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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 8, No. 12 |
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HOORAY FOR UN-BURIED TREASURES
Three new DVD sets of long-awaited mystery TV programs from the UK: At left, Vol. 1 of "The Ruth Rendell Mysteries"; center, Vol. 1 of "Father Brown"; at right, "Shades of Darkness." |
Home video resurrects
some neglected mysteries
of TheColumnists.com
Just the other night, I settled down with great pleasure to finally watch the wonderful "Father Brown" British mystery series starring the great Kenneth More as G.K. Chesterton's early 20th century clerical sleuth.
To my knowledge, "Father Brown" has not been seen in the U.S. since 1982 when four episodes were shown in the third season of PBS' "Mystery!" anthology series. Even when I was writing the official companion book to "Mystery!" I was not able to round up any copies of "Father Brown."
Now, thanks to the phenomenon of the DVD boxed set, the entire series is being made available to mystery fans, including the episodes never shown on "Mystery!" For sale right now is Volume One, which contains seven episodes, only one of them shown on PBS--"The Three Tools of Death." The other episodes, all drawn from the famous stories by Chesterton, are "The Hammer of God," "The Oracle of the Dog," "The Curse of the Golden Cross," "The Eye of Apollo," "The Mirror of the Magistrate" and "The Dagger with Wings." The other PBS episodes--"The Head of Caesar," "The Eye of Apollo" and "The Secret Garden" will be in the second volume.
Father Brown remains a seminal character in the history of mystery fiction and the stories are still widely available in print. A 1934 Father Brown movie is not currently available anywhere nor is an earlier British TV series. The only "Father Brown" movie Americans probably will have seen is the 1954 film called "The Detective," which starred Alec Guinness as Father Brown.
Chesteron designed Father Brown to be a quiet, inobtrusive figure--not unlike Agatha Christie's Miss Jane Marple--who is hardly noticed by the suspects he's watching and almost always underrated by the ones who know he's on their trail. I find the stories delightful and Kenneth More, who died almost immediately after completing the episodes he filmed for ITC television in England, is a marvelous Father Brown. The series is richly photographed with the usual authentic-appearing English backgrounds, so I highly recommend it to mystery fans.
It turns out that people are crazy for these DVD sets that bring back the shows they loved dearly or never saw. That has made reviving them profitable, so we're probably going to see them all flood the market. In fact, I recently went on a buying spree, grabbing up most of the recent issues of classics, most of them never before on home video. The second volume of the 20th Century Fox 1930s "Charlie Chan" movies is now on sale, along with Volume Two of the "Mr. Moto" series. Fox also has just brought out the first volume of "The Michael Shayne Mysteries" starring Lloyd Nolan, another great "B" series, this time from the 1940s, that included many stories taken from the novels of famous mystery authors.
Another boxed set I've waited anxiously for is Volume One of "The Ruth Rendell Mysteries." Ruth Rendell is one of England's greatest living mystery authors and a great many of her novels were filmed for British television, but were only sporadically telecast here. The only mainstream Rendell shows on U.S. television were PBS' "Mystery!" movies "Gallowglass" and "A Dark-Adapted Eye," both adapted from novels Rendell wrote as her alter ego, Barbara Vine. Two more recent Rendell novels featuring her series detective, Inspector Wexford--"Road Rage" and "Simisola"--are widely available on video and DVD.
But the new boxed set from Acorn Media is composed of British TV versions of the novels "Vanity Dies Hard" (1965), "The Secret House of Death" (1968), "Master of the Moor" (1982) and the short story called "The Double." I've seen most of these before, but in very poor quality syndicated TV versions shown on local PBS stations around the U.S. These copies are freshly-minted and look great. They're all what we call "stand alone" mysteries wihout continuing characters. Presumably, the many Inspector Wexford mysteries, starring George Baker, will be in subsequent volumes.
The third new set I'm excited about is "Shades of Darkness," which ran as a seven-episode series on "Mystery!" in 1984 and has never been on video before. The two-disc DVD from Koch Vision home video includes six one-hour mysteries adapted from famous stories with a supernatural flavor. Two of the stories shown on "Mystery!"--Walter de la Mare's "Seaton's Aunt" and L.P. Hartley's "Feet Foremost"--are not on the DVD, but it includes one, Elizabeth Bowen's "The Demon Lover," starring Hugh Grant and Miranda Richardson, that was NOT shown on "Mystery!"
Besides "Demon Lover," the other stories on the DVD set are: Edith Wharton's "The Lady's Maid's Bell"; Edith Wharton's "Afterward"; May Sinclair's "The Intercessor" starring John Duttine of "To Serve Them All My Days"; C.H.B. Kitchin's "The Maze" with Francesca Annis ("Lillie")and EdithWharton's "Bewitched" with Eileen Atkins.
Prices for these sets will vary in the different marketplaces. I bought mine through the very reliable Amazon.com for the following prices: "Father Brown, Set 1" ($34.99), "Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Vol. 1" ($44.99); "Shades of Darkness" ($24.99). If you buy them all at one time, you don't even need to pay for shipping.
I think this DVD boxed set phenomenon is an amazing break for mystery lovers. I'm hoping soon to see other long-awaited dream sets, such as "Jemima Shore Investigates," the one season 1984 series starring Patricia Hodge as Antonia Fraser's TV personality/detective. PBS' "Mystery!" showed the two-hour movie "Quiet As A Nun" based on Fraser's first Jemima Shore novel, but it, too, never has been on home video in the U.S. (Maria Aitken played Jemima in that first film.) I don't think the series ever played in the U.S., even in syndication.
I'll keep my eyes open for news of any such material finally coming to the home video market.
©2007 by Ron Miller. The "Father Brown" and "Ruth Rendell Mysteries" DVD cover illustrations are courtesy of Acorn Media; the "Shades of Darkness" DVD cover courtesy of Koch Video. This column first posted March 12, 2007.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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