The Turn of the dial
the Turn of the dial is the third novel of Leo Perutz, published in 1918.
The main character, Stanislas Demba, are student. After having stolen three books with the library, it decides to resell them. At the time of the sale of the third, the purchaser, suspicieux, calls the police force and Demba escapes from little to the police officers while being thrown by a window; however those had already put the shackles to him. During all the novel, twenty chapters for twenty-four hours, Stanislas Demba wanders in Vienna, engoncé in long a pèlerine, to seek help and some money; from where grotesque, funny and dramatic situations, in which the character struggles.
For the anecdote, the Turn of the dial drew the attention of Hollywood since the rights of the book were bought in 1920 by M.G.M.; the scenario writer Murnau wanted to repurchase them, in vain. As for Alfred Hitchcock, he acknowledged in his discussions with François Truffaut which he had taken as a starting point the novel of Perutz for his film The Lodger .
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