I’m fascinated about origins of things, and where ideas come from that are incorporated into popular entertainment. There are lots of sources for inspiration out there, some of which we’ve noted o this Board, some of which were the basis for lawsuits for intellectual theft (Like Harlan Ellison’s suits against James Cameron for The Terminator). I’ve noted several times that you can see places where Stephen King lifted ideas for his books and stories. It’s not really scandalous – look at all of the things cited as inspiration for Shakespeare’s plays.
I’m looking for things not so often cited, or at least thinhgs most people on the Board haven’t seen (and we’re , generally speaking, a well-read bunch).
The Singular Affair of the Aluminium Crutch – one of the many Sherlock Holmes adventures cited in Doyle;s stories., This one was mentioned in The Musgrave Ritual. Naturally, it’s been used in various Homes pastiches, such as Manjot Singh’s Sherlock Holmes and the Aluminum Crutch Affair (which uses “aluminum” in place of “aluminium”, I note.) But it seems very likely to me that – well, I’ll spoiler this, because there are probably people out there unfamiliar with the story –
—it also inspired Frddeick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal, where the titular assassin uses an apparently aluminum crutch to smuggle his assassin’s rifle into the cordoned-off area so that he can shoot President Charles deGaulle with it. “Apparently” because the fabricator found that he had to substitute stainless steel for the aluminum, which wasn’t strong enough to bear weight. In the Fred Zinneman film it became a more likely pair of crutches. The Jackal had his own leg strapped up against his body and hidden by a military greatcoat, giving the impression of a one-legged man.
The Message “Rache” scratched into the wall at a crime scene – In the very first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887, they find that the murderer has written “Rache” on a wall with his fingertip dipped in blood. Inspectors Lestrade and Gregson think that the murderer started writing the name “Rachel”, but unaccountably didn’t finish. Sherlock Holmes sets them straight, pointing out that “Rache” is German for “Revenge”.
But – I’m not going to spoiler something almost 140 years old – I am astonished that I’ve never seen anyone observing that this scenario played out eight years earlier, and not in some obscure work by an unknown author. Mark Twain, in A Tramp Abroad, writes about the graffiti on the walls of the University prison at Heidelburg, noting that someone had written “Rache” on the wall:
Here and there, lonesome prisoners had eased the heavy time by altering the records left by predecessors. Leaving the name standing, and the date and length of the captivity, they had erased the description of the misdemeanor, and written in its place, in staring capitals, “FOR THEFT!” or “FOR MURDER!” or some other gaudy crime. In one place, all by itself, stood this blood-curdling word:
“Rache!” [1]
1. “Revenge!”
There was no name signed, and no date. It was an inscription well calculated to pique curiosity. One would greatly like to know the nature of the wrong that had been done, and what sort of vengeance was wanted, and whether the prisoner ever achieved it or not. But there was no way of finding out these things.
Doyle must surely have read Twain’s book, and one wonders if he had mused about the motive for writing “Rache” on the wall, and in the process created A Study in Scarlet. There’s even an illustration in the first edition of Twain’s book showing someone writing “Rache” on the wall that is echoed by illustrations for Doyle’s book showing it written there. Yet not even the two version of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes (Baring-Gould’s and Leslie Klinger’s) make any mention of Twain’s earlier use of this.
Event Horizon – the 1997 Haunted-Spaceship movie drew inspiration, according to its creators, for various sources, but one that is not mentioned is Alfred Bester’s The Stars my Destination (AKA Tyger! Tyger!). I mention it only because there’s a scene of a glimpsed ghostly burning man aboard the space ship, which exactly echoes the glimpsed image of a burning man in Event Horizon. I think they left out an influence.
Jupiter Ascending – The Wachowski’s 2015 space opera caught a lot of flak for its off-the-wall plot.
(Here’s one hilarious take on it, from Honest Trailers, frequently interrupted with notices that This is the Actual Plot of the Movie)
I have to admit that I kinda like it, despite its many shortcomings and stupidities. It looks gorgeous and has nifty CGI effects. But I also kinda like it because it looks as if the Wachowskis decided to do an adaptation of Cordwainer Smith’s Norstrilia, then decided the simply steal elements from it and write their own script . Consider, both stories have:
–An individual who, because of their inheritance, becomes effective owner of he Earth
– Both good guys and bad guys are killing each other over a life-prolonging (and youth-restoring) drug that gives potential immortality
– We’re dealing with space-spanning empires and dynasties
– There is a population of servant species that are derived from animals shaped into human form by super-Moreau efforts. (when I saw the elephant-human, I knew before they told me that it would be named “Ganesh”). Both Smith’s stories and this movie have people derived from dogs.
– There are assassins all set to capture or kill the Earth-owning human.
Anybody got anything else?