Then, sir, you leave me no other choice. A duel.
Choose your weapon. En garde!
I accept.
I chose daggers flamberge. That is to say knives whose blades curve and twist like the twisting of serpents or the flickering of flames.
I warn you that I own several such blades and am quite adept at their use.
I shall wed Eve.
But you shall marry the dancing maiiiiideeeen!
The 1931 Univesal Pictures Frankenstein was set in Goldstadt, Germany. Frankenstein studied medicine at the Goldstadt Medical College, at which three scenes are set.
The 1931 movie was adapted from Mary Shelley’s novel via Peggy Webling’s 1928 stage play, which sets Act I, Scene 1 in “The living room of Victor Frankenstein, in an old house in Goldstadt, Germany.”
Presumably Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939) were set in Goldstadt, too. So, where did you get the idea that Frankenstein was set in Transylvania?
Oooooh, a duel!
I am so enjoying this.
[Eve gets her Playbill and marons glaces and settles down with her opera glasses]
Of couyrse, you can’t buy the movies today–none of them. I e-mailed Universal Studios today to ask when they would re-release their Classic Monsters Collection (because someone stole my copy of Dracula with the Philip Glass score, bastards) and their reply was, “Try amazon.com.”
Actually, I’m so ticked over this I may have to vent in the Pit.
THUNK
blink blink “My arm! You cut my arm off! Oh well, 'tis only a flesh wound. Continue I saw!”
I saw? I say, curse it all, I say!
Now, to attack on a second front. For just as your arm is no match for my arm, your mind is no match for my mind.
Look at my blade! See how death lays upom its edges and hangs like a dark star from the very tip? See how she shines? How she shines? How she shines? Folllllooow the shine. Folllloooow.
I’m not sure, but I think the answer may not reside in the old Universal flicks, but instead in the Hammer ones.
Dueling saws?
Eve, my Great-Grandmother was Transylvanian, and I love old cemetaries!
Let me whisk you away to the South, where Winter never (not really never) comes, and Spanish Moss (not moss) grows on the cemetary trees.
Murfreesboro, albeit a smaller city, has both a Civil War era Military cemetary, Evergreen Cemetary (started prior to the CW, lovely old tombs); and a small plot reserved for our Revolutionary War Hero, Colonel Rutherford, who served under Washington.
Eve, Be mah little Scarlet O’Hara, mah sweet magnolia blossom.
Leave these two crude cads to their common brawl.
Mah, [imah*. Three big ol’ men duelin’ ovah stout little middle-aged me, while gobeah tries to keep the thread on-topic . . .
[fans herself with her Playbill]
Bah! Fool! You’re a child playing a man’s game.
The two flamberge daggers are not the only weapons in my arsenal.
I own a tuxedo, a black velvet cape, and severl canes.
And I’m prepared to use them.
You think you can compete with me?
Can you suddenly appear on the street beneath Eve’s window, dressed to the nine, dancing through pools of light and shadow as Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre echoes upon the stones?
Of course you can’t.
But I can. I am the dark prince of her dreams, riding up on my ebon steed to rescue her from the crowds of smiling fools to carry her back to my castle of midnight stone where she will dwell in rapture forever.
[She’s too ovah-come to even preview!]
Oh ho, is that so? Well let me draw my trusty quarterstaff.
And now, Ho! Hah-hah! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Hah! Thrust! THUNK
Damn.
Victory is mine!
Though my use of mesmerism failed, the duel is mine.
We agreed upon the weapons. By drawing a staff you have violated that agreement. You are in forfeit.
Now all that remains is to select the proper diamond poisoner’s ring and slip it on to the finger of my lady.
Poisoned rings? Feh. Story of my life.
I have a tuxedo, a cane, a red silk lined cloak, and a top hat! HO-HO!
And several medals, awarded by fictional-but-real-sounding European Orders!
Top that!
Not a poisoned ring my dear. I shall gift you with a poisoner’s ring, beneath the stone shall be a compartment for the storage of poison, the better to drop it into a glass of wine.
Just as I said, I am the fulfillment of your heart’s wish. You knew the ring upon your finger was but a prop. I offer you the real one, bearing a diamond and my heart.
In the theater the professor patiently explains the audience that he was talking about the later movies not getting it right, not the originals, the professor gets hopeful he is getting somewhere since it is possible that the blame is the Hammer films, and then Mel Brooks…
Suddenly, the scenery falls back and shows a duel to death with Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor, DocCathode and Michael Ellis!
Poison is mentioned, then Eve says: “Poisoned rings? Feh. Story of my life.”
Out of nowhere Vincent Price stands up and says with a wild expression: …“Do you remember the fun we had when you poisoned me?”…
Ring schming. How would you like a diamond necklace that formerly belonged to the Princess of Wales? Not the current one, one of the old whales. And when I say Whales I mean whales.
Anyone want to jump in here? Anyone at all. Anyone can jump in. Into this beautiful rope net. Jump into rope. Jump rope. Does anyone want to jump rope?
I challenge you to a jump rope contest, and while you’re jumping rope I’ll dump you.