cemetery...

His friend Miles is nearby, intent on escorting a suspected murderer to Cheyenne for trial. Yet Miles discovers that his charge might be not guilty, after all, and lingers to ask questions. And those inquiries mean upsetting some people, which leads to an ambush, and a final reckoning at the outlandish casino complex constructed by a wealthy bigoted German baron.

Throw into the mix the attractive Berenice, a schizophrenic bank manager, irate miners, Chinese workers, a boisterous slot machine salesman, and a devious lawyer and you have another explosive adventure for the Outlaw Marshal.

Dark echoes

Reading my western Coffin for Cash, you might think there is the odd echo or two from some of Edgar Allan Poe’s work. And you’d be right.

The Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles westerns were created by Edward A. Grainger, who has generously allowed other writers to embellish his characters’ lives in separate self-contained novels. They are noir westerns, so I believed it would be fitting to absorb some aspects of Poe for Coffin for Cash, the twelfth book in the series.

To begin with, I wanted to start the story with a life-threatening event for Cash Laramie. Finding himself buried alive seemed to fit the bill. The Prologue then, inevitably, has the title Premature Burial. Poe’s short story ‘The Premature Burial’ was published in 1844.

Poe’s 1835 story ‘Berenice’ is one of the few tales where the narrator is named; director Eric Rohmer made a short film of Poe’s story in 1954. Berenice is the narrator’s cousin and she is buried alive. Chapter 1 of Coffin is titled Berenice: Berenice Rohmer, an heiress who seeks the help of Cash in locating her missing brother, Horace.

“Hello, Marshal Laramie,” Berenice Rohmer said as he approached. She looked at him, her golden brown eyes shining brightly, appraising. Boldly, he returned her scrutiny. She was probably in her mid-twenties, buxom, curves pressing alluringly against the green velvet jacket; a matching hat sat askew atop her long red hair that was done up and tamed by jewelled pins. Beneath the skirt, her legs were crossed; she wore black lace-up boots with a high heel. Thin pale red lips parted slightly and then finally formed into a smile.(p4)

Gideon Miles is Cash’s closest friend. He’s at Fort Bridger to escort an accused murderer for trial, Vincent Raven, a black settler. Raven has been accused of murdering the postmaster, Mr Edgar Clemm. A local lawyer, Rufus Wilmot, saw Raven standing over the body.

Poe married his first cousin Virginia Clemm in 1835 – he was 27, she was 13 though the documentation stated she was 21. Virginia’s mother, Maria Clemm (née Poe), lived with the couple. Their relationship has been debated over the years: was it ever sexual, or were they living virtually as brother and sister? Nobody knows. I melded Poe with Clemm; it seemed apt. As for Wilmot, I decided to use Rufus Wilmot Griswold’s first two names; anthologist and editor Griswold was castigated by Poe the critic and yet perplexingly Poe chose him as his executor. After Poe’s death Griswold attempted with some success to destroy Poe’s reputation, yet hindsight confirms that Poe is remembered through his work while Griswold is not.

By now, you can see that several influences or names permeated the writing of Coffin. Chapter 2 is titled Raven. Poe’s poem ‘The Raven’ was published in 1845.

“Well, sadly for Raven, he was found in the town’s post office standing over the slain postmaster, Mr Edgar Clemm. Packets of opium were strewn about. He denies it, naturally, but the postmaster was still warm, according to a lawyer, Rufus Wilmot, who entered moments later. Sheriff Arnold Royster brought Raven here for protective custody, before he could be lynched. There’s bad feeling about him in the town, as well; Mr Clemm was a greatly liked citizen of Green River.”(p11)

The sheriff is named after Sarah Elmira Royster who was Poe’s sweetheart, but they became estranged, until years later she was engaged to Poe shortly before his death; she may have influenced his work.

Cash’s trail leads to The Bells, a strange hotel run by a brother and sister team, Roderick and Madeline Allan, who keep a black cat. ‘The Bells’ was one of Poe’s last poems, published in 1849 after his death; ‘The Black Cat’ short story was published in 1843. Coffin echoes the theme found in this story. The name Roderick is high-jacked from ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ (1839); Roderick Usher has a twin sister, Madeline.

In Chapter 6 titled Amontillado, we find that there is a Monsieur Valdemar staying at the hotel; he supplies the establishment with wine. Poe’s stories ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ (1846) and ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar’ (1845) lent themselves to the plot and characters.

The chapter headings Pendulum and Pit and Tell-Tale Heart owe their existence to Poe, too. There are several other allusions to Poe’s life and work; none dominate the story, which is essentially a gothic western.

Coffin for Cash

Visiting UK and a Coffin

Sorry, but Jen and I were visiting UK 8 to 24 September and I was remiss about setting some automatic posts to appear in my absence!

We need rain here in Spain. We had plenty our first week in Hampshire, that's for sure.  The Ford Focus hire car only had 5,600 miles on the clock; in a week, we managed to drive about 900 miles.

Drying out, we then drove up to the Lake District via the M6;we used the toll road to expedite the trip and it was just as well as at the northern end of the toll we encountered repeated tailbacks of traffic, mainly caused by road-signs advising reduction of speed to 40mph (without due cause save slip-roads joining. So the journey took about ten hours!

Although we expected it to rain in the Lake District, it didn't, though it was overcast - brooding skies over them there hills. Nil points to the town council of Keswick. On a Saturday they had minor road-works in the town centre, closing off a road, though no work in progress, and combined with the emptying of countless car-parks, contributed to a traffic jam which we endured for 1hr 40 minutes!

A traffic jam here in Spain lasts about ten minutes...

We stayed at two Premier Inns and we'd recommend them. Then we drove the route of Hadrian's Wall to stay with friends for the remainder of our sojourn, returning the hire car to Newcastle airport. 

The diet starts tomorrow... (!)

Returned home to find a new review on Amazon Com for Coffin for Cash:

Miles and Cash each follow their separate trails and end up practically with each other except Cash was buried under two feet of soil in a coffin by a couple who had owned the hotel near the Lenore Casino. It was named after the wife of Baron Hans von Kempelen, the owner. There are many twists and turns which made it even more exciting and kept my attention to the end. Five stars.

Thank you, Mr Case!

A while back, I promised more information about Coffin. This will be forthcoming. Honest.