The Continuity Girl

Kincaid, Patrick2018

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Summary

Two stories, separated by 45 years and connected by a classic film, are set on collision course - on the surface of Loch Ness, under the shadow of a castle - by the reappearance of the continuity girl herself: April Bloom. The Continuity Girl is centred on the supposed discovery of an uncut print of Billy Wilder's celebrated film, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes(1970). It begins in the run up to 2014's Scottish independence referendum, when Gemma MacDonald, a London-based Film Studies lecturer of Scottish heritage, is tasked with presenting the new print at a festival screening in Inverness. She seeks out April Korzeniowski, the movie's Californian continuity supervisor (NB-in reality, this role fell to Elaine Schreyeck, whose remarkable career deserves another and quite different book). We then switch to 1969 and learn of the affair that develops between April and a young English scientist, Jim Outhwaite. Jim is a member of the Loch Ness Research Group, and thus a dedicated seeker of evidence for the Loch Ness monster.But in life, as in a Billy Wilder movie, nothing goes to plan and nobody is quite who they seem. While men are landing on the moon and the 1960s approaches its bitter, gloriously sound-tracked end, fault lines begin to appear between the director and his stars, between Jim and his colleagues (and their wives), and between lovers brought together by extreme circumstances. It's a long wait for golden time to alight on Urquhart Castle, and when it does, the moment must be snatched before it's gone.