Elisabeth Grace Foley

Historical Fiction Author

Beyond the Cover Blogathon: Kidnapped (1960)

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These days, one frequently sees popular historical novels based on the life of some real historical figure, or featuring real people from history as characters. One might say that Robert Louis Stevenson was ahead of the curve in this area. The plot of his 1886 novel Kidnapped is largely built around the real-life unsolved “Appin murder” of 1752, and a number of historical personages appear in its pages—particularly the enigmatic Alan Breck Stewart, who in Stevenson’s hands became one of literature’s most memorable characters. In the book’s dedication, Stevenson charmingly acknowledges his use of poetic license, such as in moving the year of the murder to 1751 and “the Torran rocks [having] crept so near to Earraid,” and goes on to add his opinion that his fictional imagining of the solution to the murder case is likely enough to be a correct one.

Walt Disney’s 1960 adaptation of Kidnapped was one of a string of live-action Disney movies set and filmed in Great Britain throughout the 1950s and ’60s—Disney, like other film studios, began filming in Britain in order to make use of profits from earlier films which post-WWII English treasury regulations prohibited them from taking out of the country. Kidnapped was written and directed, appropriately enough, by English director Robert Stevenson—apparently no relation to the novelist.

To be honest, when I first saw the movie years ago I didn’t think too highly of it. It seemed to rush too quickly through the plot; James MacArthur seemed too American for the role of David Balfour; it just didn’t seem very interesting. But when I saw it again within the last year, I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed it this time. Both the production values and the script seemed better than I remembered. Perhaps reconizing the slew of  fine British character actors that populated the cast, whom I’d since seen in other movies—Bernard Lee, John Laurie, Finlay Currie, Duncan Macrae, Miles Malleson—increased my appreciation a bit; perhaps having a little distance from the original novel, which I haven’t read in some years, allowed me to enjoy the movie more for itself and not merely as an adaptation. Whatever the reason, I think I would now count Kidnapped among my favorite live-action Disney movies.

At the outset of the story, young David Balfour (James MacArthur) leaves home following his father’s death to look for the uncle whose existence he has just been made aware of, supposed to be a man of property. To his dismay, Ebenezer Balfour (John Laurie) turns out to be a greedy eccentric living a miserly existence to rival even another literary Ebenezer in the ruins of his manor house. When David begins asking too many questions about his father and the family estate, Ebenezer manages to have him decoyed on board the ship of an unscrupulous business partner, Captain Hoseason (Bernard Lee) and shipped out to sea, bound for indentured servitude in the Carolinas.


But a collision at sea brings aboard another unusual passenger, exiled Jacobite Alan Breck Stewart (Peter Finch), and when David warns Alan that Hoseason and his crew are plotting to rob and murder him, the two become unlikely allies. Separated after a shipwreck, their paths cross again on the scene of the Appin murder, and with Alan the chief suspect, the pair are forced to flee for their lives across the Highlands. Their journey is marked by pursuit from soldiers, occasional wrangles with each other, and contentious encounters with highland chieftains Cluny MacPherson (Finlay Currie) and Robin MacGregor (Peter O’Toole, in his film debut), and at its end, if they reach the Lowlands in safety, will be the challenge of confronting Uncle Ebenezer and finding out the truth about David’s inheritance.


Like most feature-film-length adaptations of novels, Kidnapped basically hits the high points of the story, but hits them briskly, and chooses some of the best parts to spend the most time on—David’s introduction to Uncle Ebenezer and the crumbling House of Shaws, the battle on board Hoseason’s ship, David and Alan’s flight from the scene of the murder. All the acting is good, but Peter Finch’s vigorous performance as Alan Breck Stewart brings the biggest jolt of energy to all the scenes he appears in, much as the character of Alan does in the book—and John Laurie is hilariously scene-stealing as the miserly Ebenezer Balfour. (The scene where Alan and Ebenezer meet is one of the best in the movie; I think it even outdoes the same scene in the novel.)

It’s a colorful and visually attractive film too, with a nice historical flavor and some stunning Scottish location shooting. I suspect part of the reason that the scenes and characters largely match the way I always imagined them is because the film obviously takes some cues from N.C. Wyeth’s classic illustrations for the 1913 Scribner edition, the one I grew up with. It’s the only adaptation of Kidnapped I’ve seen (according to IMDB, there have been at least thirteen of them), but though there may be others that incorporate more of the book’s plot, I have a hard time picturing another one capturing the characters and the spirit of the story as well as this one does.

This is my entry to the Beyond the Cover Blogathon hosted by Now Voyaging and Speakeasy. Visit the host blogs throughout the next few days to check out all the other participants’ posts on movies adapted from books!

The Trail to Lost Lake House

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It’s not always easy for me to pinpoint the exact moment of inspiration for a story, or to remember what initially inspired it. More often than not I find myself with a partially-formed idea in my hands and a feeling of “Where did this come from, anyway?” But Lost Lake House is one of the exceptions—I can actually trace the little trail of influences and ideas that eventually came together in my mind to inspire the setting for the story. After recently enjoying K.M. Weiland’s fun post on 14 things that inspired her latest novel, I thought I’d do a little inspiration-backtracking of my own.

The oldest seed of an idea came from the Crooked Lake House in Averill Park, New York. I’ve never been there myself, but I’d heard various accounts of its history—according to local news articles, it began as a stagecoach stop in 1780 and was rebuilt after a fire in 1840; in its heyday it hosted famous guests such as Theodore Roosevelt and gangster Legs Diamond; and NBC broadcast live big-band concerts from it on radio during the swing era. And at some point, although I can’t trace this story now, I heard or was told that it had housed a speakeasy during Prohibition, possibly in a secret room. That idea stuck in my mind; it seemed to hold fascinating possibilities for a story. In fact, I was recently cleaning out some old notebooks and binders when I came across a scribbled note from years back suggesting the use of the Crooked Lake House speakeasy or one like it as the setting for a mystery short story. That story never happened, but the speakeasy was evidently meant to be.


Next came the fairytale “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” I had actually never heard of this fairytale till a couple of years ago. During one of Rooglewood Press’s fairytale-retelling contests, someone commented on a post at Anne Elisabeth Stengl’s blog that they hoped there would be a contest featuring this fairytale further down the line. For some reason I was intrigued by the title and looked it up. Along the way I saw this beautiful illustration by Lidia Postma, or one very like it…and because of the lake setting, I think that’s when wheels started to turn in my head…

I think it was somewhere around the same time that I read A Secret Gift: How One Man’s Kindness – and a Trove of Letters – Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression by Ted Gup. The setting was Canton, Ohio, and a few times in passing the book mentioned the Meyers Lake Amusement Park, a popular attraction for Canton residents from the 1920s onward (click here to see some vintage postcards of the park). One amusing incident that stuck in my mind was the park owner’s “accidentally” letting loose the monkeys kept on an island in the lake, in what turned out to be a highly successful publicity stunt. The idea of a colorful attraction on an island in a lake lodged in my mind, and at some point it clicked with those ideas already brewing. A hidden speakeasy on an island in a lake…it dovetailed perfectly with the plot of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, and made the Jazz-Age setting a perfect choice.

And finally, another location that contributed to my imagining of the setting was the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence Seaway. I’d once caught a few minutes of a travel program about the islands on TV, and was captivated by the shots of beautiful old villas and castles (yes, castles) built by wealthy summer residents during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, when the area was a popular summer resort. In a bit of serendipity, the photo of the house that ended up being part of Lost Lake House‘s cover is actually what is now known as Singer Castle on Dark Island!

Lost Lake House releases on March 16th, 2016—add it on Goodreads here!

photos: Wikimedia

Colorado Bound

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In the midst of getting my third Mrs. Meade Mystery into shape for publication, it occurred to me that I’ve never really talked here about where and how the series came into being. Partly, I suppose, because its beginnings are shrouded in the fogs that always seem to obscure the details of my initial inspiration in hindsight—leaving me with a complete sketch of a story idea in hand, wondering, “Now where exactly did this come from, anyway?” A guest post that I wrote several months before the release of The Silver Shawl mentions some of the things that inspired Mrs. Meade, but sheds no light on when the ideas first entered my brain or how they came together. I do remember vaguely that the plot of The Silver Shawl may have started as something I mentally tried out as a Western story and found that it didn’t quite work that way; but the characters in the final version are totally different. Exactly when and where Mrs. Meade herself first appeared, or where Sheriff Royal went from a useful side character to a full-fledged sidekick, I couldn’t say.


There is one element of the series’ development that stands out pretty clearly in my mind, though; something which I feel is an integral part of it—the setting. Colorado in the first decade of the 20th century. Again, I can’t say exactly when I picked this time and place, but I do remember how and why. It came about mainly because of two books I read, and a random sentence in a third. The first was Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden, and the second was Clover by Susan Coolidge. The former was nonfiction, the latter fiction; both were set in Colorado, and the descriptions of the setting in both books fascinated me. To begin with, I’ve always adored mountains. In addition, the juxtaposition of early 20th-century modernity with the remnants of the frontier West, as portrayed in Nothing Daunted, presented all sorts of fascinating possibilities for stories. Edwardian-era Colorado had both thriving cities and remote settlements. Ranching, mining, railroads were industries that held plenty of interest. Also, the plot of Clover was driven by the heroine’s accompanying her younger brother to Colorado for his health—which opened up even further possibilities. As a popular resort for invalids and travelers of all sorts and social classes, where could I find a better place for bringing in whatever characters I needed to fill the cast of a mystery?

The clincher might have been a sentence in Initials Only, a 1911 mystery by Anna Katharine Green, which I read just a short time after reading Nothing Daunted. A family of travelers staying at a New York hotel, filling a small but important role as witnesses to the murder that takes place in one of its lobbies, was referred to as being “well known in Denver.” Green’s work in general had a significant influence on the development of Mrs. Meade—not only did she create one of the first lady detectives in her Miss Amelia Butterworth, but the milieu of Victorian and Edwardian life portrayed in her books was one of the things that I enjoyed most about them, and which I wanted to reflect in my own historical mysteries. The reference to Denver seemed to link this in neatly with the Colorado setting that already attracted me.
 
I feel I’ve yet to fully explore the possibilities of the setting. Hopefully that will develop further in future stories. But it has provided me with a distinct backdrop to work against, and has even sparked the beginnings of some plots by itself. One thing is certain: I know I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of its potential!
 
(And incidentally, after searching for a picture to illustrate this post, I really want to go to Colorado myself…)
 
image credit: Telluride, Colorado (Wikimedia Commons)