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White men and officers all of them

We recently watched "Around the World in 80 Days". I did read the Jules Verne novel when I was a kid (I believe I read all that had been translated into Finnish), so I only have hazy memories of it, but I just don't remember any of the events of this movie taking place in the book. The heroes did save one girl, but that took place in India. The twist ending of an extra day due to the fact that the characters travelled across the dateline was taken from the book, though. I would also be interested to know how the telegraph technology of that era could be used to transfer the main characters' visual likenesses for the "Wanted" posters.

Even so, I can't deny that this movie, along with the other two "the steam-era past they way it never was" movies that I have seen, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and "Van Helsing", were much better and more enjoyable than I had originally expected them to be. This expecially goes for LXG, which I think I liked the most of the three movies here: it was an actual movie with actual characters and a plot. Or perhaps my inner colonialist was just content to fantasize of exploring and conquering some new uncharted territory for my Queen. Perhaps one day I will also similarly travel the world and be called "sahib", "massa", "bwana" and "effendi" by the locals who aid me in my adventures.

For some reason, when I watched these movies, I just sat back, relaxed and took them as a fantasy, and wasn't really bothered by the extremely silly anachronisms such as the obligatory kick-butt girl character and the ethnically and religiously diverse cast of background helpers who all share the enlightened worldview of the late 20th century Swedish social democrat. In this last respect, Van Helsing especially takes the cake with the scenes set in the secret chambers under Vatican. Even though by that point I had totally accepted the magic crossbow that can shoot rapid fire volleys without even a need to pull back the string between the shots, let alone the existence of flying and shapeshifting vampires, I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Writers should always remember the golden rule that says that you can ask the audience to believe the impossible, but not the improbable.

By the way, was "Taxi Driver" the first movie in which the main character built a mechanical contraption inside his sleeve to bring a weapon to his hand? It's funny how such devices seem to be dime a dozen these days for the action heroes set in the past. They sure did know their engineering back in those days.

2 comments

"I would also be interested to know how the telegraph technology of that era could be used to transfer the main characters' visual likenesses for the "Wanted" posters."

I have heard that there were preordained sets of facial features used for this purpose, e.g. "face oval 5, moustache walrus 8, nose aquiline 3 etc"

I don't say it was first, but in the wonderful (19)60's TV show "The Wild, Wild West" lead character James West had a contraption strapped to his arm under his sleeve that would present a little derringer pistol into his hand.

And there is a veritable, physical example of one of these gizmos on display in the Los Angeles, CA, Autry Museum of Western Heritage. The one in the museum holds a playing card, so a gambler can have the machine strapped to his arm under his sleeve and use it to produce extra cards to cheat. I'm not making this up; I just saw it there weekend before last. It was from the early 1900's, I think.

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