The Carpathian Dog
 (orig. Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Invisible Dog ) |
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| Radio play from Germany | |
| publication | 1979 |
| genre | Youth series / crime thriller |
| Duration | 44 min |
| Publisher / label | Europe |
| Contributors | |
| author | MV Carey |
| Machining | HG Francis |
| Director | Heikedine Körting |
| music | Bert Brac |
| speaker | |
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The Carpathian Dog (alternatively: The three ??? and the Carpathian dog ) is the title of an episode in the children's and youth series The Three ??? . It is radio play sequence number 3 and book sequence number 21. The three ??? and the Carpathian Dog was the first in the famous series that doesn't entirely deny the existence of ghosts. For this reason, the German translation has been revised after the first edition. The radio play is based on the second, changed edition.
Content (1st edition)
Seventy-year-old Mr. Fenton Prentice is harassed by shadows in his apartment. They appear suddenly and don't seem to bother each other on walls and closed doors. At the same time, Mrs. O'Reilly, the minister's housekeeper, claims to see the ghost of the former (deceased) minister in the nearby church. When Jupiter discovers light in the church one evening, he enters the church and also sees the spirit for a brief moment. In addition, the irreplaceable sculpture of the Carpathian dog is kidnapped from Mr. Prentice's apartment, who can get it back for ransom. After a while, Bob gets in touch with Professor Evelyn Lantine, who can explain to him what has happened in Mr. Prentice's apartment.
The resolution
Sonny Elmquist is a double-goer . That is, his astral body manages to step out of his body while sleeping and go on wandering. Normally, however, the bystanders do not see the doppelganger, but in this case they do, which, according to Professor Lantine, is very rare. Who the haunted pastor in the church was is not fully clarified. Justus suspects that this was also Sonny Elmquist, who played the old priest. However, this did not explain how he was able to leave the church after the police guarded it. So Bob adds that it might be the priest's ghost after all, a statement the three ??? otherwise not satisfied.
The Carpathian Dog was kidnapped by Mr. Murphy because of money problems. To this end, he carried out attacks on various tenants and himself so that he could come to the hospital unobtrusively and draw suspicion on someone else. When the money delivery was due to take place, everyone thought Mr. Murphy was in the hospital, so he had the perfect alibi. The kidnapping of the Carpathian dog had nothing to do with the priest's ghost or the shadows in Mr. Prentice's apartment.
Content (2nd edition and higher)
The seventy-year-old Mr. Fenton Prentice is bothered by flashes of light in his apartment. At the same time, Mrs. O'Reilly, the pastor's housekeeper, claims to see the ghost of the former (deceased) pastor in the nearby church (missing from the radio play). When Jupiter discovers light in the church one evening, he enters the church and also sees the spirit for a brief moment. In addition, the irreplaceable sculpture of the Carpathian dog is kidnapped from Mr. Prentice's apartment, who can get it back for ransom. After a while, Bob gets in touch with Professor Nora Arbiter, who can explain to him what has happened in Mr. Prentice's apartment.
The resolution
Sonny Elmquist is a somnambulist . This is a special form of sleepwalking: someone falls asleep, goes on a wandering, but can still communicate with the outside world, but does not remember it after waking up. Mrs. Boggle, the curious housekeeper, had illegally made a duplicate key to Mr. Prentice's apartment. When she found out that Elmquist was a somnambulist, whenever Elmquist fell asleep (which was often during the day because he worked at night) and Mr. Prentice was away, she gave him the spare key and the order to keep it in Mr. Prentice Apartment to go. There he should spy around, then tell her about it and give her the key back. But once Elmquist woke up in Mr. Prentice's apartment and saw a mandala on the ceiling. Since Elmquist is interested in meditation etc., he wants to see the mandala again and stands on the street in the evening and shines a mirror and a flashlight on the mandala (to see it that way). This is how the flashes of light came about.
The pastor's spirit is explained as saying that this was the current pastor who secretly smoked in the church as his housekeeper detested it. When the police arrived at the church, he did not dare to openly admit this to his housekeeper. She had only imagined the pastor's spirit before.
The kidnapping of the Carpathian dog remains the same and here too has nothing to do with Sonny Elmquist and the pastor.
Reviews
This episode is particularly popular with fans. In the European shop, the episode has mostly good to excellent reviews.
Jürgen Pern from Buchwurm.info writes:
- Solidly made episode, which however does not have the otherwise predominant mystery feeling; In addition, a little bit of action has been packed into too short a time. The hunt for the Carpathian dog and its thief is more like a wild hunt in which you don't need to strain your brain too much. On the part of the radio play, the hints are not presented in sufficient detail for the listener to be able to figure it out for yourself, although the characters are really interesting and rather weird. So one waits longingly for Justus to finally clear up the matter. The solution is smart, but gets lost in the action. Episode three is always worth listening to, but it is one of the weaker representatives.
The book is also very popular and makes it to number 5 of all Die drei ??? on the rocky-beach.com fan rating scale. -Books.
Sales figures
Kosmos does not disclose exact sales figures, but according to information in the books it can be concluded that there were eight editions, and the book was therefore available from 1978-86. There were 20,000 copies each of the first five editions and 25,000 each of the sixth and seventh editions. How many copies there were in the eighth edition is not known. So at least 150,000 copies appeared (not counting the eighth edition). Thus, the Carpathian dog is one of the books that is not sold too often. For comparison: The Haunted Castle : A total of 19 editions, of which 247,000 copies in the first 16 editions. The singing snake : 10 editions (180,000 copies). The secret fence was sold 1985–1999 (ie 14 years).
Trivia
- In the radio play, Mrs. Boggle became Mrs. Boogle and Nick West was incorrectly named as the author.
- The episode takes place in winter, more precisely a week before Christmas.
- In the book, the Carpathian dog is a dog whose spirit, according to legend, haunts a place in the Carpathian Mountains .
- Dr. Henry Barrister, who with Bob to Professor Arbiter / or. Lantine goes, knows the three ??? from the episode ... and the singing snake .
- The changes to the second edition were made by the translator Leonore Puschert
- The magic paste that Justus invents in this episode is later used again in episode 142, Deadly Ice . Justus has further developed them there so that not only skin turns black when it comes into contact with it, but also textiles.
- This episode isn't the only one in which MV Carey builds supernatural phenomena : In episode 31 ... and the scarred face , the old lady Mrs. Denicola has true dreams .
- This isn't the only episode in which part of the plot has been changed for the German edition. In ... and the silver spider , the action has been moved from Europe to Texas.
- In addition to the USA and German-speaking countries , the book was published in Great Britain , Spain , Italy , Greece , Sweden , Denmark , Norway , Finland , Poland , Russia and Indonesia . Thus it was translated into eleven different languages.
- The episode was awarded a gold record .
- The band Karpatenhund named itself after this episode.
Web links
- A transcript of the radio play (PDF; 97 kB)
- A legal and free re-dubbing of both versions
- Information, reviews and the opportunity to buy the radio play
- Interesting facts about the book
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.hoerspiel.de/dstore/shop/Serien/Die+drei+Fragezeichen/Die+drei+Fragezeichen+und+der+Karpatenhund/348890?gn210=H%F6rspiele
- ↑ Reference to rocky-beach.com
- ↑ First edition of the book, see also http://fragezeichen.neuvertonung.de/downloads.php#23
- ↑ Second edition of the book, see also http://fragezeichen.neuvertonung.de/downloads.php#23
- ↑ http://www.hoerspiel.de/dstore/shop/Rezensions/348890/
- ↑ http://buchwurm.info/book/angebote.php?id_book=5147&letter=D
- ↑ http://www.rocky-beach.com/cgi-bin/s_eingabe.pl?mode=follow & follow=3&print= reverse
- ↑ http://www.rocky-beach.com/php/project/f_ausgabe.html
- ↑ http://www.rocky-beach.com/cover/auflagen/sammlerueber.html#auflagenarchiv
- ↑ http://www.rocky-beach.com/hoerspiel/ Fehler/ Fehler001-025.html # 003
- ↑ http://www.rocky-beach.com/special/l_puschert/puschert_leonore2004.html
- ↑ See: The three ??? (Radio play) #Awards