V is for Victorine

When I finished reading Daring Darleen, Queen of the Screen (Daring Darleen), it was my hope that the "cliffhanger" ending was a sign that another book would be forthcoming.  But each month that went by, and then each year that went by, and I saw no advertisements or solicits for another Darleen Darling book, my chances of getting a sequel seemed less and less likely.  Flash forward several years, and as I was scrolling through Amazon (I seem to do that quite a bit, don't I?), I happened across a book by Anne Nesbet with cover art that seemed awfully familiar.  Well, lo and behold, it turned out the cover seemed familiar, as that girl on it was none other than Daring Darleen, along with that young heiress, Victorine Berryman! Finally, after all this time, I got my long-awaited sequel to Daring Darleen, Queen of the Screen!

 

V is for Victorine picks up some time after the conclusion of Anne Nesbet's previous book.  After saving Victorine ("Vee" as Darleen calls her) from unscrupulous people posing as her family in order to steal her inheritance, the Darlings have taken Vee into their home and allowed her to take part in their many films as an extra.  But Vee is not really interested in acting.  With her Grandmother gone and her inheritance still years away, she must rely on a monthly stipend from her granny's estate and the kindness of the Darling family until she can determine exactly what it is she does want.  One thing she knows for sure - she does not like lying, and she is tired of hiding under the assumed name "Bella Mae Goodwin."  She does not even know who she really is any more - is she losing her real identity?  Is Victorine Berryman slowly disappearing?  Well, thank goodness for the silent film serials - for when Darlene and Vee a/k/a Bella Mae go to the local theater to watch the 13th episode of The Vanishing of Victorine (a very fictional account of her life since she disappeared),  a title card appears after the film which provides viewers the opportunity to write the final chapter to the serial and explain just how Victorine's story ends!  Who better to write that story than the missing girl herself!

 

Nesbet offers up another thrilling adventure in the world of the early 1900s (1915 to be exact!), when silent films and serials with their exciting cliffhangers were all the rage.  And while this book does offer up some behind the scenes filming of various movies, Nesbet focuses more on Victorine's efforts to stay under the radar, particularly now that the whole world is looking for her.  In the last book, readers learned all about Darleen and got to experience the world through her adventurous, daring eyes; in this book, we get the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of a debutante who is thrust into a normal (well, okay, somewhat normal as can be expected in the world of films) world where every penny is pinched and no one has hired help to answer to their every whim.  And I love the way Nesbet provides Victorine the chance to evolve, not only as a character, but also as a writer - from a shy girl who thinks she has no imagination and no ability to see the world as her best friend, Darlene does into a rather self-aware, strong young woman who realizes the real world around her offers her plenty of fodder for her imagination and her writing!  I think that is a lesson many of us would be well-advised to heed.

 

There is a slight mystery in the story involving a mix-up with a black bag carried by Darleen's uncle as he, Darleen, and Victorine head out to the new-fangled Hollywood (which was only just getting off the ground as a site for film studios in 1915) to see if the Darlings can find a place in this new film world.  Darleen and Victorine are both curious as to the secret "treasure" that Uncle Dan has hidden away in the satchel, and they must match wits with a rather dastardly thief who has his own black bag filled with stolen Egyptian treasures. This sub-plot is superbly resolved in true serial-cliffhanger style, with a surprise mastermind and a dangerous confrontation with a gun-wielding villain.

 

The book is chock-full of real Hollywood and film references - from Miss Mary Pickford (p. 71), a Canadian-American film actress and producer who worked in Hollywood for nearly half a century, to Lillian Gish (p. 128), an American actress who got her start in silent films in 1912 and continued to work in Hollywood all the way to 1987 and her sister, Dorothy Gish (p. 128), who was also an actress of the stage and screen.  The girls are also told about a party for Anna Pavlova, "[a] wonderful Russian ballerina" (p. 145), who also happens to be a real life ballerina who was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and who is most well-known for her role of The Dying Swan.  There is also an interesting reference to The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer by Oscar Micheaux (p. 82), which book an African-American train porter asks the girls to give to his sister, Ruth Waller, at Universal studios in Hollywood, with the hopes it might get made into a film. Well, in the real world, the book was made into a film in 1919, the first feature-length film made by an African-American!

Finally, the author also makes mention of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (p. 89), which was a world's fair, of sorts, held in San Francisco during most of 1915 (the year in which this book is set).  The girls talk about their desire to visit the exposition to see "a whole tower simply covered with jewels" (p. 89).  And, wouldn't you know it, there was a "Tower of Jewels" at the exposition, which rose to 435 feet and was covered with over 100,000 colored gems that sparkled in the light of the sun (Tower of Jewels).  It is all of these factual references from the real world that makes Nesbet's story all that more engaging, as it blurs those lines between reality and fiction, breathing some "real life" into the characters on the page.

 

Darleen Darling and Victorine Berryman have become two of my favorite little adventuresses, and I hope Nesbet has not put them on the shelf.  These two girls deserve many more stories and adventures, and I have no doubt there are plenty of fans out there like me who are anxious to read more!

 

RATING:  10 Egyptian cylinder seals out of 10 for making the 1915 silent film world come alive with mystery, adventure, cliffhangers, and all of the excitement one would expect from the movies of that era!

The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms, or Lost in the WIlds of Florida (The Moving Picture Girls No. 4)

The Stratemeyer Syndicate published a number of series under the pen name of author "Laura Lee Hope," and the Moving Picture Girls is just one of them.  The series ran from 1914 to 1916, for a total of seven books.  Original published by Grosset & Dunlap, like so many other series back in the day, it was later reprinted by other publishers, including World Syndicate (which is the editions I have).  Although I have all seven books (in dust jacket, which I consider myself to be fortunate!), I decided to pick up this fourth book in the series, since it is set in Florida.  It has been fun to read all of these children's series books set in Florida and see just how many real references are used and how many fictional settings are created.  Unlike the Outdoor Girls' adventure in Florida, which was littered with one fictional place after another, this series actually utilized a number of actual locations.

The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms, or Lost in the Wilds of Florida tells the story of Ruth and Alice DeVere's adventures in the Sunshine State with the film company for whom they are employed, along with their father.  In the first chapter, the girls (and the rest of the acting troupe) learn from the company's manager, Frank Pertrell, that they will all be heading to Florida aboard a "steamer" to film their next dramas (p. 4).  Most everyone is excited about the prospect, and Ruth and Alice are even confident that the warm weather of Florida will help improve their father's health (which seems a bit familiar to part of the plot from The Outdoor Girls in Florida).  But right off the bat, things start to go wrong - first, one of the actors falls overboard from the ship, and then a fire in the lower decks forces all of the passengers to be ferried to another steamboat for the remainder of the journey to St. Augustine.

From the moment the troupe arrives in Florida, I perked up and started paying attention to everywhere the girls and their fellow actors went.  The mere mention of arriving in St. Augustine by way of Jacksonville - and their intended travel later down to Lake Kissimmee - well, I was anxious to see what real locales from these places would be mentioned.  Right off the bat, the girls hear about Fort Marion (Historic Fort Marion) and Fort Mantanzas (Historic Fort Mantanzas), two historic sites where the crew would be filming scenes for their movies (p. 66).  And when the girls go exploring, they decide to travel down St. George Street to see the Old City Gates (p. 67), which turns out to be exactly where the gates are located (St. Augustine Old City Gates).  The girls also pay a visit to an orange grove, said to be just a short distance from the city gates (p. 70).  While the Garnetts' orange grove was quite famous back in the day, it has since been sold off and is no longer there (St. Augustine Orange Groves).  And, of course, one cannot mention St. Augustine without mentioning the Fountain of Youth, to which the girls pay a visit (p. 73).  Of course, the book describes the fountain being located on Myrtle Avenue, when in reality it is located on Magnolia Avenue (Historic Fountain of Youth).  But let's not quibble about names...

There are a number of other factual descriptions on the story, from the old guard room and dungeon of Fort Marion to the alligator farm on Anastasia, and from Lake Kissimmee along the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee.  The only hiccup I found in the locales was the mention of Sycamore, which is said to be a small town near Lake Kissimmee (p. 102).  In reality, Sycamore is a town located up in the panhandle of Florida, and well over 300 miles away from Lake Kissimmee!  However, this is a minor detail, as we certainly can't expect the author to keep all points in the story exactly as they are in the real world!  And this slight discrepancy certainly does not take away from the enjoyment of the story.  I mean, after all, these girls and their friends and fellow actors are making silent films at the turn of the century right here in Florida!  And I will admit, it took me a minute to put the film making into context with the time period, because I kept wondering why the manager was yelling out directions while the cameras were rolling, until I remember that in 1914, films did not yet have sound!  Thus, it would have been natural for directors to be calling out things to the actors from behind the cameras to keep the action and story moving.

The story itself involved only a slight mystery - it seems that two young women that Ruth and Alice had previously met on a train (perhaps in a previous book?  this story is not quite clear on that point) have gone missing, and it just so happens that they went missing from Lake Kissimmee!  As the story goes, the two women went out to gather rare wild flowers and were never heard from again (p. 103).  The locals and even their own family believe they were lost in the everglades, and all hope was given up of finding the two.  Now, it is funny that they are said to be lost in the everglades, as a similar plot actually plays out many years later in the 161st Nancy Drew mystery, aptly titled Lost in the Everglades.  In that story, a young woman goes off alone backwater camping and disappears.  Was that story lifted from this one?  Who's to say...  But the fact the two girls in this story were hoping to find a rare orchid actually has a ring of truth to it, since the Vandeae orchid, which also has a part of its tribe the holy grail of all orchid-hunters, the "ghost orchid," is said to be local to Florida (The Ghost Orchid).  Thus, yet another touch of reality thrown into a fictional tale.

The overall story does have some resemblances to The Outdoor Girls in Florida (published just one year prior to this one, also under the pen name of Laura Lee Hope!).  As indicated above, both stories feature a character who comes to Florida in the hopes of improving their health; both stories feature boat trips through the everglades, with fearful encounters with alligators; both stories feature a man/boy in tattered/ragged clothes who comes to the rescue of the girls with a gun; both stories find the girls getting lost on the river after getting all turned around following a picnic amid the everglades; and in both stories, the girls do not really play much of a part in solving the mystery - they merely stumble upon the missing individuals.  In fact, there is even a humorous reference to the fact that the two missing girls are described as real "outdoor girls" (p. 106).  Perhaps that was a slight nod by the author to the actual Outdoor Girls, who themselves got lost while boating in the everglades.

I would be remiss if I did not also bring attention to the similarities to the frontis piece illustration of both The Outdoor Girls in Florida and this book.  In The Outdoor Girls, the scene depicted shows a manatee taking off with the girls' boat, having been caught in the anchor rope.  A man in a canoe stand ready to take a shot at the manatee in order to free the girls' boat.  In this book, we see Ruth and Alice in a boat with Paul Ardite, a fellow actor and love interest of Alice, and the boat is being pulled by a manatee who is caught in the anchor line, while in the background, Russ Dalwood, the film operator, is just filming away.  It is funny that both scenes feature a manatee tangled in the boat's ropes and unwittingly pulling the boat away from where it should be.  The only difference is, in The Moving Picture Girls' story, Russ tells them to let the manatee pull them as he continues to film it, believing it will make for good drama.  And in The Moving Picture Girls, instead of using a gun to shoot at the manatee, Paul uses his oar to simply nudge the manatee to go under and ultimately loosen itself from the anchor line, thus freeing it without any injury.  I find it too much of a coincidence that the same scene would basically play itself out in both books (and in both stories, the girls are fearful at first that it is an alligator that has snagged hold of their boat!), and even much more than a coincidence that both books, just a year apart, would have basically the same scene as their frontis piece!

Two final observations I wish to make on this book.  First, I find the presence of the omniscent narrator making his/her voice known throughout the book rather interesting.  Perhaps this was more common back in the early 1900s, but to have the narrator break the fourth wall and speak directly to the reader, thus breaking out of the story itself, is rather odd.  This occurs in a big way in Chapter Two, in which the narrator point blank addresses the reader:  "...may I take just a few moments to acquaint my new readers with something of the former books of this series?" (p. 12).  And with that question, the narrator proceeds to give brief synopses of the first three books in the series, providing not only titles, but also plot details and outcomes of those stories.  The narrator then goes on to provide brief descriptions of each character who plays a part in the story, from Ruth and Alice, along with their father, to all of the members of the film troupe!  This becomes a four-page break in the story that basically has the narrator speaking directly to the reader.  There are other moments in the book where the narrator breaks in to give reasons for jumps in time or to simply skip portions of the troupe's activities that the narrator does not believe to be important to the reader nor the story.  It gives the overall a book a sense of being told to the reader, rather than an adventure the reader is actually taking part with, and the closest thing I can compare it to would the television show, Young Sheldon, where the older version of the character narrates each episode, sometimes interjecting his own personal thoughts into the events of the episode.

The second observation I wanted to make is the reference in this book, as well as The Outdoor Girls in Florida, to orange blossoms.  In both stories, the girls make comments about orange blossoms in connection with their trip to Florida, and in both instances, the references seem to have a relation to thoughts of marriage (p. 69).  I did not realize this, but after a bit of research, I discovered that orange blossoms, "[l]ike the white gown, have been associated with weddings for centuries because the flower symbolizes virtue, love, and fertility" (Orange Blossom Brides).  I guess, as the saying goes, you learn something new every day!

I definitely enjoyed this story much more than The Outdoor Girls, and despite the similarities, the actual writing of the books appears different, leaving me to believe this book was not written by Howard Garis, who wrote The Outdoor Girls' adventure in Florida.  I was not able to find any identification as to the ghostwriter for this book, but perhaps someone out there has some information and can share it one day!

RATING:  8 dangerous bogs of quicksand out of 10 for a fun romp through St. Augustine and the Everglades, with a bit of historical film antics thrown in for good measure!

Daring Darleen, Queen of the Screen

This is a book that I debated about getting for several months before I finally took the plunge and bought it.  As I've said in other posts, I am a huge fan of series books, so I very rarely pick up a "one-off" book that is not a part of a new series.  This book, however, caught my eye for several reasons: (1) it featured a young female lead that is forced to solve a mystery; (2) it was set in 1914, well before cell phones, computers, and other technology that makes solving crimes that much easier; and (3) the main character is an actress in silent film serials of the early 20th century.  "Cliffhanger" style stories, whether in book form or on television or film, have always piqued my interest, so after haggling with myself for a number of weeks, I finally picked it up.

Daring Darleen, Queen of the Screen features young Darleen Darling, a perky little silent film star of a series of cliffhanger-style serials in the early 1900s when moving pictures were the newest big thing.  As a younger child, she was known as "Darling Darleen," but as she grows close to her teenage years, the format of the films changed, and "Darling" was changed to "Daring," as Darleen began to do a lot of stunts that left movie-goers gasping with each weekly installment of her adventures.  Her father helps develop and edit the film strips, and her mother ... well, her mother was a former circus star, dancing on tightropes, who gave up the high life to settle down once she had Darleen.  When her mother died, Darleen promised her father to always keep her feet on the ground, so she would not be taken away like her mother was ... except the life of a movie star, particularly one in cliffhanger serials, does not always lend itself to keeping one's feet on the ground.

Particularly when she is supposed to be kidnapped as a publicity stunt, but instead, she is mistaken for an orphaned heiress and kidnapped for real!

Author Anne Nesbet, a professor at the University of California (Berkley) who teaches film history, clearly has the knowledge of the world of silent films.  Her descriptions of the filming process, the sets, the production, the actors, the directors, and everything else so vividly brings to life the story and truly takes the reader into the world of Darleen Darling.  And she tells a whirlwind adventure of a twelve-year old actress who is thrust into a desperate situation where not only must she save herself, but she must help an orphaned girl her own age who is being taken advantage of by her supposed distant cousins who have been caring for her.  Both girls are kidnapped - Victorine Berryman on purpose (she's the heiress) and Darleen by accident - and the must make a (dare I say it?) daring escape if they hope to make their get-away from the kidnappers who intend on throwing them into the river!  Darleen suddenly becomes a star of her own cliffhanger story in "real life," and she must not only break her promise to her father by taking some very dangerous chances, but she must also figure out a way to rescue Victorine from her dastardly cousins and restore the young girl's fortune before the cousins steal it away from her!

The mystery is superbly plotted, and there are some definitely surprising twists when it comes to the kidnappers and the cousins (not the same people, by the way).  And while there are a few hair-raising moments when Darleen and Victorine must escape the apartment where they are being held captive and, later, when Darleen is trapped in a runaway hot air balloon - but honestly, I was hoping that with the book based upon the whole serial silent film gimmick, that each chapter (or at the very least, every other chapter) would end in some death-defying cliffhanger that would force the reader to keep reading to find out how our brave young hero would survive whatever challenge is thrown her way.  Instead, we get very few real cliffhangers, and many of the chapter endings are rather lackluster.  Now, don't get me wrong - the story is still very engaging, the characters extremely likable, and the mystery not overly easy to solve.  I still enjoyed the read and am hoping for more adventures of Daring Darleen in the future - but the lack of real "cliffhangers" kind of left me feeling like the book was missing a little something.

Nevertheless, Daring Darleen, Queen of the Screen is definitely a book I recommend, and I'll be keeping my eye on Anne Nesbet in the hopes she provides readers with more stories of this new sleuth in the future!

RATING:  9 matches, cigarettes, and cigars out of 10 for bringing merging the worlds of girl sleuths and silent film serials to create a fun new way to enjoy mysteries!