Lord Peter Wimsey - The Complete Collection (1973) Review

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(More customer reviews)Finally, finally, the full set of this series is on DVD. (Individual titles have been trickling onto the market for years.) These engrossing, spirited productions are the major detective-fiction product from a distinct period and style of British productions that gave the world some enduring classics: Upstairs Downstairs, its sequel The Duchess of Duke Street, Poldark, Danger: UXB, and of course (by informal consensus the best TV series ever made), All Creatures Great and Small. These 1970s productions share a look and feel that is quickly recognizable (with videotaped interior and filmed outdoor scenes, and a pool of outstanding actors, in the British tradition, many of them famous in higher-budget theatrical films also). They all aired in the US when they were new and occasionally later, and captivated audiences, who have looked eagerly for them since. (And who were, therefore, all the more disappointed with a later, 1990s re-make of some of Sayers's Wimsey stories, slick but without the heart and energy of this 1970s classic series with Ian Carmichael.) The original stories by Sayers are themselves very entertaining; she was one of the most intellectual, and certainly the most hard-working, of the British detective-fiction writers who flourished between the wars. (One of her stories turns on the gender of a definite article in French; another, relying on details of architecture, sent her studying the subject for six months so that she would know what she was talking about -- modern best-seller writers, please note.) Her fondness for and knowledge of the Church of England informs a number of the dramatizations, especially The Nine Tailors, thought by many people (including me) to be best of them -- certainly its plot is a lollapalooza. But they are all very good.

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Flambards Collection Set Review

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(More customer reviews)Have you ever encountered a TV series which, from the first episode on, became an irreplaceable part of your identity, moving you in ways impossible to describe but felt profoundly? FLAMBARDS was that beautiful a series. Set in the years surrounding the First World War, the story depicts how Christina, a young orphan sent to live with her cousins and uncle at a decaying country estate, Flambards, comes of age amid the conflicts, passions, loyalties, and tragedies which follow from her new life. Her uncle Russell, wheelchair-bound for life due to a fox-hunting accident, compounds his misfortune through heavy drinking by the fireplace, and takes his sole pleasure in life from the vicarious adventures in the hunting field which his rugged son Mark shares with him. They are callous to their servants, and cannot understand anyone who does not share their absorption in the world of hunting, hounds, and endless leisure. Mark's brother William could not be more different. Gentle, sympathetic to the servants and the plight of their class, and passionately devoted to the design, building and flying of planes, he too is injured while engaging in the one sport he hates - fox-hunting - and must now walk with a limp. Christina, in her late teens like William, prefers his gentle company, yet thrills to the excitement of the fox-hunt. And she soon learns that her ample inheritance, due when she is twenty-one, has been earmarked for the restoration of Flambards - and that she is to marry Mark, who, among other brutalities, has provoked the firing of Violet, the kitchen maid, after making her pregnant!The rest of the series portrays the growing attraction of Christina and William, their escape from Flambards into the world of the early aviators, and the disruptions in their new life resulting from the epic slaughter of the First World War. Everything in this series is just right: the casting of Christine McKenna and Alan Parna by as Christina and William, the stirring footage of restored early airplanes in glorious flight (set to the haunting background music of David Fanshawe, itself worth the eleven-and-a-half hours you'll spend loving this series), the tenderness of the scenes where William and Christina discover their love for each other, the portrayal of a bygone age of English social life help make FLAMBARDS a series with something for everybody. But what lifts this series into the realm of the extraordinary for me is its unaffected embodiment of human goodness and innocence, of nobility and the heroic, and of how these qualities can move us still, in a time when we need them more than ever.I've seen dozens of TV shows since I first caught episode 6, "Cold Light of Day," on PBS during a collegiate summer vacation almost twenty years ago. None have found their way as close to my heart as FLAMBARDS. I hope you agree. And I wish you the very best. END

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Studio: Bfs Ent & Multimedia LimiRelease Date: 09/28/2004Run time: 676 minutes

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My Boy Jack (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)2007's "My Boy Jack" is an extraordinarily good drama for television, featuring an excellent cast and a compelling story about the First World War, based on a play and a screenplay by David Haig.
When Britain goes to war with Imperial Germany in 1914, young men sign up in droves for the military. John "Jack" Kipling, son of famous writer and British Empire advocate Rudyard Kipling, is anxious to serve in uniform but rejected due to poor eyesight. Overruling the concerns of his wife and daughter, Kipling Senior pulls some strings to get Jack a commission in the Irish Guards. Jack works hard to overcome the challenge of his eyesight, in the process becoming a competent lieutenant and earning the respect of his platoon. All too quickly, Jack ships out for the Western Front, where he goes missing in action in his first mission "over the top" from the trenches at Loos in 1915. The family will spend agonizing months trying to learn his whereabouts. A shell-shocked member of Jack's platoon will finally bring word of Jack's fate.
David Haig is uncanny as Rudyard Kipling, Jack's father, a superbly talented storyteller and novelist, now a government propagandist trying to make sense of hideous casualties. His efforts to enable his son to "do his part" will be a source of immense guilt when Jack goes missing. Kim Cattrell is astonishingly good as Carrie, Jack's American mother. Haunted by the loss of another child, Carrie advocates for a position of less danger for her son, whom she fears will be at additional risk due to his poor eyesight. When Jack goes missing, Carrie is relentless in tracking down clues to his possible fate. Carey Mulligan is very effective as Elsie "Bird" Kipling, Jack's sympathetic older sister, who shares with him the stifling burden of living in the shadow of a very prominent father. Daniel Radcliff is absolutely credible as Jack, whether braving the challenge of military training or sneaking cigarettes with his sister.
At the core of the drama is the haunting question of whether Jack should have gone into service in the first place. The family argues over Kipling Senior's efforts to get Jack preferential treatment, but the story makes clear that Jack is very much a volunteer. Moreover, it is apparent that Jack, out from under his father's shadow, is transformed by his few months in uniform from boy to man, performing with exemplary bravery and with compassion for his soldiers.
Production values are exceptionally good for a television movie. At least some filming was done at Kipling's home of Bateman in Southern England. Period costumes and manners are spot-on. The recreation of the Western Front is appropriately wet, muddy, and terrifying. The closing scene, in which Rudyard Kipling comforts King George V for the unexpected loss of his own child by reciting a moving poem, is a perfect ending for the movie.
This movie is very highly recommended as compelling period family drama.

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Its 1915 and World War I has been declared. Aged only 17, Kiplings son, like most of his generation, is swept up in the enthusiasm to fight the Germans, a mood stoked vigorously by his father. Jack is cripplingly short sighted and the army has rejected him twice, rendering him too myopic even for an army suffering thousands of casualties a week and desperate for recruits. Yet Rudyard is undeterred, determined that his son should go to the front, like countless other sons, and fight for the values that he, Kipling, espouses so publicly. Using his fame and influence, Kipling persuades Lord Roberts, on his death bed, to get Jack a commission in the Irish guards. This intervention is barely tolerated by Carrie and daughter Elise (Carey Mulligan), as they disagree that Jack is fit to fight and fear for his safety on the front line. Jack is instantly popular with his troop he is a great leader and trains tirelessly to overcome the disability that is his eyesight. Six months later Jack sails to France as a lieutenant. Jack went missing in action during the Battle of Loos and his mother and father carried out an increasingly desperate search for him, spanning many years and many miles.DVD Features:Deleted ScenesInterviews

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