Endless Tears for Our Beloved Icon on Thursday Morning Diary (September 15)

by Sam Juliano

The funeral service on Monday in Kendal (U.K.) for Allan Fish included an exceedingly beautiful celebration of his life at the Cathedral-like Kendal Parish Church. It was lovingly moderated by the Rev. Jo Hurst, I was beyond deeply honored to deliver a eulogy for my dear friend, -along with Allan’s uncle Dave Fish- and my daughters and I spent our time during the brief two and a half day stay with Allan’s saintly mum Sue and devoted aunt Anne Cafferkey, who once again served as incomparable hosts at the worst time in anyone’s life.  We were also stunned to be told we would be included in the main limousine with Sue, Anne and Allan’s Dad Michael.  Allan chose the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black,” “The Rains of Castamere” from Game of Thrones and the shattering “When I Am Lain in Earth” from Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell. It was so deeply moving to see Allan’s former Kendal College workers standing at attention as the procession passed by. Allan’s final resting place is under a tree in Parkside Cemetery, but this extraordinarily talented writer’s legacy is only just beginning.

 

Here is the eulogy I delivered at the Kendal Parish Church in the U.K.’s stunningly beautiful Lake District hamlet about 90 miles south of the Scottish border:

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35. The Invisible Man (1933)

by Allan Fish

Footprints in the snow

p Carl Laemmle Jnr d James Whale w R.C.Sheriff, Philip Wylie novel H.G.Wells ph Arthur Edeson ed Ted J.Kent m W.Franke Harling art Charles D.Hall spc John P.Fulton
Claude Rains (Jack Griffin), Gloria Stuart (Flora Cranley), Henry Travers (Dr Cranley), William Harrigan (Dr.Kemp), Forrester Harvey (Herbert Hall), E.E.Clive (Jaffers), Una O’Connor (Mrs Jenny Hall), Dudley Digges (Detective chief), Holmes Herbert (Police chief), Harry Stubbs (Inspector Bird), John Carradine (newspaper seller), Walter Brennan (man with bicycle), Dwight Frye (reporter),

The third of James Whale’s quarter of horror classics – after Frankenstein and The Old Dark House and before The Bride of Frankenstein – was probably chosen in response to the successful Paramount version of another H.G.Wells classic about a madman performing experiments, Island of Lost Souls. Like that earlier film, it starred a British actor, though in this case one who was not only in his debut, but whose face would hardly be seen.

Jack Griffin works in the laboratories of Dr Cranley, and is engaged to his daughter, Flora, who is also the object of devotion of Kemp, one of Jack’s colleagues. Jack leaves one day and doesn’t tell his employer or fiancée where he’s going, and arrives at a village inn heavily bandaged and wearing shielding dark glasses. He asks for a room and wants no disturbances. We learn that he has somehow managed to turn himself invisible, and is frantically searching for the antidote. However, his irritation with any interruptions grows into a deep psychosis and he soon begins to succumb to megalomania, in which he tries to implicate his colleague Kemp.

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