Conan Doyle at the Movies
Conan Doyle at the Movies is an article written by Christopher Roden published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 7, 1996/7).
This short article reproduces a 1926 interview with Arthur Conan Doyle from Motion Picture Classic, in which he comments on cinema and the film adaptation of The Lost World. The conversation also reveals how his main interest at the time remained Spiritualism, lectures, and psychic investigations rather than the film industry.
Conan Doyle at the Movies
An article for which Motion Picture Classic magazine interviewed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Thanks to the generosity of Roy Pilot, we are able to reproduce below the text of a recently-discovered article from the pages of the April 1926 issue of Motion Picture Classic magazine.
The article in which the Conan Doyle interview appeared was entitled 'Four Famous Writers Consider the Films', and the other contributors were Thomas Burke, Sir Anthony Hope, and Ralph D. Blumenfeld.
When we think of Conan Doyle in relation to films, our minds inevitably turn to The Lost World. So many of us would dearly like to see the footage of Conan Doyle which was filmed for the opening scenes of that film.
Disappointingly, perhaps, ACD discloses very little in this interview about films he has seen. We should, however, remember that in 1926 his mind was very much occupied with other interests, as the following confirms:
- SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE is as different from [Thomas] Burke as day is from night, which is a fitting simile. He is a great big, smiling, spontaneous fellow; enthusiastic about everything, particularly some new 'finds' he had made in the spirit world, of which he showed me the negatives. Then he showed me some alleged photographs of fairies that had recently come into his hands.
- All movie fans will readily recall The Lost World, taken from a book of the same name by Doyle, by the way. It is no more the story of a group of scientists who went out and stumbled over a lost world of still-existing prehistoric uncivilization than it is a spectacle of the drama in the lives of those mastodonic animals under the pressure of a great catastrophe. The marvelous feature of the picture lies in the reproduction of all the antediluvian — 'auruses' — dinosauruses, ichthyosauruses, etc. — in the life.
- 'How did you like the filming of The Lost World?' I asked Sir Arthur.
'Oh, the films did it very well, very well,'
he said enthusiastically.- 'Do you go to the cinema much?'
'I can't spare much time for them — you see, I have my own little shows to carry on.'
He indicated a long box full of slides he was looking over.'I'm on my way to Brighton now to give a lantern-slide lecture. This little box has been all over America with me — competing with the films.'
He laughed good-naturedly.- 'Did you collaborate at all in the making of The Lost World?'
'Oh, no. Why should I? They know their work amazingly well, it's a great art in itself. They made an amazing thing out of my book, I should say. Don't you think so? Altho I confess, I don't think it will ever add much to my reputation — you know what I mean it's not the sort of thing I'm really doing, you know.'
- I thought I knew what he meant and I told him that I did not think that anything could ever add to his reputation after doing Sherlock Holmes. But Sir Arthur did not know that Holmes had been filmed.
- He shook his head uncertainly about it.
'What I am looking forward to is the appearance of moving — that is, animated — photographs of the fairy and spirit world. They are bound to come!'
- He always came back to his fairies or his spirits.
'It's my life-work,'
he added later in explanation.'But there is no doubt whatsoever that the films reach a great audience and their power for good — and evil — is enormous. For that reason alone they all ought to be good — I mean well conceived, well done and bring about well-being. Come, wouldn't you like to run down and see my Psychic Book Shop which I have just opened in conjunction with Sir Oliver Lodge? I'll call a taxi.'
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
