Appendix N Review: Three Hearts and Three Lions

Where, oh where, to begin with this one? There's so much packed into Poul Anderson's 1961 novel Three Hearts and Three Lions that a thorough review would go deep into spoiler territory. And its only about 200 pages.

Okay. First, the plot. Holger Carlsen is a Danish-born engineer and former college athlete living in Pre-WWII America. When the war breaks out, he returns to Denmark and hooks up with the Danish Resistance and during a desperate mission to extract a scientist to Sweden, a bullet grazes his head and he passes out.

Waking up, he discovers himself naked in a forest with a horse waiting nearby with a set of clothes, weapons and armor. As you do.

The horse's name is Papillon (French for “butterfly”) and with the stallion, he rides to a cottage and gets advice from an old witch who sets him up with a dwarf guide named Hugi. Holger wants to know two things: How to get home, and who is this famous knight with a shield with three hearts and three lions that he's supposed to be.

He encounters a young swanmay named Alianora. She's a human girl who was gifted a cloak that allows her to change into a swan. She, like most of the other people in this world, speak in a stylized dialect meant to sound archaic that takes some getting used to on the page.

After barely evading entrapment by the Elven King Alfric of Faerie, Holger has a run-in with Morgan Le Fay, who knows him from his forgotten past, and he and Alianora begin to fall in love, though his desire to return to the Earth that he knows prevents him from acting on his feelings for her.

Holger finds himself swept up in a grander cosmic conflict as a champion of Law against the fickle and deadly Faerie armies of Chaos. Werewolves! Magic Swords! Dragons! Riddling Giants! Trolls! Heroic Saracens! Comic Relief Wizards! Throwing an Elf into another Elf! True Love!

Much has already been said about how much this story in particular has had an influence on the development of Dungeons & Dragons. Law and Chaos are foundational for the alignment system. The rapidly regenerating troll at the end that can only be permanently harmed by fire is translated directly into the Monster Manual instead of the traditional Scandinavian rock troll (though the fight with this troll is far more hardcore than anything I've seen presented in other stories). Swanmays, Nixies, Unicorns, all have their folkloric predecessors, but again, they are translated almost directly into D&D creatures from this book.

The Paladin, though, is one of the most famous/infamous D&D classes, and it comes from this book. Everything the Paladin class does in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is done in this story. Detect Evil? Yep. Character is bonded to a special mount? Yes. Immune to fear? Yes (though in Holger's case, much of it comes from being a man of action and an engineer trying to figure out practical reasons for why magic is happening around him) Laying hands on the sick to heal them? Symbolically, yes. Losing certain protections and bonuses when he begins to have impure thoughts? Yes.

Its all there. This book is the bridge between Charlemagne's heroic knightly warriors and Gygax's knights in heavenly armor. I knew that going in, and it still blew my mind to see it in action. (Incidentally, I recommend reading The Song of Roland, where Charlemagne's paladin Roland gets his famous last stand. Badass action and Charlemagne pulling on his beard in grief abounds)

The key to Holger's powers is faith. True faith. Cold Iron, the Cross, and sincere invocations of Jesus Christ all cause physical harm to the forces of Faerie, who are frequently described as having no souls. The tangible power of faith on this strange world shifts Holger from being a modern agnostic to someone who converts to Catholicism by the end (Anderson himself was apparently agnostic with a favorable attitude toward Christianity)

The book features a lot of lighthearted comedy. Holger's no idiot, but he can be a blockhead, especially around pretty ladies. The book takes frequent pauses to think up scientific reasonings for things, like how a dragon would work, or the principles behind a dagger that can be lit on fire. These excursions never get too long, but occasionally they get close.

Then, when the book gets serious, it fully commits. When Holger is presented with the challenge of identifying a werewolf that is terrorizing a town, he gets put into an emotionally difficult situation. Without spoiling it, he has to choose between two grim options, and in true Paladin form, chooses a third.

This book is nothing like the deconstructionist cynicism clogging modern bookshelves. Over and over and over, Holger Carlsen proves himself to be a true-blue White Hat style hero without ever becoming boring. Human and flawed, Holger's a dope with the ladies and a hearty drinker, but at every turn he tries to do good, and in return, becomes a better person and betters the world around him. This is the kind of heroism I've been starved for, and here it is, fully realized by a Grandmaster of Science Fiction.

I can't recommend this book enough. Read it, if for no other reason than to understand how Paladin characters are meant to be played.

Gorgeous Darrell K. Sweet cover for the Baen edition

“And some say he waits in timeless Avalon until France the fair is in danger, and some say he sleeps beneath Kronborg Castle and wakens in the hour of Denmark's need, but none remember that he is and has always been a man, with the humble needs and loves of a man; to all, he is merely the Defender.

“He rode out on the wold, and it was as if dawn rode with him.”

Movie Review: Robin Hood (1991)

So you're probably already aware of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves which is an entertaining but ultimately mediocre and hollow movie with a great soundtrack and a damn entertaining Alan Rickman performance.

But also released in 1991 was another Robin Hood movie. Directed by action veteran John Irvin and written by Sam Resnick and John McGrath. McGrath was a veteran TV writer but this is Resnick's only film credit on IMDB. The cast is full of veteran actors, but the biggest name a modern viewer will recognize is a young Uma Thurman in her Post-Baron Munchausen, Pre-Pulp Fiction early 90s period.

Robert Hode (Patrick Bergin) is the Saxon Earl of Huntington and friend Norman Baron Roger Dauguerre (Jeroen Krabbe). Things go sour when Sir Miles Folcanet (Jurgen Prochnow AKA the guy from Das Boot) arrives and arrogantly starts throwing his weight around. He's here to marry Dauguerre's niece Marian (Uma Thurman), but that's not why Robin rebels.

Much the Miller (Daniel Webb) is caught poaching and Robin stands up for him, preventing Sir Miles from blinding the peasant. During his trial, words get heated, pride gets insulted, and Robin punches his way out of the castle and becomes an outlaw with his kinsman Will Scarlett (Owen Teale). They hit upon the standard beats of the river fight with Little John (David Morrissey), the attempted thievery on Friar Tuck (Jeff Nuttall), Marian running off to join Robin disguised as a young man. All against the backdrop of Prince John's regency during King Richard's imprisonment.

So why is this “The Good 1991 Robin Hood movie?”

Tone.

It gets the spirit absolutely right. There's no way that an early 90s medieval movie would ever reach the joyful spirit of The Adventures of Robin Hood, but while the costumes and sets feature lots of browns and washed out lighting, the spirit of the movie is deeply earthy. Characters sing (not elaborate musical numbers, just little ditties as they go along). There's some swashbuckling. There's trick shooting. There are glimpses of historical awareness, though they muddle together All Souls' Day with the Lord of Misrule tradition that belongs to Christmastide or the Merry Men getting powerful Welsh longbows about a hundred or so years before they became truly dominant in English battle tactics.

These are legitimate mistakes, but there's an attempt at verisimilitude and not something so nakedly absurd as the Ewok Village or Celts or a Moor traveling the 12^th Century English countryside because he has a Wookiee life-debt like in Prince of Thieves.

Then there's the romance. Marian is great here as a strong-willed and very court-savvy young woman with a sharp tongue. She has no interest in Sir Miles, and is charmed by Robin's benevolence and hot-blooded heroics. Even when she goes tomboy, she's still a girl in disguise and not simply an action movie character with boobs. This Marian's actually kind of bad in a fight, but still manages to get some good shots in. Compare with Prince of Thieves Marian who starts off the movie showing off her sword skills but becomes useless in the climactic fight scene. 

Robin himself is great too. There's no “You killed my father/betrayed my King, I need revenge!” motivation. He's just a proud, hot-headed nobleman with a rigid sense of morality who commits to his actions. Not quite Erroll Flynn heroic, but definitely channeling him.

Jeff Nuttall's Friar Tuck is also interesting. Nuttall was a major figure in 60s counterculture and artistic movements with an anarchic streak. Here he plays Tuck as a thoroughly shady character: evicted from his monastery for murdering another friar, he now travels the countryside selling chicken bones as saints' relics. Its an interesting thought behind why a man of God would go around with a band of outlaws, but Tuck's postmodern shadiness contrasts hard with Robin's straightforward heroism.

Straightforward heroism is the order of the day here. Robin is good, Sir Miles is bad (but not “consorting with sorcery and trying to rape Maid Marian” bad), and the two spiral toward a deadly confrontation before a legitimately earned happy ending.

Besides Men in Tights, this forgotten little gem is the best Robin Hood movie made in the last thirty years or so. Highly recommended.


 

“How about making me vice president in charge of cheering you up?”

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve got a fondness for movies from past decades. Over the course of viewing and contemplating films for this here project, I’ve come to realize that I’ve got a particular fondness for the 1980s, 1930s, and (with relevance to today’s entry) the 1960s. While I am far from anything close to a hippy, I’ve got to admit there’s a definite appeal to the cocksure swagger of a good 60’s movie. 1963’s Charade, which I’ve seen quite a few times in my life, certainly qualifies.
Story
Regina "Reggie" Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) is a wealthy young woman who’s on holiday in the Alps and plans on divorcing her husband when she returns home to Paris. He beats her to the punch by getting himself thrown from a train to his death in the pre-credits sequence. At his funeral, a colorful band of shady looking types (Tex Panthollow (James Coburn), Herman Scobie (George Kennedy), and Leopold W. Gideon (Ned Glass)) make sure he’s dead and Regina starts wondering just what’s going on. She gets called in to the American Embassy by a CIA Agent named Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau) who explains that during WWII, her husband was part of a group of people who stole a hefty sum of money that technically belongs to the US government. Her husband stole the money from them, but being as he was the only one who knew where it was, a treasure hunt with deadly consequences commences. Oh yes, and along the way Reggie meets the charismatic and mysterious “Peter Joshua” (among other names) (Cary Grant), who’s reason for wanting to find the money changes as often as he changes names.

That’s really about all that I can say about the plot without stumbling into spoiler territory. Just trust me when I say that the plot twists fly fast and thick in this film, but they all make sense by the end of the movie. Basically, if Alfred Hitchcock had ever decided to make a romantic thriller in the 60s, this is the movie he would have made.

Visuals/Effects
But it’s not Hitchcock who directed this. It was Stanley Donen (who’s done all sorts of big films like Singin’ in the Rain, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Damn Yankees and some films that aren’t musicals). The visuals and pacing of the film are both outstanding. Paris looks great (as it usually does) and the pacing is lightning quick as we move from scene to scene with a near-manic urgency (which works perfectly for the mystery). Characters seldom get a chance to catch their breath, and when they do, well, its basically for Hepburn and Grant to have fantastic chemistry together as their characters struggle to trust each other as they fall in love. Also, the final chase scene and showdown is exceptionally tense and well-edited, so bonus points for that.

Writing
Screenplay by Peter Stone and based on the story “The Unsuspecting Wife” by Peter Stone and Marc Behm. Funny thing is, the writers shopped the story around first, got no bites from Hollywood, so they published it as a novel under a different title and lo and behold, the studios went for it. Say what you will about the film industry’s lack of originality, but it has always been like that.

The story works great. Yes, its based on the old plot of “we need to find the money before its too late!” but it handles that plot with a deft touch that throws in romance and some legitimately nice twists. Dialogue is great in this too, as character verbally spar with aplomb.

About the only complaint I have with the movie lies with one character, Jean-Louis, the little son of Reggie’s best friend. He shows up at a few intervals with an important part to play, but I don’t know if it’s the writing or the fairly bad dubbing on his voice, but he is annoying as all hell.

However, the character work on Regina herself is outstanding and worth noting. She’s vulnerable and in way over her head, but she is anything but helpless. She doesn’t run around with a gun in her hand, but she’s incredibly smart and resourceful, often figuring things out for herself just as often as she finds herself in trouble. Just a fantastically well-realized and believable female lead character.

Sound
Original music by Henry Mancini. You can’t go wrong with Mancini and this is very much a truism for this movie. Action sequences have a lot of percussive beats that drive things forward quite nicely as well.

Conclusion
Charade is one of those movies that I love deeply and can watch frequently. It works equally well as a Romantic Comedy as it does a crime thriller and it’s great seeing Coburn and Matthau on screen, but the real heart and soul of the movie belongs to the interaction between Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, and they’re both fantastic in this. Hepburn in particular is radiant and I dare any heterosexual male out there to not fall in love with her even a little bit after watching this. Wholeheartedly recommended.

“I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray, you wore blue.”

This one is a bit daunting because honestly, what can I possibly add that hasn’t been already said about 1942’s Casablanca, which is one of the most universally beloved films ever made? Oh well, let’s give it the ol’ college try.

Plot
WAR! It’s the early 1940s and the Third Reich is pushing its way through Europe like a hot knife goes through butter. France has fallen and a puppet government in Vichy has been established. This matters to us because in French-controlled Morocco, the authority of the Vichy government is somewhat weak and the city of Casablanca (DUN DUN DUN) has become a point of departure for countless fugitives and refugees trying to leave the horrors of the Second World War. In the middle of this tumult is an American who owns a nightclub/casino that is neutral ground for everybody. While professing not to give a damn about the war, he’s got a shadowy past that indicates otherwise. Then everything changes when an old flame of his enters his café one night looking for his help.

Characters
Rick Blaine: Humphrey Bogart plays the owner and proprietor of Rick’s Café Américain. Cool, collected and totally the king of the little world he’s made for himself, Rick is an awesome guy who’s been emotionally wounded by a lot of stuff in the past and hides it all under a tough exterior. He gets a jolt when an old lover reenters his life, looking for help with her husband in tow. So now Rick’s torn in a bunch of directions: Does he give her the brush off for leaving him all those years ago? Does he help her and her husband escape German soldiers? Does he send her hubbie up the river in and abscond to America with her? Some fantastic drama comes out of the situation and while Rick gets challenged, he never really loses his competence or badass nature.

Ilsa Lund: The beautiful Ingrid Bergman plays the old lover. She and Rick had a whirlwind romance in Paris right before the War. She fell in love with him while she believed her husband had been killed by the Germans. When she found out about his survival, she left Rick without explanation. Understandably, his feelings were hurt. Now in Casablanca, some of that old romance bubbles up and causes no end of drama.

Victor Laszlo: Paul Henreid plays a Czech resistance fighter who is like a cockroach the German’s can’t kill. He’s technically the hero of the film (and the most heroic), an idealist, but he’s also got a stick up his ass. Yes he loves Ilsa, but when you see the pain written on Rick’s face, you can’t really blame the guy for considering giving Victor over to the Germans.

Captain Louis Renault: Claude Rains (who is quickly becoming one of my favorite 30s-40s supporting actors) plays the affably corrupt chief of police. He’s a womanizer, takes bribes and is completely willing to arrest people on trumped up charges, but he’s also a pragmatic man with little love for Vichy or German interference. Renault is something of a wild card in the film, working toward his own benefit, but he also gets the lion’s share of funny dialogue, especially the banter with Rick. Captain Renault is awesome.

Major Strasser: Conrad Veidt (the sleepwalker Cesare from silent classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) plays the German officer who arrives in Casablanca looking for Laszlo. Tall, aristocratic and actually somewhat reasonable, he’s also unwavering in his pursuit of any kind of reason or excuse to arrest the freedom fighter and bring him back to Germany. Clearly the Villain, but nuanced enough to have a bit of sympathy.

Signor Ferrari: Sydney Greenstreet (The Maltese Falcon) plays a “rival” nightclub owner who has extensive underworld connections and information. Fairly minor, but Greenstreet does a great job of it.

Ugarte: Peter Lorre (also The Maltese Falcon) essentially has one scene, but it is crucial to the plot. He’s a shady character who gets his hands on some letters of transit, a legal, valid means for anyone who has them to leave Morocco, no questions asked. He hands them over to Rick for temporary custody while he lays low, but he gets arrested soon after, so Rick just keeps them for himself. These letters become the film’s maguffin.

And then there are the tertiary characters; the staff of Rick’s Café led by Dooley Wilson as the pianist Sam. While minor, they’re all well defined and have some great scenes & dialogue.

Visuals/Effects
Michael Curtiz (The Adventures of Robin Hood) with director of photography Arthur Edeson created one hell of a picture. You have some elements of noir in the lighting, but the atmosphere and exotic setting (through the miracle of soundstages) really give the film a completely unique feel. Masterfully done.

Writing
Based on the play Everybody Comes To Rick’s by Murray Burnett & Joan Alison and screenplay by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein & Howard Koch (and Casey Robinson uncredited). The plot, characters, dialogue and general interplay are all excellent. There’s a lot of quotability in this film and a lot of good turns and some outstanding scenes. Possibly my favorite is the one where Rick is in the bar after closing, bitter, confused and trying to drown the old wounds Ilsa just reopened. It’s powerful, and Bogart nails it with the right amount of pathos.

Sound
The original score by Max Steiner is excellent in every possible way, but a number of songs have huge parts in the success of the movie. The “theme” is “As Time Goes By” written by Herman Hupfeld for a Broadway show from the 30s and sung by Dooley Wilson, then hummed here and there and even worked into Steiner’s score. Then there’s a key character moment in Rick’s where the Germans led by Strasser sing “Die Wacht Am Rhein” and Laszlo rallies the rest of the bar to drown them out with the (Free) French anthem “La Marseillaise.” It could have easily been a cheesy scene, but here it works and is one of the classic moments of the film.



Conclusion
It’s Casablanca. It could have very easily been a cheap, cheesy melodrama/call to arms for the United States to get involved in WWII, but instead we get a tender, character driven Romance that uses the war as a grim backdrop that weighs heavily on every character. In blunt terms, this film is Art. Required viewing.