CLUES AND QUESTIONS

Which of Jo Rowling’s Chamber of Secrets hints, clues, and red herrings are hidden, buried, or swimming around in the pipes in the second Harry Potter movie?  After watching this great film more times than I have fingers and toes to use for counting I have come up with a few ideas that I am going to now share with you.

It’s a real shame, in my opinion, that  Warner Bros. didn’t release the DVDs of all the Harry Potter movies with the deleted scenes restored back into each film's  proper context rather than in an extras category on the second disk.  Nevertheless, at least now we can view these scenes, some of which I feel are very important and revealing.  For example, in the theatrical version when Harry shoots into Borgin and Burkes from the fireplace he gets up and walks over to the mantle where there is a glass-domed display of diminutive skulls and the uncovered Hand of Glory.  Harry's own hand is gripped in a vice-like grasp by the skeletal fingers until he pries himself free.  He then rushes from the shop.  There are actually two different sequences that were apparently shot and then cut from the film.  In the first of these cut scenes, as Harry is trying to free himself from the Hand of Glory, his anxiety is intensified by Draco’s appearance outside the shop window.  Harry escapes and hides inside a mummy sarcophagus just in time as Draco and his father, Lucius, enter Borgin and Burkes.  It’s here that Mr. Borgin appears from some other part of the shop and he and Lucius conduct their business transaction.  By the way, we never see the item that Mr. Borgin is so taken with but that Lucius Malfoy won’t sell to him.  I don’t think it is Tom Riddle’s diary because it seems to be a small item.  I wonder if we’ll ever know.  Draco almost discovers Harry’s hiding place but is stopped from opening the sarcophagus by his father.  They leave, Mr. Borgin apparently skulks back to his own hiding place, and Harry hurriedly dashes from the shop into Knockturn Alley. 

The alternate scene just shows Harry, after freeing himself from the clutches of the Hand of Glory, quickly leaving Borgin and Burkes, only to be stopped and questioned first before he reaches the door by Mr. Borgin. 

I really think the scene with Draco Malfoy and his dad is an important scene.  It firstly builds tension in the audience’s mind for Harry’s welfare.  It is also a way, as it is in the book, for Harry to learn that the Malfoys have many dark magic items hidden away in their house; information that eventually gets passed on to Mr. Weasley who conducts a raid on the Malfoy’s residence.  It’s pointed out later in the movie, in the bookstore, that Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy’s views differ greatly regarding muggles.  I think the Flourish and Blotts scene would be more dramatic if the Borgin and Burkes scene were left intact. 

Did you also notice  the giant hand sculpture in a glass case… another hand of glory?

The next very quick scene that was cut that I wish the director had left in was when Harry and Ron are being taken to Snape’s office after they’ve crashed Mr. Weasley’s Ford Anglia into the Womping Willow.  Filch drops his envelope for his Kwik Spell correspondence course and Harry picks it up.  Once again this tiny little scene packs a giant punch: Harry’s discovery that Filch is a Squib, a secret, in the caretaker’s mind that is too embarrassing to admit, especially to a student, and even more to the famous Harry Potter.  It also sets up Filch's diehard revenge against Harry when he finds Mrs. Norris petrified.

Another deleted scene that I think shows jut how much Harry is really bothered by the fact that he could be, unknowingly, the heir of Slytherin and the one attacking people is when he admits to Hermione and Ron that he didn’t realize he could speak Parseltongue.  I got the impression that Harry is now very vulnerable to the idea that he could be possessed… and this is something that haunts him again in the OotP.  It’s good back story. 

Continuing in the same vein is the little soul-searching scene where we find Harry and Hedwig sitting alone on a cliff overlooking the lake.  Harry has learned so much about himself and his parents since he first came to Hogwarts and yet we see that he only now realizes just how much he still doesn’t know.  Yes, I can agree it’s not absolutely necessary in the film and yet, it shows us so much about Harry’s character… even more than he can see himself.

I liked the scene in the hospital when Harry and Ron show Hermione Tom Riddle’s diary.  For one thing, we can see for ourselves that Hermione is almost de-furred.  It also reveals to us that the diary appears to be filled with nothing but blank pages which in turn heightens the tension surrounding what secrets it is hiding.

Lastly, in respect to deleted scenes, I just have to say how much I laughed when the real Goyle and Crabbe come face to face with their Harry/Goyle and Ron/Crabbe counterparts. 

So now on to the movie as it was edited and presented in the theaters and on the DVD.  Early on, Uncle Vernon puts his right hand on the right side of his chest, supposedly indicating his heart.  This is a great visual to let us see that Vernon Dursley, figuratively speaking, has no heart… And especially where Harry is concerned he is heartless.

In both the book and the film I just have to give Fred, George, and Ron kudos for finding Harry’s house in the middle of the night, from overhead, when none of them had ever been there before.  I believe they had a compass in the book but no such muggle navigational tool is visible in the COS movie.  I wonder if the Ford Anglia was bewitched with an on-board navigational system.

Sorry… but the “rubber duck” question posed to Harry by Mr. Weasley was just inane script writing.

Ahh, traveling by Floo powder… In the book Harry actually chokes on the floo powder as he tries to say “Diagon Alley” whereas that was changed to him just abysmally mispronouncing it in the film.  Harry has been to Diagon Alley before and after a year in the wizarding world knows how to say it… I think they should have stuck to Jo’s version.  Why change what works best?

I liked the bookstore scene.  It worked very well… all of it… except for when Lucius says to Mr. Weasley, “I’ll see you at work…”  As we all know at this point in time, Lucius Malfoy doesn’t work at the Ministry of Magic.  Maybe he’s started spending time with his new pal, Cornelius, but that doesn’t really fly either because Fudge still likes Harry and is watching out for him in POA -- Something that changes drastically when he and Malfoy become buddy-buddies.

One of my favorite shots is Hedwig’s eye-popping startled look when she sees the Hogwarts Express chugging right behind the Ford Anglia. 

I also like the added excitement when Harry falls out the door of the car and Ron desperately struggles to pull him back in AND keep driving.  I keep wondering, however, why Ron didn’t just tilt the car over the other way and Harry would have fallen back inside… but that’s being logical so I’ll not go there.

The explanation of Mudbloods is given by Hagrid in the film and I don’t mind this.  Hagrid is the adult and father-figure in the scene so it makes sense he would take on the role of comforting Hermione.  And since he too is not a pureblood he can relate to her feelings on a similar level.  Besides, Ron puking slugs nearly steals the scene as it is so they might as well give the others something to balance it out.

When Dumbledore appears in the petrified Mrs. Norris scene, he seems to already know what's happened to her. I wish he would have examined her more closely like he does in the book.  It seems just a bit too convenient that he would instantly now she wasn’t dead.

All the films so far have not included Professor Binns.  In the book he is the one who explains about the legend of the Chamber of Secrets.  Minerva McGonagall has been given that role in the film… and that works for me… After all, she was a student at Hogwarts at the time the Chamber was opened fifty years earlier.

For convenience’s sake I am sure the film’s writer and director moved the spell book with the Polyjuice Potion recipe out of the restricted area and onto a very accessible library shelf… I wonder if Madame Pince knew they did that.

I don’t think I’m the only one who noticed that when Harry fell off his broom after catching the snitch with his not-broken-arm he supported himself with his broken arm while trying to get out of the rogue bludger’s way?

After the dueling scene, in the film, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are seen entering the Gryffindor common room where Harry admits he can speak to snakes, although he doesn't realize that he is and always has been a Parseltongue.  I miss the scene in the book just prior to this when Ron grabs Harry’s arm and pulls him out of the great hall.  The jump between the dueling scene and the common room scene is, to me, a jump cut.

Are the horse drawn carriages used to take students to the train at Christmas Hogwart’s horses and carriages?  I would have thought we’d have seen “horse-less” carriages drawn by invisible thestrals.  Hmm.

I just want to give kudos to Josh and Jamie.  I think they did a great job during the scene they were supposed to be the transfigured Harry and Ron… even if their real voices were looped over.

The night Harry and Ron, hidden under Harry’s invisibility cloak, visit Hagrid to ask him about the Chamber of Secrets, Hagrid opens the door to his hut with his crossbow poised and ready to shoot.  Who's he expecting?  This is never answered… and it’s an unanswered question in both the book and film.  Am I too assume he was expecting Fudge?  The Dementors?  Voldemort?  I don’t know.  Hagrid truly seems surprised when Fudge tells him he’s to be sent to Azkaban, yet he must have suspected that might happen since he was ready to defend himself with his crossbow. 

I am also curious how McGonagall knew it was Ginny Weasley who had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets.  Ginny’s name wasn’t painted on the wall along with the rest of the message.  Did Ginny send a message to McGonagall telling her who would be taken?  I'd like to know how she knew.  This is another unanswered question in both the book and film.

In the Chamber of Secrets book Harry found a small snake etched into the metal of the faucet in Myrtle’s bathroom.  In the film, this snake grew into a molded sculpture attached to the faucet.  Since I am guessing this room was not a bathroom with modern, running water plumbing when Salazar Slytherin built the Chamber a thousand years earlier, I don’t think he put the snake on the faucet so it would have to have been Tom Riddle.

I thought it interesting that Tom Riddle… or at least his memory… could look at the Basilisk and not be petrified.  It would seem that the heir of Slytherin has a special immunity to prettification.

One of the main things that the film did change from the way Jo wrote the scene originally was that after Fawkes blinds the Basilisk, Tom tells Harry that the snake can still “hear” him.  Jo wrote that the snake could still “smell” Harry.  This is far more accurate.  Nevertheless, it’s easier to drive an audience with sight and sound rather than smell in a movie.  When the Basilisk had trapped Harry in one of the tunnels, it’s huge poisonous fangs inches from our boy wizard, it wouldn’t have mattered if Harry threw that rock to distract the Basilisk if the serpent was only going to keep sniffing him out.  That would have been the end of the movie then and there.

I love them flying out of the Chamber holding on to Fawkes’ tail but what exit are they using?   In the book, Harry and company return to Myrtle’s bathroom.  In the film, they fly out into the night.  Did the rock slide and cave in open another way out? 

Great adlib:  “Don’t worry, I will be.” -- Harry’s comeback to Malfoy’s gibe about Harry always being around to save the day.  I really think this has long term future meaning.

At the end of the movie, Lucius Malfoy attempts to use the Avada Kedavra curse on Harry only to be stopped by Dobby.  Malfoy doesn’t attempt to do this in the book so I was surprised they wrote it in here.  But it does forewarn of things to come.

And speaking of Dobby saving Harry’s life… I thought it was odd that right after Dobby really saved Harry’s life, Harry asked Dobby to never try to save his life again.  I know they were referring to all the accidents that Harry suffered  because of Dobby's well-meaning attempts throughout the year but it just seemed odd for Harry to say that at this particular time.  The line works better as it is used in the book, since Malfoy didn’t actually try to kill Harry.

The film ends with the scene of all the students in the Great Hall, everyone who was petrified is restored to full health including Hermione, and Hagrid’s return from Azkaban.  It’s a good scene.  We are given the hint of the way relationships are tending between our three heroes.  We are also shown just how important Hagrid is to Hogwarts and to Harry. 

Overall, I really love this movie.  I’m ready to watch it again… and again… and again.

CAST CREDITS