Okay, so I’m two episodes into “The Stones of Blood” and there was something really bugging me about the woman playing Professor Emelia Rumford…I mean really bugging me. Honor Blackman kept popping into my head, although they are absolutely worlds apart from each other, but I couldn’t figure out why.

After a bit of wiki research, I found the following information:

Beatrix Lehmann (1 July 1903, Bourne End, Buckinghamshire - 31 July 1979, London) was a British actress, theatre director and author.

Lehmannn trained at RADA and made her stage debut as Peggy in a 1924 production The Way of the World at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. As well as her extensive theatrical career she appeared in films, on television, and wrote short stories and two novels including Rumour of Heaven first published in 1934 (ISBN 014016166X).

In 1946 Lehmann became director and producer of the Arts Council Midland Theatre Company.

In 1978 she gave a memorable performance in the Doctor Who serial The Stones of Blood as Professor Emilia Rumford. She also played Susan Calvin in two episodes of British science fiction series Out of the Unknown. In 1979 she played Mrs Pleasant in a film version of The Cat and The Canary. Other roles include parts in Z-Cars, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, War and Peace, Love for Lydia, Staircase, and Crime and Punishment.

She came from a family of notable achievers: she was a daughter of humourist Rudolph Chambers Lehmann, and her great-uncle was the Henri Lehmann the artist. Her brother was writer John Lehmann and her sister was novelist Rosamond Lehmann.

There are 12 portraits of Lehmann in the British National Portrait Gallery Collection.

It hit me like a ton of bricks: In 1979 she played Mrs Pleasant in a film version of The Cat and The Canary. Well, of course that’s why Honor Blackman was popping into my head; they both were in the movie. I won’t even touch the bit about Honor Blackman’s connections to Wilfred Hyde-White, who was also in the 1979 movie…at least not now.

And then a bit more wiki research lead me to this bit of fun:

Director Darrol Blake originally offered the role of Vivien to Honor Blackman, who declined the part as she felt Beatrix Lehmann had all the best material. Blake then asked Maria Aitken, who wasn’t interested. Susan Engel was finally hired for the part. Blackman would later appear in the Sixth Doctor serial Terror of the Vervoids (1986).

Ohh, this type of trivia is one of favorite things in the world!!

A quote from the slapshoe slapping, flat hat wearing man himself. I downloaded quite a few more silent movies this weekend; I’ve pretty much exhausted the silent offerings at the Public Domain Movie Torrents website - there weren’t that many to begin with, but boy, are there some classic bad talkies. Holy cripe! It’s a hoot and some of them are definitely up for a post some day.

I’ve been poking round the Internet Archive more and more; the site has quite a collection of silent movies. Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, the quality of these downloads isn’t always the best, but typically, I’m not really too much concerned with that type of thing enough to eschew the site’s seemingly endless offerings.

The officially oldest movie in my collection now is the Irwin-Rice Kiss, made in 1896. Granted, it’s not a movie per se - complete with a storyline, but the players, Irwin and Rice move, so it’s a movie, right? I may pop this bit of cinema history into the computer tonight and watch it, since I haven’t yet, mainly because I managed to misplace the disc about the time I ejected if from the computer on Sunday night and just found it this morning.

I started watching the 1927 version of The Cat and The Canary last night; I’ve tried watching it a few times in the past, but it always managed to put me to sleep. This time around, though, I’m not going to let that happen because I really do want to see it through, not to mention it’s one of those oddly colored silent movies I find so absolutely mesmerizing. This movie has been remade a handful of times - the earliest version is what I’m currently watching. Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard rolled with it twelve years later with some slight changes to character names. Unfortunately, the last time I looked for this version on Amazon, it was not available on DVD; I see now it is, for Region Two and for a bit more money than I’d like to spend on it.

Forty years later, Radley Metzger got his hands on the story - this was the first version I’d ever seen and I’ve watched it more than a few times since. In fact, I have this on tape and DVD (not my original plan), believe it or not, thanks to my goal of owning every single Honor Blackman movie I can get my hands on. Naturally, this is my preferred version because of Honor Blackman - my favorite actress - ever! That she portrays a lesbian (Strange Cousin Susan) involved with Olivia Hussey doesn’t detract from the movie at all…except the ewww factor gets notched up about million levels when you realize they’re cousins. But after you recover from that, you may realize those two are really good together.

I’ve veered so terribly from my intended topic that I don’t see how I can get back on track with it now; I hope to return to it soon - perhaps between now and then, I can corral my thoughts a bit more and appear more focused than I typically do.