The Great Dan Leno

[poliphilo]

I watched the movie The Limehouse Golem last night. If you take it as a fever dream of late Victorian London- as filtered through Jekyll and Hyde, Dorian Gray and the Ripper mythos- it'll pass muster- but it hasn't got much to do with actuality. Douglas Booth has fun- and is fun to watch- playing the great comedian Dan Leno as a cross between Lily Savage and the MC from Cabaret- but enough survives of Leno's own schtick to make it plain he wasn't that kind of performer at all. He lived just long enough to make some sound recordings- they're available online- (and God bless me- they're still funny)- but the persona that is projected there is dry, precisely spoken, subtle, diffident- and not at all raucous or camp. He started out as a clog dancer and wound up as a character comedian and pantomime dame, with a line in social observation touched by surreality. Like all good comics he wanted to play it straight- in particular he fancied a shot at Richard III- and was never given the chance. The nearest we can get to a visual impression of the kind of thing he was up to is through the work of immediate successors like Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel. Like them he was a little man- playing- whether in drag or out of it- a quasi-innocent at odds with the world. Had he lived a little longer he'd have made movies himself- but he died at 43 in 1904 of workaholism tinged with alcohol. He put so much of himself into the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane that his ghost has been seen, heard and smelled there. Apparently his signature scent is lavender.

Does it matter that the movie so completely misrepresents him? Well, he was a great artist- and it's rather as though you made a movie featuring Picasso in which he's shown painting soup cans and making screen prints of Marilyn. Would that be acceptable? Only if you being deliberately disrespectful.

Comments

[cmcmck]

I've read the novel but not seen the film.

[poliphilo]

I haven't read the novel. It's very unlikely I will.

[sovay]

He lived just long enough to make some sound recordings- they're available online- (and God bless me- they're still funny)- but the persona that is projected there is dry, precisely spoken, subtle, diffident- and not at all raucous or camp.

I hadn't known there were recordings! I'll look for them.

I liked the production design of The Limehouse Golem and Bill Nighy, but it wound up feeling weirdly insubstantial, which is not a thing that often happens to me with movies and I was sorry about.

[poliphilo]

There was a lot to like- particularly the performances- but all the history was fake. Leno wasn't like that, his shows weren't like that, the psychology was unlikely and so on.

[sovay]

Leno wasn't like that, his shows weren't like that, the psychology was unlikely and so on.

There was also a distinct lack of actual golem, which I realize it is pedantic for me to complaint about, but I was still disappointed.

[poliphilo]

Yes, golem was simply used as a scary word. I was expecting a proper golem too.

[cmcmck]

You'll need to visit Prague! :o)

[poliphilo]

I reckon the movie sailed very close to a charge of cultural appropriation.

[sovay]

I reckon the movie sailed very close to a charge of cultural appropriation.

Or the author of the original novel didn't know enough about golems to begin with.