Elisabeth Grace Foley

Historical Fiction Author

Beyond the Cover Blogathon: Kidnapped (1960)

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These days, one frequently sees popular historical novels based on the life of some real historical figure, or featuring real people from history as characters. One might say that Robert Louis Stevenson was ahead of the curve in this area. The plot of his 1886 novel Kidnapped is largely built around the real-life unsolved “Appin murder” of 1752, and a number of historical personages appear in its pages—particularly the enigmatic Alan Breck Stewart, who in Stevenson’s hands became one of literature’s most memorable characters. In the book’s dedication, Stevenson charmingly acknowledges his use of poetic license, such as in moving the year of the murder to 1751 and “the Torran rocks [having] crept so near to Earraid,” and goes on to add his opinion that his fictional imagining of the solution to the murder case is likely enough to be a correct one.

Walt Disney’s 1960 adaptation of Kidnapped was one of a string of live-action Disney movies set and filmed in Great Britain throughout the 1950s and ’60s—Disney, like other film studios, began filming in Britain in order to make use of profits from earlier films which post-WWII English treasury regulations prohibited them from taking out of the country. Kidnapped was written and directed, appropriately enough, by English director Robert Stevenson—apparently no relation to the novelist.

To be honest, when I first saw the movie years ago I didn’t think too highly of it. It seemed to rush too quickly through the plot; James MacArthur seemed too American for the role of David Balfour; it just didn’t seem very interesting. But when I saw it again within the last year, I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed it this time. Both the production values and the script seemed better than I remembered. Perhaps reconizing the slew of  fine British character actors that populated the cast, whom I’d since seen in other movies—Bernard Lee, John Laurie, Finlay Currie, Duncan Macrae, Miles Malleson—increased my appreciation a bit; perhaps having a little distance from the original novel, which I haven’t read in some years, allowed me to enjoy the movie more for itself and not merely as an adaptation. Whatever the reason, I think I would now count Kidnapped among my favorite live-action Disney movies.

At the outset of the story, young David Balfour (James MacArthur) leaves home following his father’s death to look for the uncle whose existence he has just been made aware of, supposed to be a man of property. To his dismay, Ebenezer Balfour (John Laurie) turns out to be a greedy eccentric living a miserly existence to rival even another literary Ebenezer in the ruins of his manor house. When David begins asking too many questions about his father and the family estate, Ebenezer manages to have him decoyed on board the ship of an unscrupulous business partner, Captain Hoseason (Bernard Lee) and shipped out to sea, bound for indentured servitude in the Carolinas.


But a collision at sea brings aboard another unusual passenger, exiled Jacobite Alan Breck Stewart (Peter Finch), and when David warns Alan that Hoseason and his crew are plotting to rob and murder him, the two become unlikely allies. Separated after a shipwreck, their paths cross again on the scene of the Appin murder, and with Alan the chief suspect, the pair are forced to flee for their lives across the Highlands. Their journey is marked by pursuit from soldiers, occasional wrangles with each other, and contentious encounters with highland chieftains Cluny MacPherson (Finlay Currie) and Robin MacGregor (Peter O’Toole, in his film debut), and at its end, if they reach the Lowlands in safety, will be the challenge of confronting Uncle Ebenezer and finding out the truth about David’s inheritance.


Like most feature-film-length adaptations of novels, Kidnapped basically hits the high points of the story, but hits them briskly, and chooses some of the best parts to spend the most time on—David’s introduction to Uncle Ebenezer and the crumbling House of Shaws, the battle on board Hoseason’s ship, David and Alan’s flight from the scene of the murder. All the acting is good, but Peter Finch’s vigorous performance as Alan Breck Stewart brings the biggest jolt of energy to all the scenes he appears in, much as the character of Alan does in the book—and John Laurie is hilariously scene-stealing as the miserly Ebenezer Balfour. (The scene where Alan and Ebenezer meet is one of the best in the movie; I think it even outdoes the same scene in the novel.)

It’s a colorful and visually attractive film too, with a nice historical flavor and some stunning Scottish location shooting. I suspect part of the reason that the scenes and characters largely match the way I always imagined them is because the film obviously takes some cues from N.C. Wyeth’s classic illustrations for the 1913 Scribner edition, the one I grew up with. It’s the only adaptation of Kidnapped I’ve seen (according to IMDB, there have been at least thirteen of them), but though there may be others that incorporate more of the book’s plot, I have a hard time picturing another one capturing the characters and the spirit of the story as well as this one does.

This is my entry to the Beyond the Cover Blogathon hosted by Now Voyaging and Speakeasy. Visit the host blogs throughout the next few days to check out all the other participants’ posts on movies adapted from books!

Favorite TV Episode Blogathon: The Virginian, “Old Cowboy”

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One of the things I like about The Virginian is that it never lets you forget that its characters actually make their living at ranching. Even if the plot of the episode doesn’t revolve around it, there’s always some herding of cattle or breaking of horses going on in the background, or at the very least some scraps of dialogue about the day’s work, reminding us that Shiloh Ranch is, in fact, a working ranch. That’s in contrast with other westerns like Bonanza, where I find it hard to summon a recollection of ever seeing a live cow. And the episode that I picked to spotlight for this year’s Favorite TV Episode Blogathon, season three’s “Old Cowboy,” may have more scenes of ranch work in it than all the Bonanza episodes I’ve seen combined.

The titular character of “Old Cowboy” is Murdock, played by guest star Franchot Tone, who’s utterly transformed here from the dapper, sophisticated leading-man roles he played in 1930s and ’40s films—a stooped, craggy-faced, gravelly-voiced, often touchy and boastful old man. Murdock is an elderly ex-cowboy, now reduced to tramping the roads on foot with his young grandson Willy (Billy Mumy). He clings to the glories of former days by telling stories of his exploits driving cattle up the Chisolm Trail in his youth, and won’t admit that he’s any less a top hand than he ever was—and though it’s plain from the first scene that Willy knows exactly what his grandfather is and is not capable of, he plays along with the elaborate pretense, echoing him and agreeing with him.

When Murdock—bluffing a little too much, as we will see is his habit—loses badly in a poker game with some Shiloh hands, Trampas (series regular Doug McClure) takes pity on him, and much to the dismay of Shiloh’s foreman, the Virginian (series regular James Drury), offers him a job at the ranch. Murdock, scorning the idea of helping out with chores around the barn and bunkhouse, insists on doing a full day’s work as a cowboy, though it’s plain to all that he is no longer up to it. His insistence on tackling jobs too hard for him and his bragging about his experience and skill as a cowboy cause one calamity after another, earning him the ridicule of the other ranch hands and starting trouble with a hot-tempered rancher neighbor who is not at all amused by a mix-up in the branding of calves.

Matters only grow worse when Murdock sees that Willy has taken a shine to Trampas, the real top hand on the ranch, and has begun to tag after him and imitate him as he used to do his grandfather. The old man’s jealousy spurs him to unreasoning resentment of Trampas and more foolhardy actions that even Willy can’t pretend to excuse—and which finally lead to a disastrous fire that threatens the livelihood of all the surrounding ranchers. Called on to help with the Virginian’s efforts to save their herds, Murdock is given one last chance to try and recapture some of his boasted prowess as a cowboy…but is it too late?


(Another thing I’ve noticed on The Virginian is that the stunt doubling is usually very good, and “Old Cowboy” is no exception—Franchot Tone’s double does an excellent imitation of Murdock’s stoop-shouldered, lumbering gait, even when wrestling with a calf or trying to hang onto a bucking horse.)

Written by Gabrielle Upton and directed by William Witney, veteran action director of a multitude of B-Westerns, this episode is really one that revolves entirely around ranch work: herding, roping and branding cattle, digging post-holes, barn chores…plus the hazards of fire, stampede, dust storms, and wolves. With plenty of other episodes about showdowns with outlaws and other extracurricular activities, it’s nice to see the Virginian, Trampas and the rest of the Shiloh crew (including regulars Randy Boone and L.Q. Jones, who both play nice supporting roles in “Old Cowboy”) given a plot that centers on what they’re supposed to be doing all along: being cowboys.

The Flowing Source

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Ever since I read Steal Like an Artist, I keep coming across passages in other books, mostly by authors, which embody the same basic premise: distilling inspiration for your own work out of everything you take in. It reinforces my own reaction to the “steal like an artist” idea: to me it wasn’t so much a revolutionary concept as it was a validation of something authors and artists do by nature, whether they realize it or not. It put a name to something that I realized was entirely natural to me. Now I see that many other authors of all varieties, without putting the same name to it, viewed inspiration in the same way. I connected one of the best passages with Steal Like an Artist in retrospect: this awesome quote by Eugene Rhodes that I’d shared before. Then there’s this from Dorothy Sayers, in The Mind of the Maker:

It is interesting to rake into one’s mind and discover, if one can, what were the combined sources of power on which one, consciously or unconsciously, drew while endeavoring to express an idea in writing…What is important, and not always understood in these days, is that a reminiscent passage…is intended to recall to the reader all the associated passages and so put him in touch with the sources of power behind and beyond the writer. The demand for “originality”—with the implication that the reminiscence of other writers is a sin against originality and a defect in the work—is a recent one and would have seemed quite ludicrous to poets of the Augustan Age, or of Shakespeare’s time. The traditional view is that each new work should be a fresh focus of power through which former streams of beauty, emotion and reflection are directed.

And then here is Madeleine L’Engle in A Circle of Quiet:

A great painting, or symphony, or play, doesn’t diminish us, but enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of creation behind the universe. This surge of creativity has nothing to do with competition, or degree of talent. When I hear a superb pianist, I can’t wait to get to my own piano, and I play about as well now as I did when I was ten. A great novel, rather than discouraging me, simply makes me want to write. This response on the part of any artist is the need to make incarnate the new awareness we have been granted through the genius of someone else.

Personally, I find this point of view tremendously freeing: being able to view everything you take in—books, films, music, et cetera—as an incredibly rich, flowing source of inspiration to draw from, rather than a collection of things you admire but must struggle not to imitate too much. It’s also encouraging to realize that the artists you yourself admire also drew on the flowing source of inspiration created by the artists who came before them. Looking at it this way, any author can see themselves as following in a great literary tradition, whether it was something they consciously tried to do or not.