Pied Piper is a novel by Nevil Shute, first published in 1942. [1] The title is a reference to the traditional German folk tale, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin".
Pied Piper is a novel by Nevil Shute, first published in 1942. [1] The title is a reference to the traditional German folk tale, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin".
The story concerns a 70-year-old Englishman, John Sidney Howard, who goes on a fishing holiday in Jura, France partly to recover from grief at the loss of his son during the Battle of the Heligoland Bight. Although the Second World War has begun, he does not anticipate the speed with which the Nazi German forces invade France. His urgent desire to return home is delayed by a request made by an English couple he meets at the hotel. They ask him to take their two young children to England and safety. While delayed in Dijon by the sudden illness of one of the children, he accepts a request by one of the hotel maids to also take her young niece to safety in England where the child's father is working. Along the way, Howard accepts two more children: a boy whose parents were killed on the road by German aircraft, and a Dutch boy who is being attacked by panicking French villagers who mistake him for a German. Along the way he is overtaken by events and turns for help to some acquaintances in Chartres whom he barely knows, but remembers from a skiing holiday he took with his son, some years before.
Eventually, Howard and the children reach Brittany, hoping to escape Nazi-occupied France on a fishing boat. However, when one of the children is overheard speaking in English, the Nazis discover that Howard is an enemy Englishman and arrest him. He is accused of being a spy and threatened with death by the Gestapo, but in a final plot twist, the German commandant secretly allows Howard and the children to sail to England on the condition that they take his niece with them and send her to her uncle in the United States. His niece is apparently orphaned and had a "non-Aryan" mother.
The boat trip from France to England is successful and, ultimately, all the children are repatriated to the USA where they are cared for by Howard's daughter.
The tale is told in the form of a flashback by Howard to an acquaintance he meets in a London club during the Blitz.
The story was filmed in 1942 and again in a 1989 made-for-television film Crossing to Freedom , [2] also known as The Pied Piper . [3] Howard was played in the 1942 film by Monty Woolley [4] and by Peter O'Toole in the 1989 film. [5]
The Pied Piper is a 1942 American film in which an Englishman on vacation in France is caught up in the German invasion of that country, and finds himself taking an ever-growing group of children to safety. It stars Monty Woolley, Roddy McDowall and Anne Baxter. The film was adapted by Nunnally Johnson from the 1942 novel of the same name by Nevil Shute. It was directed by Irving Pichel.
Nevil Shute Norway was an English novelist and aeronautical engineer who spent his later years in Australia. He used his full name in his engineering career and Nevil Shute as his pen name to protect his engineering career from inferences by his employers (Vickers) or from fellow engineers that he was "not a serious person" or from potentially adverse publicity in connection with his novels, which included On the Beach and A Town Like Alice.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin is the title character of a legend from the town of Hamelin (Hameln), Lower Saxony, Germany.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1942.
Radu Florescu was a Romanian academic who held the position of Emeritus Professor of History at Boston College. His work on Vlad Dracula includes a series of bestselling books that he co-authored with his colleague Raymond T. McNally. Along with serving as Director of the East European Research Center at Boston College, Florescu was also a philanthropist and an adviser to Edward Kennedy on Balkan and Eastern European affairs. At the time of his death, Radu Florescu was considered the patriarch of the Florescu family.
The Night of the Generals is a 1967 World War II mystery film directed by Anatole Litvak and produced by Sam Spiegel. It stars Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Tom Courtenay, Donald Pleasence, Joanna Pettet, and Philippe Noiret. The screenplay by Joseph Kessel and Paul Dehn was loosely based on the beginning of the 1962 novel of the same name by German author Hans Hellmut Kirst. The writing credits also state the film is "based on an incident written by James Hadley Chase", referring to a subplot from Chase's 1952 novel The Wary Transgressor. Gore Vidal is said to have contributed to the screenplay, but was not credited onscreen. The film's musical score was composed by Maurice Jarre.
The Pied Piper is the title character of the traditional German folk tale the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Trustee from the Toolroom is a novel written by Nevil Shute. Shute died in January 1960; Trustee was published posthumously later that year.
Paul Wegener was a German actor, writer, and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema.
Marcel Dalio was a French movie actor. He had major roles in two films directed by Jean Renoir, La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939).
Helmut Dantine was an Austrian-American actor who often played Nazis in thriller films of the 1940s. His best-known performances are perhaps the German pilot in Mrs. Miniver and the desperate Bulgarian refugee in Casablanca, who tries gambling to obtain travel visa money for himself and his wife. As his acting career waned, he turned to producing.
Le Silence de la mer is a 1949 French war drama film written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, in his directorial debut. Adapted from the 1942 novella of the same name written by Vercors. Set during the Second World War in occupied France, the story concerns the relationship of a Frenchman and his niece with a German lieutenant who is billetted in their house.
Charles Howard Schmid Jr., also known as the Pied Piper of Tucson, was an American serial killer whose crimes were detailed by journalist Don Moser in an article featured in the March 4, 1966, issue of Life magazine. Schmid's criminal career later formed the basis for "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", a short story by Joyce Carol Oates. In 2008, The Library of America selected Moser's article for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American true crime literature.
Henry Rowland was an American film and television actor. He is remembered for his role as Count Kolinko in the Zorro television series.
Irving Pichel was an American actor and film director, who won acclaim both as an actor and director in his Hollywood career.
Hans Heinrich von Twardowski was a German film actor.
Most Secret is a novel by English writer Nevil Shute, written in 1942 but censored until 1945, when it was published by Heinemann. It is narrated by a commander in the Royal Navy, and tells the story of four officers who launch a daring mission at the time when Britain stood alone against Germany after the fall of France. Genevieve is a converted French fishing vessel, manned by four British officers and a small crew of Free French ex-fishermen, armed only with a flame thrower and small arms. Their task is as much psychological as military: to show the Germans that they will one day be beaten back.
Requiem For A Wren is a novel by Nevil Shute. It was first published in 1955 by William Heinemann Ltd. It was published in the United States under the title The Breaking Wave.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin is an American musical film based on the famous poem of the same name by Robert Browning and using the music of Edvard Grieg, arranged by Pete King with new lyrics by Hal Stanley and Irving Taylor. It stars Van Johnson, Claude Rains, Lori Nelson, Jim Backus and Kay Starr. It was directed by Broadway veteran Bretaigne Windust. Nearly all of the dialogue in The Pied Piper of Hamelin is spoken in rhyme, much of it directly lifted from Browning's poem.
Cecil Williamson was a British screenwriter, editor and film director and influential English Neopagan Warlock. He was the founder of both the Witchcraft Research Center which was a part of MI6's war against Nazi Germany, and the Museum of Witchcraft. He was a friend of both Gerald Gardner, who was the founder of Wicca, and also of the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley.
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