> 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.
>

What about Dan Aykroyd's character in MY GIRL?


----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald Larsson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2000 11:16 AM
Subject: Re: Reply: Morticians in the Media


> 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
>
>

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