Rania Al-Ghais: Dancer, courtesan, assassin, mystic and spy.

Born in the first year of the twentieth century Rania Al-Ghais was brought up by her mother and sister in Cairo for the first eleven years of her life.  She would see her father, the famous painter Sir Lawrence Swann, only during his annual visits to Egypt from September to December, when he would sketch, paint and collect interesting oriental items for his studio in Chelsea.  Nevertheless, when he was in Egypt he would spend a great deal of time with the girl, teaching her English, German, Dutch, the piano and how to draw.

Rejecting the French and Italianate villas of the Garden City, Sir Lawrence had a traditional Egyptian house in the centre of Cairo and Rania delighted in frequenting the souks and coffee houses as much as the grand hotels.  She was equally at home in both environments without really belonging to either.  She loved watching the traditional Ghawazi dancers who would perform in the streets and at festivals and holidays.   Her mother taught her the dances, which she had embellished with some sensuous moves of her own, devised for the entertainment of Sir Lawrence.

As she grew up she watched her mother and aunt perform for her father in daring belly-baring costumes and, sometimes, much, much less.

At the age of eleven she made the long journey to England to study at Roedean School, on top of windswept cliffs near Brighton.  She soon became a proper young English lady and lost the Dutch accent she had acquired from her father.  She missed the heat and noise of Cairo and for the first term cried herself to sleep every night in her damp, miserable dormitory.  She never felt she entirely belonged in England and many of the other girls taunted her because of her mixed blood.  She learned to fit in with the English while secretly despising them.

At Christmas, following her first term at school, her father returned from Egypt with her mother and she went to stay in Sir Lawrence's London house and studio in Chelsea and at his country house in the Meon Valley.  She enjoyed the traditional English festivities down at Sir Lawrence's Hampshire home and her mother took her shopping in London's department stores: Selfridge's, Marshall and Snelgrove, Dickens and Jones and her favourite, Harrod's which was considerably more splendid than even the Orosadi Back store in Cairo.

She took up ballet but continued her oriental dancing as well.  In 1913 she posed naked for her father's painting The Young Dancer which depicted her dancing before pharaoh in an Ancient Egyptian court setting. It was reminiscent of a painting he had done of her mother before she was born.  Rania was proud of how her father had captured her sinuous looks but Sir Lawrence's paintings were now out of fashion and critics took issue with his depiction of her naked, pubescent form.  Stung by the painting's reception Sir Lawrenee never exhibited again.  Swann took Rania to the Twentieth Century Art show at the Whitechapel gallery in 1914 and was appalled by the "primitive daubs" on display.  

The Great War depressed him enormously, particularly as his mother had been German.  He would stride around his studio ranting that Britain was fighting the wrong country and that they should join forces to conquer the real enemy: France.  He confined his work to drawings and watercolours of Rania's mother, Zairah, and her aunt, Deena.  These pictures only saw the light of day after Ranias's death in 1985, when the archive she had kept of her father's work was catalogued.  The drawings and paintings shocked many who saw them, especially given the fact that they depicted two sisters, but they were eventually published in a book entitled Sir Lawrence Swann: Forbidden love. Studies of the Al-Ghais sisters 1914-1919.

After her father's death in 1919 Rania studied at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg,  where she met the young men who saw the advantages of a fluent Arabic and English speaker in the post war turmoil of the Middle East.  Eventually, she came under the influence of the Tarnhelm family who were conducting mysterious excavations in Egypt, far from the usual archaeological sites.

Coached by family matriarch Eva von Tarnhelm, who seemed particularly delighted in Rania's ripe but unfashionable figure, young Rania became adept in many skills useful to an undercover operative in Egypt and the Levant.  She, like other groups in Egypt, will soon be embarking on the quest for the treasure house of Queen Weret-Imtes.  

Brother Vinni resin figure.  He's probably the best sculptor of women in this scale at present.

Lost World: Marguerite White and other Lost World heroines

"The plateau!  The plateau!" cried Marguerite White.  She drew her revolver to fire a celebratory shot into the air, turning back to look at the straggling crocodile of men laboring up the dusty path behind her. The lost plateau loomed over them at last.  They had spent weeks getting to this point and she had spent a considerable amount of money.  She would have expected rather more enthusiasm from her male companions at the first sight of their goal.  They trudged upwards, looking at their feet, as they approached her at the top of the ridge.  She could understand the professors not being in the best of shape but Malone was a disappointment.  And as for Lord Roxton!  "Do come along Roxton!  Stiffen up the sinews!  Summon up the blood!  If gossip is believed that seems to be your greatest talent, anyway!" she said.

Roxton muttered under his breath.  There she was, striking a pose as usual, flaunting her stomach like a Circassian dancing girl.  Most unladylike. He felt like putting her over his knee and spanking her.  Except, of course, she was his paymaster.  Or paymistress.  The latter epithet sounded a lot more entertaining, he thought, dropping his pack at the top of the ridge.

"You are a very fit young woman, Marguerite!" said Roxton, gazing at her abdomen.

"You are not the first man to say that!" she smiled.

"Will there really be prehistoric creatures on the plateau?" mused Malone.

"Of course!" cried Challenger.

"Of course not!" said Summerlee.

"More importantly will we find my dear cousin, Veronica?" asked Marguerite.  She gazed at the huge ascent ahead.  How could her cousin possibly have survived for two years up there?

Marguerite White, daughter of Maple White, is my non-literary nod to the various women who have appeared in various screen adaptions of The Lost World.  In Arthur Conan Doyle's original novel the only major female character was the perfidious Gladys Hungerton, who remained at home in England.  However, in every subsequent film or TV adaption an adventurous woman has been included alongside Malone, Challenger, Summerlee, Roxton and (sometimes) Zambo.  The idea being, no doubt, to add glamour (initially) or provide a free spirited female role model (latterly).  I have already painted my main characters but was struggling to find a suitable female to give my team more of a Hollywood, rather than literary feel. However thanks to Mr Gordon Richards, who pointed out that Steve Saleh's Lucid Eye miniatures are now being sold by Arcane Scenery and Models I now have my female explorer.  Properly equipped with various packs she daringly wears trousers but does not have the jodhpurs so many Pulp heroines are sculpted with, as they would not be worn by women until after Coco Chanel adopted them in 1920.  My adventuress is the daughter of Maple White, so she is likely to have picked up some of the appropriate survival skills and not just be a screaming liability.   Here we have a look at her equivalents from film and TV.

1925

Just thirteen years after Conan Doyle's book was published, Hollywood made The Lost World (1925) which was a silent film, of course.  It did, however, feature stop motion dinosaurs by Willis O'Brien, eight years before his creatures in King Kong (1933), although the river scenes were shot in Los Angeles' open sewers. 

Bessie Love in The Lost World (1925)

In this version of the story our leading lady is Paula White who is none other than the daughter of the explorer Maple White, who originally discovered the dinosaur infested plateau.  Incidentally,  I always thought that Maple was an extraordinary choice for a character's first name.  Very curious indeed. Anyway, after their adventure, White's daughter ends up with Malone after he discovers that Gladys has got married in his absence. A common occurrence for the female characters in the screen adaptions.  Paula was played by actress Bessie Love (1898-1986) the daughter of a Texan cowboy who had been discovered by DW Griffith.  Due to her part in The King on Main Street (1925) she became the first woman to be filmed dancing the Charleston.  She set the standard for the masculine-clothed, jodhpurs-wearing, armed adventuress in subsequent films.

I could not call my heroine Paula, however, as I knew someone called Paula White and it would provoke all the wrong thoughts, so I chose Marguerite as her first name because the Steve Saleh figure has something about the character played by Rachel Blakely in the Canadian TV series (see below).

1960

There were a couple of radio adaptions in the forties but the next film wasn't until 1960. When Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (the TV series of which would star David Hedison who appears as Malone) creator Irwin Allen produced the next adaption.  Allen actually employed the 1925 production's Willis O'Brien to produce concept sketches of the dinosaurs but was unable to afford stop motion creatures in the end.  Instead, his team stuck fins on real reptiles and produced footage that appeared in many subsequent productions, including Hammer's cavegirl classic, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970).  The film is set in Venezuela (rather than the book's Bolivia) but is set in the present day (as was the 1925 version) so the explorers arrive on the plateau by helicopter.

Jill St John

The gratuitous female explorer in this was Jennifer Holmes, who was the daughter of the newspaper owner financing the expedition.  Holmes was played by Jill St John (as annoying but picturesque as ever) dressed, for, much of the film, in very unexplorer like pink slacks.

1992

It would be over thirty years until the next version and 1992's Canadian production of The Lost World, starring John Rhys-Davies as Challenger.  This was actually set in 1912 and was closer in plot to the novel.  Relocating the action from South America to Africa it was, at least, shot on location in Zimbabwe.  The film actually had a sequel made at the same time with the same cast, where devious Belgian and Portuguese oil drillers get their comeuppance for trying to ruin the plateau.

Tamara Gorski

Our female adventurer is this is Jenny Nielson a wildlife photographer (in 1912?) whose parents are rich arts benefactors so she funds the expedition herself.  Played by Canadian actress Tamara Gorski, she is an early animal rights activist.  Perhaps this is why she is dressed in white, like an escapee from a Ralph Lauren advert.

1998

There was only a six year wait for the next version and it's another Canadian production. This one takes place in 1939 and is set in Mongolia (filmed in Quebec) with the tropical, Shangri-La like plateau being shot in British Colombia.

Jane Heitmeyer

We have another version of Maple White's daughter, this time named Amanda, who insists on travelling with the men.  She is played by another Canadian actress, Jane Heitmeyer who is best known for her appearance in three seasons of Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict.

1999

Just a year later we were given The Lost World's first TV version which was actually entitled Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World and ran for three series and 66 episodes.  This was also set at the time of the novel and, at least initially, vaguely followed the original story before turning into "lost tribe of the week".  This was a Canadian (they love The Lost World in Canada)/Australian production filmed in the Gold Coast, Australia, close to where I'm a Celebrity get me Out of Here is shot.   Michael Sinelnikoff, who played Summerlee in the 1998 film, returns as Summerlee in this but the rest of the cast is different.

Rachel Blakely

Again our lady explorer, Marguerite Krux, is also the expedition's financier, in the really rather splendid form of Australian actress Rachel Blakely.

2001

The next, and so far final, TV production was the BBC version from 2001, starring Bob Hoskins and filmed in New Zealand.  Also a period piece, it was produced by the team behind Walking with Dinosaurs, so the prehistoric creatures are excellent.

Elaine Cassidy

The obligatory woman in this is Agnes Kerr, the daughter of a priest.  Irish actress Elaine Cassidy portrays Agnes as another modern young lady.

2005

The final version, to date, of the story, The King of the Lost World (2005) is set in the present day and bears very little resemblance to the original story and is more akin to King Kong, of which it was a (very) cheap rip-off, being released just before Peter Jackson's epic effort..

In this film our lady is actually Rita Summerlee a character who replaces the professor and is played by Sarah Lieving.  This is the only one of these films I do not own on DVD so I cannot tell you which one of these ladies is Sarah Lieving and as the reviews are so bad I don't think I will bother to buy it.

As a completist, I should point out the existence of the films Lust World (1999) and Lust World 2 (2001).  In the first, which I do confess to owning (thanks to Sophie!), three people are shipwrecked on an island and discover some of the worst stop-motion dinosaurs ever, cavegirls and primitive tribesmen.

Nikki Andersson

One of the three castaways is a rather well-fed lady called Jill, played by Nikki Andersson, who must be a geologist as she notes that the island is made from strange rock for the region.  However, it soon turns out that it is something else rhyming with rock that she is an expert in.

I do not own Lust World 2 so cannot comment on it but I am sure it is more of the same (albeit with a different cast).  I have seen a trailer and it features some amusing men in a rubber suit dinosaurs very similar to those from the Doug McLure epic The People that Time Forgot.  One key point to make as regards these two films is that they both feature cavegirls so I will have to have a cavegirl or two for my lost world scenarios. The appearance of these in The Lost World is a whole separate post, however.

Female Archaeologists: The Croissant Sisters

Left to Right: Veracité, Veronique, Varsité, Virginie and Velocité (all Copplestone except far right Artizan)

A long time ago, during a very drunken dinner with my friend Bill, we created the concept of a group of female archaeologists called, for reasons we are completely unable to recall, the Croissant sisters. They were brought to life to inhabit an erotic story set in Egypt in 1921 which would involve diggings, paddle boats up the Nile, chases in the souk, kidnappings, shoot-outs, desert tribesmen and lots and lots of kinky sex. Having then mentioned it to some of my other (largely female and foreign) friends thay have all encouraged me to actually write this epic. So far we have written an amazing 210 pages and in the most recent episode Veronique was blasting away at murderous tribesmen with a Sharps Buffalo rifle from the back of their Thorneycroft J lorry whilst Veracité got up to highly dubious and dangerous things in the front of the vehicle with male archaeologist Idaho (so named because when he was born he looked like a potato) Brown.

When I first started writing this deathless epic I stuck a picture of the Copplestone female archaeologists set at the top to give me an idea of their characters. When the plot required a fifth sister I used one of the Artizan Designs Thrilling Tales figures. I have just finished painting Varsité (in the natty blue and cream ensemble) which completes the sisterhood.

Left to right we have:

Veracité

Although she is the youngest of the sisters she raises the money for the girl's digs (usually from impressionable older men), obtains firmans (permissions to dig) and generally runs things. She has lived and excavated in America and enjoys driving sports cars (usually in fast get aways from shocked wives who have discovered her with their husbands).

Veronique

The second youngest sister and the only one to have been married. Her Belgian husband was murdered by renegade Schutztruppen in German East Africa and she led a group of her own Askaris to wreak revenge on the Germans during the Great War. A crack shot she favours a Sharps rifle for sniping and a Holland and Holland Nitro Express for close up work. Borderline psychotic.

Varsité

The second oldest sister and the team's artist and cataloguer. A keen cyclist and rather distant with the others as she was sent abroad to school in disgrace when she was fifteen after being found in bed with her older friend Coralie during the summer holidays in the family house near Lyon. Collects erotica. Likes girls. A lot.

Virginie

The oldest and most serious of the sisters. She is the historian and writer of the team and despairs of the romantic escapades of her younger siblings. She writes long and appalled letters home to dear maman in Lyon reporting her sisters' shocking behaviour. Completely unaware that her dear maman was a bar girl (and she didn't just serve drinks) in Shanghai in 1885 when she was bought for a week by her father who eventually brought her back to France.

Velocité

Has no interest in history or archaeology but is a daredevil pilot. Likes the tango and seaplanes.

Up until now I have not really had any thought about what to do with their 28mm avatars but this week Askari Miniatures have released their brilliant Egyptian diggers and things are coming together in my mind! The Croissant sisters, Idaho Brown, renegade Turks, dangerous tribesmen. All very loosely based on one of the Caspasian novels by Anthony Conway, The Colonel's Renegade. So I should also be able to cram in some Ghurkas, the French Foreign legion and some Germans as well!

Pulp Adventuress

This is an Artizan Thrilling Tales figure. She will make a great addition to my Copplestone female archaeologists.

She could do service in Africa, Egypt, Central Asia or the Amazon. She is not armed so might make a good object for a rescue scenario. I painted her this afternoon and am quite plesed with the way she has come out.

Agent Lake

This is the Artizan Agent Lake figure (and what a very nice figure it is). The problem I have with these Pulp figures is how to base them. Is grass appropriate for a girl in high heeled red shoes? More likely it should be something representing a night club floor but, there we go. A very nice figure to paint and demonstrates why I cannot join the chorus of approval for Bob Murch's Pulp Miniatures range: his women are ugly! Look at that cute little retroussé nose!