TODAY'S TWD: A NUTMEG STATE OF MIND

"Connecticut:
Green trees framing the homes of the weatlhy and the near-wealthy;
Gracious living with roots deep in the past."
Narrator
'The Fugitive'

One of the major differences between the movie version of "Death On The Nile" and the TV adaptation for the 'Poirot' series concerned the characters of Cornelia Robson, the niece of Miss Van Schuyler, and Miss Bowers, Miss Van Schulyer's nurse. Apparently there wasn't enough room for both of them aboard the Karnak in either production - Miss Bowers (acidly portrayed by Maggie Smith) is in the movie, while the 'Poirot' series dropped her and let Cornelia fill that function as well as being her aunt's traveling companion... but without the venomous comments, sadly.

(As an example:

Miss Van Schuyler: "Come Bowers, it's time to go. This place is beginning to resemble a mortuary."
Miss Bowers: "Thank God you'll be in one yourself before too long, you bloody old fossil!")

Cornelia Robson was a sweet girl who still had the capability to be suspected of murder in the Linnet Doyle case. She hailed from Bellfield, Connecticut, which apparently is a fictional town in my home state. (At the very least, I can't find any mention of it in Gooogle's maps. A Google search only leads me back to foreign translations of "Death On The Nile" and to an online reprint from a 1913 book by Julia Redford Tomkinson. According to Donna Albino, the narrator of "Doris: A Mount Holyoke Girl," lived in Bellfield. The book concerned Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary during the 1840s.)

Bellfield would join my little collection of fictional Connecticut towns which serve as tenuous connections for the Nutmeg State of the TV Universe. There are the actual locations as well - Hartford from 'Judging Amy', New Haven in 'Scorch', and of course Yale University in so many different shows. Westport was home to Lucy Ricardo and Samantha Stephens and John Monroe (from 'My World And Welcome To It'). Even my own hometown got a shout-out in 'St. Elsewhere'! But it's for those towns only to be found on the maps from 'The Twilight Zone' (and Toobworld in general), that I have the most affection.

Among them would be:

Joyville - 'The Hap Richards Show'
(This was a local kids show back in the early sixties; only fifteen minutes long if I remember correctly. I still have my original certificate of citizenship!)

Stars Hollow - 'Gilmore Girls'
(The Chilton Academy is located about thirty minutes away, and is probably situated just outside of Hartford.)

Danfield - 'The Lucy Show'
(There are those who believe that Danfield was actually in New York State. O'Bviously I'm in the Connecticut camp.)

Dunn's River - 'Soap'

Ellendale - 'The Loretta Young Show'

Northcross - 'Where The Heart Is'

Stepford - "Revenge Of The Stepford Wives"
- "The Stepford Children"
- "The Stepford Husbands"

Cedar Heights - 'Murder, She Wrote' ("If The Frame Fits")

Westborne - 'The Fugitive' ("The Garden House")

Willoughby - 'The Twilight Zone' ("A Stop At Willoughby")

(This would be from the Connecticut of the mind; "wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of a man's mind"... "Whatever it is, it comes with sunlight and serenity, and is a part of the Twilight Zone.")

I know Bryce Larkin, master spy from 'Chuck', was from Connecticut, but I have no clue where he actually grew up.

One fictional Connecticut town I'd love to add to the mix would be Harper, which can be found in the 1946 movie "The Stranger". It starred Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, and Richard Long and it concerned a fugitive Nazi hiding out in small-town Connecticut. Now that's a movie I'd like to see adapted for Television!

Any other fictional Connecticut towns you can add to my Toobworld map?

BCnU!
Toby OB