Gucumatz

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Gucumatz , cover of the paperback edition around 1930, graphic design by Heinrich Hussmann

Gucumatz , also Gucumatz the Almighty or The Feathered Serpent (English original title: The Feathered Serpent ), is a crime novel by the British writer Edgar Wallace from 1927. The focus of the novel is the attack on the actress Ella Creed and the murder that followed shortly afterwards of her friend Joe Farmer and the appearance of mysterious cards with a picture of a feathered snake.

content

General and formal structure

Like all Edgar Wallace crime novels, the novel Gucumatz is entirely fictional. It comprises 171 pages in the German pocket thriller edition and is divided into 23 consecutively numbered chapters which, with the exception of the last, have no title of their own. The last chapter is entitled "The Story of the Feathered Serpent By Peter Dewin" and represents the newspaper report by the fictional reporter and protagonist Peter Dewin on the case described in the novel. The entire book is reproduced from the position of an omniscient narrator in the past tense. The story takes place in London , with the specific locations changing depending on the people viewed. The main strands of the plot accompany the various protagonists, especially the reporter Peter Dewin, the secretary Daphne Olroyd, the actress Ella Creed, Leicester Crewe, Paula Staines, Gregory Beale and the police inspector Clarke.

action

Gucumatz , cover of the "Rote Krimis" issue, 1962, with an illustration of the key and the riddle

Shortly after actress Ella Creed is ambushed, her boyfriend Joe Farmer is shot dead. In both cases, a card with a feathered snake is left behind, which Leicester Crewe and Paula Staines also received. Reporter Peter Dewin and Police Inspector Clarke begin their investigations and research and try to solve the case. The secretary Daphne Olroyd, private secretary of Leicester Crewe, is present at the murder and takes a wallet into custody, which she hands over to the reporter Dewin shortly afterwards. Inside, he will find a small key with the number 7916 and a cardboard strip on which there are two sequences of letters one below the other:

FTBTLZSY
HVDVNBZA

He identifies the lines as cipher and determines that they are consecutive letters, between which one letter is missing:

FTBTLZSY
GUCUMATZ
HVDVNBZA

Daphne Olroyd changed jobs shortly after the murder and was hired by the wealthy scholar and collector Gregory Beale. With their help, he wants to catalog the collection of South American artifacts he has created, including a figure of the feathered serpent Gucumatz, the Maya equivalent of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl . Dewin visits Beale to find out more about the feathered snake and learns that there is an internationally organized secret society that serves the feathered snake and is mainly active in prisons.

Aztec sculptures of feathered serpents in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City; Gucumatz is a version of this snake in the Maya culture.

In the course of the investigation, Leicester Crewe is also killed while he is staying with Gregory Beale and wants to sell him worthless shares. He is shot while Dewin and Clarke are inside, the shot apparently from outside the apartment through the window and leaving a hole. William Lane, arrested as a counterfeiter, is increasingly emerging as a potential perpetrator, but apparently he was killed in an accident after his release and on whose trail you come through his companion Hugg. Dewin and Daphne Olroyd become increasingly friends and she tells him several details about the actress Creed, Leicester Crewe and also Gregory Beale and his collection. In the course of further events, Daphne Olroyd is kidnapped and taken to a remote building, but later it turns out that this is due to a mix-up with Ella Creed, whose coat she was wearing. When Ella Creed visits Gregory Beale's house to question Daphne Olroyd, she collapses at the sight of the figure of the feathered serpent. At the end of the novel she is kidnapped and locked up, but Peter Dewin can find her.

enlightenment

Peter Dewin published the clarification of the case in the newspaper at the end of the novel. Gregory Beale is identified as the murderer and kidnapper, who was innocently imprisoned by four people: John Farmer, Ella Creed, Leicester Crewe and Paula Staines, who first cheated him out of a large sum of money and then accused him of being a counterfeiter. Beale, who was trying to build council houses anonymously as William Lane at the time, had fallen in love with Ella Creed, sister of Leicester Crewe and wife of Joe Farmer. They persuaded Beale to deposit a large sum in a bank safe that could only be opened with a key and a secret password. They then arranged for a police search of the forgery workshop of John Farmer and Paula Satines, during which William Lane was arrested and jailed on statements from Farmer. After Beale was released from prison, he bought a collection of South American artifacts and declared his long absence by an expedition to South America, after which he took revenge on the people who betrayed him. Shortly before he can be arrested, he flees London.

Publication and reception

Edgar Wallace (1928)

Editions and translations

The novel The Feathered Serpent was published in 1927 by Hodder & Stoughton in London as a detective novel and, like most of Edgar Wallace's novels, was subsequently translated into several languages. The novel was also published under the titles Inspector Wade and Inspector Wade and the Feathered Serpent , and appeared in the United States in 1928 by Doubleday, New York. In The Spectator magazine , the book was described as a typical novel by Edgar Wallace after its publication. According to the magazine, this was the second book in two months, so it is not surprising that readers who know Wallace well find it lacking in originality. However, for readers less familiar with Wallace, it is recommended because of the tension and surprises:

“It is not, therefore, surprising that there is little originality in the weaving and solution of its plot, for this rate of output is what we have now learned to expect from Mr. Wallace. But anyone who has not already read most of his books will find The Feathered Serpent full of thrills and surprises: and the clever young journalist, who discovers the truth of the case but does not disclose the murderer to the police until he has had time to flee the country, is a pleasant companion with whom to explore these dangerous paths. "

- The Spectator of May 13, 1927

In Germany, the novel was published in a translation by Karl Siegfried Döhring under the pseudonym Ravi Ravendro as a German first edition in 1928 by Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag in Leipzig. In the series "Goldmann Taschenkrimi" (later known as Rote Krimis) it appeared from 1950 with the issue number 248, later several new editions and editions of the novel were published by Goldmann (1972, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1982, 1997) and by Bertelsmann Verlag . The book was published as volume 33 as part of the Edgar Wallace anniversary edition "30 Years of Red Crime" in 1982. In the German Democratic Republic , the book was published in 1970 under the title Die gefiederte Schlange by Aufbau-Verlag in Berlin and Weimar, also in the version by Döhring and Ravendro. In 1987 Scherz Verlag in Switzerland published a new translation by Mechthild Sandberg under the title Gucumatz the Almighty in the Scherz Krimi series. In 2000 Weltbild Verlag Augsburg published the novel as a double edition with The Red Circle as part of a Wallace edition for the author's 125th birthday.

Film adaptations

The novel The Feathered Serpent was filmed twice in the 1930s, in both cases the novel was used as the basis for a modified story. While the film was re-titled The Menace , produced in the United States in 1932, the 1934 British film adaptation retained the name The Feathered Serpent .

The film The Menace ( English : "The threat") was released in 1932 by Columbia Pictures and is based on a screenplay by Roy Chanslor and Dorothy Howell based on The Feathered Serpent . The film was directed by Roy William Neill and the film was produced by Sam Nelson . The main characters are HB Warner , Walter Byron and Bette Davis , who was a loan-out from Universal Studios in the film. For Davis, The Menace was also one of the first films and one of the first leading roles in her film career. In terms of content, the film is only partially derived from the novel. He describes the story of Ronald Quayle, who was innocently convicted of the murder of his father, who after his escape and facial surgery after an accident returns to his family in search of the real killer. Critics sometimes describe the film as “an uninteresting crime film. Contrary to what you are used to, the story, which lacks any aura of mystery, is calmly heading towards the end that can be foretold before the first reel of film is unwound. The cast is only average, HB Warner in the small role of Scotland Yard detective and Natalie Moorhead as Ronald's stepmother are the best; Bette Davis makes the most of her small supporting role. The decors, overall of a pretentious style, bring in the necessary British atmosphere quite satisfactorily. "

The Feathered Serpent was published by GS Enterprises in 1934. It was made into a film by British director Maclean Rogers based on a screenplay by Kathleen Butler , starring Enid Stamp-Taylor , Tom Helmore , Molly Fisher and Moore Marriott . The film has been described as a typical Wallace adaptation, which is recommended because of the suspense and the secrets it contains. According to other reviews, the story has "lost all of its tension through the transformation onto the screen and the story seems hopelessly confused and artificial."

There is no German translation of the films.

expenditure

Gucumatz , cover of the anniversary edition "30 years of red crime novels", 1982
  • The Feathered Serpent. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1927.
  • The Feathered Serpent. Doubleday, New York City, 1928.
  • The Feathered Serpent. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1958 (Paperback)
Selection of German-language editions
  • Gucumatz. Translated into German by Ravi Ravendro. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag Leipzig, undated [1928]
  • Collected works: Gucumatz, Das Verrätertor, The Strange Countess, John Flack, Room 13. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag Leipzig, 1929.
  • Gucumatz. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag Munich, 1958 (Goldmann Taschenkrimi 248)
  • The feathered serpent. Construction-Verlag Berlin and Weimar, 1970.
  • Gucumatz. 16th edition (anniversary edition 30 years of Rote Krimis), Volume 33, Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1982.
  • Gucumatz der Almighty Scherz Verlag, Bern and Munich, 1987 (Scherz Krimi 1131; new translation by Mechthild Sandberg ), ISBN 3-502-51131-4 .
  • Gucumatz. Goldmann Wilhelm GmbH, 1998.
  • The red circle / Gucumatz. Weltbild Verlag Augsburg, 2000.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e "Feathered Serpent, The. (Book) “In: Joachim Kramp, Jürgen Wehnert: The Edgar-Wallace-Lexikon. Life - work - films. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004; Pp. 183-184. ISBN 3-89602-508-2
  2. ^ The Feathered Serpent , English full text in Project Gutenberg Australia; accessed on March 21, 2017.
  3. ↑ The Feathered Serpent. By Edgar Wallace. (Hodder and Stoughton). in The Spectator, May 13, 1927, p. 40; accessed on March 21, 2017.
  4. ↑ a b The Menace in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  5. ↑ criticism after The BioScope 1932, are listed in "Menace, The. (Film) “In: Joachim Kramp, Jürgen Wehnert: The Edgar Wallace Lexicon. Life - work - films. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004; P. 425. ISBN 3-89602-508-2
  6. ↑ The Feathered Serpent in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  7. ↑ Edgar Wallace's The Feathered Serpent on vintagepopfictions.blogspot.de; accessed on March 21, 2017.
  8. ↑ Critique after Picturegoer 1934, reproduced in “Feathered Serpent, The. (Film) “In: Joachim Kramp, Jürgen Wehnert: The Edgar Wallace Lexicon. Life - work - films. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004; P. 184. ISBN 3-89602-508-2
  9. ↑ "Feathered Serpent, The. (Film) “In: Joachim Kramp, Jürgen Wehnert: The Edgar Wallace Lexicon. Life - work - films. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004; P. 184. ISBN 3-89602-508-2
  10. ↑ "Menace, The. (Film) “In: Joachim Kramp, Jürgen Wehnert: The Edgar Wallace Lexicon. Life - work - films. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004; P. 425. ISBN 3-89602-508-2

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