Pods in film?

[siggy]

I had rented the DVD "Kidnapped" based on the book by Robt. Louise Stevenson. It's a 2005 BBC made-for-tv movie. Anyway, in the opening credits, the page showing "Masterpiece Theatre", the camera shows this desk in a ritzy 19th century looking room with various objects on it, and right there in the lower left hand corner of the screen are like a dozen dried poppy pods ! I backed it up and looked again, and I'm going "those are fucking pods!". Funny how they jumped out at me - I guarantee you that 99.9% of viewers would not have even noticed - guess most folks would have no idea what they were I don't know why they are there, it's like an English gentleman's desk or something, just the Masterpiece Theatre title page, and it contains various interesting objects...maybe it was a sly reference to Sherlock Holmes' smoking of opium on those occasions he grew bored? :p

[Zonker]

Hstoricaly, poppes were very commonplace, and not controlled by the government; I worked for years and years as a blacksmith at the museum in my home town.. In their historicaly accurate herb garden there was a roughly 7x2 foot plot of poppes that were reputed to be the same ones as were grown there in the 1840's. They were excellent...

I know that poppy tea and other extracts were very commonly used, and laudanum was the medical standard for pain in the 18th through mid 19th century, before they figured out how to make morphiene.
I'm sure that a dozen or more good pods would have always been kept at hand for their analgesic effects. Sherlock Holmes injected morphiene and/or cocaine inbetween cases. The best Sherlock Holmes short stories for drugs are his Famous 'Sgn Of Four' (sherlock took hs bottle from the mantlepieceand hs hypodermic syringe from its morocco case) and "the adventure of the man with the twisted lip"
There's also the movie, a 7% soloution...

(I'm a historan and reader and re-reader of sherlock holmes.. I quote from memory)

[opos]

The Jim Henson movie "The Dark Crystal" has some pods in the swamp scene , I assume they were put there to make the scene look more alien but they are defenately OP pods.

[opos]

Damn I love SH stories I read them all except the new one that Doyle didn't write (obviously). The man with the twisted lip took place in a opium den! When Watson found Holmes ,Sherlock said something like "sooo I suppose you think I have taken up opium smoking along with my cocaine injects and all the other things you say metically are bad for me" or very close to that. Holmes also if I remember right in a Study from Scarlet was working with alkaloids in a chemistry room or some other organic poison I can't remember I should re-read that one it's been soooo long.

[Opiyum]

"We're off to see the wizard the wonderful wizard of OZ because, because, because, because, because of the wonderful field of poppies he has out side his emerald castle.

A coincidence that the first movie made in color features a field of beautiful poppies...I think not!
I wonder what the cast and crew did with all those poppies when they were done filming...I guess they were probably fake.

http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:8AsZ833IDvaZxM:www.kansasoz.com/z113.jpghttp://www.stagecoachers.com/2004/2004_A_pixs/WizardOz0.gif

[antony]

I was watching masterpiece theater after you started this thread, and so I payed close attention to the beginning, and there they were, about 8 pods just laying on the desk. good eyes