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June 2000, Week 4

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From:
Donald Larsson <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Tue, 27 Jun 2000 11:16:02 -0500
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I rather wonder what the "first" (or least earliest that we know of)
mortician in cinema would have been? (I don't really recall one as a
"character" but the funeral in ENTR'ACTE is fairly early.)

Some others that come to mind:
The doctor who doubles as mortician in Dreyer's VAMPYR
OLIVER! and other film versions of OLIVER TWIST and some other Dickens
adapations (eg., A CHRISTMAS CAROL, although I doubt that Jeremy
Cruncher, the grave-robbing "resurrection man" of TALE OF TWO CITIES
counts)
David Warner's Western undertaker in Peckinpaugh's THE BALLAD OF CABLE
HOGUE
The speakeasy front funeral parlor in SOME LIKE IT HOT
The one-armed "funeral director" who stages a fake funeral for a spy in
Hitchcock's SECRET AGENT
Of course, the satirical treatment of the death industry in THE LOVED
ONE


Most of these examples, of course, tend to laugh in the face of death.
I don't know if anyone has ever tackled the notion of a
mortician/funeral director as a main character.


Don Larsson



On Tue, 27 Jun 2000 10:01:54 -0400 PLatham <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Closely similar to film morticians, in spirit anyway, are the various
> doctors and gravediggers in THE BODY SNATCHER (1945) and the family members
> and minister who terrorize the child in 3 FACES OF EVE. I think also that
> some appeared in a Roger Corman version of one of Poe's stories (THE STRANGE
> CASE OF M. VALDEMAR?)
>
> Peter Latham
>
> ----
> Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
> University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu

-----------------------------------------------------------
Donald F. Larsson
English Department, AH 230
Minnesota State University
Mankato, MN 56001

----
Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu

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