Who Was That Man?
Nov. 14th, 2006 08:24 pmI just watched 'A Vintage Year For Scoundrels', the first episode of Adam Adamant Lives!, a bizarre black-and-white drama from the sixties, and it is quite possibly the daftest thing that I have ever seen. The basic plot is that a crimefighting Victorian is put into suspended animation and revived in 1966. It's sort of like a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Life on Mars in reverse, but it makes ten times less sense. He is very out-of-place indeed, and he worries about compromising a young lady's honour by being alone with her, and when a telephone starts ringing he is obviously very confused and threatens it with a sword. It is marvellous.
My absolute favourite part is at the very beginning, when he's still in 1902:
Adam and Woman: (dancing at a ball)
Adam: (sees two men and inexplicably throws one of them off a balcony)
Woman: Be careful, Adam!
Adam: (fights the other man in a very silly way, eventually manages to immobilise him) You have the choice between facing His Majesty's Executioners, or... (indicates the drop from the balcony)
Man: Thank you. (climbs up onto the parapet)
Other Man: (comes out onto the balcony just in time to see Man fall backwards off it) Good Lord. (walks over to Adam) Not dancing, Adam? (looks over the balcony at the lethal drop) Who was that man?
Adam: He was here to assassinate His Majesty.
Other Man: My goodness. Well, you should tell His Majesty about it. He'll want to thank you.
Riona: (in stitches)
Unfortunately, the female lead is A Wee Bit Useless. When she went running after the villain I thought for a moment that she was going to do something useful, but it turned out that she was just Actively Getting Kidnapped. The female villain was, however, awesome. ("Where's Miss Jones?" "The girl? Oh, she's dead, ducky. Ha, got you there, didn't I? No, she's upstairs.")
On a completely unrelated note, a fact that I meant to include in the 'random facts about yourself' meme but forgot: when I was six-ish and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would answer, in perfect seriousness, "A mouse." I never understood why people looked at me so oddly. IF PEOPLE KEEP ASKING ME WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP, IT IS PERFECTLY REASONABLE FOR ME TO ASSUME THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO GROW UP TO BE ANYTHING.
My absolute favourite part is at the very beginning, when he's still in 1902:
Adam and Woman: (dancing at a ball)
Adam: (sees two men and inexplicably throws one of them off a balcony)
Woman: Be careful, Adam!
Adam: (fights the other man in a very silly way, eventually manages to immobilise him) You have the choice between facing His Majesty's Executioners, or... (indicates the drop from the balcony)
Man: Thank you. (climbs up onto the parapet)
Other Man: (comes out onto the balcony just in time to see Man fall backwards off it) Good Lord. (walks over to Adam) Not dancing, Adam? (looks over the balcony at the lethal drop) Who was that man?
Adam: He was here to assassinate His Majesty.
Other Man: My goodness. Well, you should tell His Majesty about it. He'll want to thank you.
Riona: (in stitches)
Unfortunately, the female lead is A Wee Bit Useless. When she went running after the villain I thought for a moment that she was going to do something useful, but it turned out that she was just Actively Getting Kidnapped. The female villain was, however, awesome. ("Where's Miss Jones?" "The girl? Oh, she's dead, ducky. Ha, got you there, didn't I? No, she's upstairs.")
On a completely unrelated note, a fact that I meant to include in the 'random facts about yourself' meme but forgot: when I was six-ish and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would answer, in perfect seriousness, "A mouse." I never understood why people looked at me so oddly. IF PEOPLE KEEP ASKING ME WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP, IT IS PERFECTLY REASONABLE FOR ME TO ASSUME THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO GROW UP TO BE ANYTHING.
