Dickens’ Oliver Twist would be a good example.
Anyone got any more/better ideas
ATM – Films or books whose plots are resolved by the discovery of long-lost letters or legal papers
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Musings on the byways of popular culture
All suggestions gratefully accepted
I think that there was a couple of Dickens books that were resolved by legal documents.if I remember correctly Nicholas Nickelbey and bleak house.
Not resolved perhaps but (spoiler alert) the graphological dissection of
Logan Roy’s will by Kendall is a highlight of Successions ending.
Bleak House was based on several court proceedings concerning the contesting of wills and the interminable time it took to resolve them.
The greatest story ever told: Jean de Florette – Manon des Sources. César never received the letter from Florette telling him of their child, so doesn’t know that the man he is tormenting is his own son. When he eventually finds out, waaaay too late, he writes a letter to the woman he now understands is his granddaughter and he up and dies.
Good. Bastard.
Keep em coming…
Bleak House was the one I was thinking about as the never-ending legal case (Jarndyce Vs Jarndyce) at the centre of the book is very relevant to the planning dispute in which I’ve been involved these last few years.
Unfortunately, rather than the discovery of a secret document that I recalled from reading it many, many years ago, it seems J vs J shudders to a halt when the two parties exhaust their funds arguing the case
@Jaygee Spoiler alert!
The case of J&J IS resolved in Bleak House but, once the legal costs have been deducted from the Award…there is nothing left.
I seem to remember that part of the plot does indeed revolve around a missing legal document which is found to be held by a ne’er do well.
[Spoilers] My knowledge of the two films revolves mostly around a lengthy and solemn exegesis by my friend Geoff of the scene wherein Ugolin finds Manon’s ribbon and literally sews it into his skin, delivered with suitable solemnity and gravitas. Followed, after a perfectly-timed short dramatic pause, with the adoption of a broad East Anglian accent to deliver the conclusion “‘As lucky ‘e din’t foind ‘er boike!”
Excellent question! I’m going to rack my
my brains to think of plots where a lost or forged will is a major plot element.
Atonement?
Mary Poppins returns
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious call!
An important plot development in Tess of the Durbervilles hinges in the lack of discovery of a letter.
Yes, I was thinking on those lines.
“Sweet Danger” by Margery Allingham (1933) one of Allingham’s Albert Campion mystery novels.
Adapted for TV as a two-parter in the series “Campion” starring Peter Davidson as the sleuth Campion and Brian Glover as his ex-jailbird manservant Magersfontein Lugg. Currently viewable on the BBC iPlayer.
The plot revolves around the title to a tiny little Kingdom which has become of strategic importance. A British Artistocratic family, believed to have died out were heirs to the throne but an impoverished family in Suffolk claim they are the true heirs. They lack the original title deed and a certain birth certificate to prove their claim. The documents in question have been deliberately hidden long ago. Campion is sent by the Foreign Office to find the proof and keep the place in British hands. An unscrupulous financier wishes to find the documents before Campion, the F.O. and the Suffolk family.
“The 39 Steps” novel turns on them finally cracking clues in a notebook they have not fully understood throughout the story. This was not used in the film though.
Not quite the same thing perhaps, but in the brilliant childrens book Jessamy by Barbara Sleigh (which is time travel fantasy reminiscent of Edith Nesbit) there is first a letter lost in time but found – and then lost again…but at the end they find the hidden (stolen) book and by its return a mystery is solved for an old man (that she knew when he was a young boy, back in time) and the title character is rewarded in present time.
To the best of my recall the resolution of Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum involves a missing manuscript.
Thinking about it, his novel The Name Of The Rose also involved a hidden/forbidden manuscript.
Something of a theme here, Umberto.
In The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana the narrator – an antiquarian bookseller – dies just as he unexpectedly finds his book holy grail in the attic of his old family house (and you just know that his family won’t realise that it’s worth an enormous sum of money and just chuck it out with the rest of the old trash…)
Cheers everyone. Dickens is the way to go methinks
From an audience perspective, would you consider Memento?
I think any old-style letters Guy Pearce’s character in Memontoe might refer to would be rolled up and concealed in a place where I personally would far rather not look
Yellowface is a book about a book. Two friends, one a very successful author, the other a struggling author are having a carry on in the famous one’s apartment. The famous one dies suddenly. She had just finished a new book though it was still in manuscript form. Struggling author steals it and passes it off as her own. She then becomes famous, but fans of the other author smell a rat as the book is in the style of the famous one, as is the subject matter and nothing like anything the former struggling author has written.
Trying not to spoil it here, but evidence is found in other papers. Not long lost papers so I don’t know if this is what you’re looking for.
Read that. Very funny book.
Similar in many ways to James Percival’s American Fiction (way better than the film)
The Quincunx, by Charles Palliser is a (very) sprawling, complex novel around the identity of the central character among 5 interrelated families and a missing will. I followed it to the end, where it doesn’t resolve itself and there seems to be something missing in the text that I couldn’t be arsed to go back through the dense passages to find. Very Dickensian.
I think some of Iain Pears’ work could fall into the category or text-related resolutions.
Read both the Quincunx and Iain Pears’ Instance of the Fingerpost many, many years ago. Would love to re-read them – maybe if I get stuck on a desert island.
Not sure if you know, but when naming the hero In The Quincunx, CP used Charles Dickens’ real name (John Huffam)
Instance of the Fingerpost I read before Quincunx, and it was an absolute delight and revelation, as each of the successive authors took over the story and spun things round in a completely different perspective. I hoped Quincunx would be as good but it wasn’t. The Crimson Petal and the White, however, was – same Victorian London as Quincunx, but much more humane in its approach.
National Treasure; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Treasure_(film)
Beau Geste, by P.C Wren. A letter from the SPOILER late Micheal ‘Beau’ Geste reveals the real reason why the ‘Blue Water’ diamond disappeared, and practically every male member of the Geste family joined the French Foreign Legion.
The Quincunx, by Charles Palliser. This is still in my ‘to read’ pile, its 1200-odd pages constituting most of the height of said pile. I know that various letters, wills and documents either resolve – or not, due to unreliable narrators – the story of John Mellamphy/Huffum. I really must read it.