Rating: 
Summary: Lord Peter Shines Again!
Review: This nice set of three DVDs includes the three Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and his beloved Harriet Vane. They were dramatized by the BBC in the 1980s and shown on "Mystery" around 1988. Edward Petherbridge plays Lord Peter quite differently from the 1970s films starring Ian Carmichael. Petherbridge's Wimsey is more languid and calm than Carmichael's. I can't make up my mind which is the better portrayal, as both actors are superb. Harriet Vane is also excellent. She is on trial for her life in the first DVD, Strong Poison, and at the center of other crime investigations in Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night. She is clearly Lord Peter's equal in intellect and temperament and her agonizing over whether to accept his repeated proposals makes for a fine romantic sub story.
Rating:
Summary: Smashing DVD Collection for Mystery Fans
Review: This trio of adaptations of Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane mysteries is a beautifully produced treat, top drawer on all accounts. Faithfully recreating England at its peak in the 1920's and 30's, it stars Edward Petherbridge as Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane, both definitive portraits (to my mind) of their fictional counterparts.
My favorite is "Gaudy Night" set in an all-female college in Oxford with a bevy of tweedy, erudite, whimsically (no pun intended) mannish (in some cases) "spinsters" and scholars who are being plagued by a rash of nasty "poison pen" incidents. First of all, the fact that there is no foul play, to speak of, is part of the charm. Harriet Vane, a mystery writer and alumni of the college, is called in to investigate, and goes skulking deliciously around in the dark, trying to catch the culprit in the act. In the interim, there are wonderful discussions about the role of women in education and bright women, in general, and Harriet and Lord Peter are embroiled in their usual romantic tug-of-war with Harriet resistent and resentful and Lord Peter patient yet persistent.
In "Strong Poison," Lord Peter first sights and falls in love with Harriet Vane when she is on trial for poisoning her lover. In "Have His Carcase," my second favorite of the three, Vane (recovering from the trial in which she was acquitted) takes a seaside vacation and stumbles across a body on the beach. What appears to be a suicide may be murder. Reluctantly, Vane is helped out by Lord Peter Wimsey, which leads them to a lonely widow, Mrs. Weldon (played with wonderful sensitivity and compassion by Rowena Cooper) at an inn; a cipher; possible Bolsheviks; and a stranger in disguise with a snake tattoo. The three films belong together, following the trajectory of the two sleuths' relationship to a satisfying conclusion. All are rich in atmosphere, color, characterization and sheer enjoyment.
Interestingly, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane are not especially "sexy." Lord Peter is a foppish, prissy, pampered aristocrat (his smart, yet deferential butler Bunter runs his bath and is oh-so-delighted to be doing such -- in the books, his every other word is "my lord"); Petherbridge's bow-shaped mouth reminiscent of The Joker from "Batman" is often pursed or uttering clipped, mincing words (very irritating) yet he does convey a lot of warmth with his eyes. Harriet is somewhat dowdy, although not unattractive, but her angry, sulky, often downright hostile manner toward Peter is off-putting. What appeals to him about her? She practically sticks her tongue out at him when she sees him. Yet, this very oddness about both of them is part of their charm -- they really grow on you in both the books and in these adaptations. In many ways, they have the classic male pursuer and female hard-to-get relationship with Harriet quite an emancipated female to boot. Their restrained and not overtly passionate relationship becomes very sexy indeed, because of that restraint. When Harriet shows glimmers of interest or flirtation, it's delectable, and Wimsey's gentlemanly gentleness becomes alluring like fine wine.
The filmed "Have His Carcase" actually improves on the book in some ways by making Harriet more human. In the book, she is positively cold-blooded when she finds the body; in Agatha Christie, the nonchalant attitude toward death at times was part of the wry humor -- in "HHC," it comes off as positively cold. But in the film, she has the humanity to react fittingly to the discovery of a body -- with revulsion, fear and nausea. She also displays so much more magnanimity and compassion towards Mrs. Weldon than she does in the book where her reaction is a rather cruel contempt.
In any case, all three are wonderful, wonderful entertainment and representative of the high caliber one often relies on from Mystery.
Rating: 
Summary: Great show, but only plain-vanilla no-frills DVDs.
Review: Undoubtedly one of the Beeb's best classic British cozy adaptations, the casting of this series is spot on, which makes up for any wobbliness in the adaptations. STRONG POISON and especially HAVE HIS CARCASS (thank you Rosemary Anne Sisson!) are a delight to the viewer who treasures faithfulness to the books. GAUDY NIGHT, however, limited by only three 50-minute episodes maintains a narrative thread at the cost of some memorable scenes: no chess set, no dog collar, no nephew Jerry.The DVDs are surprisingly good in video quality: the soft greyish hues of British tv tend to bring out the visibility of compression, but the datarate hovers in the 7 range, so someone did their best to keep it clean and bright. And, needless to say, this is an obvious improvement over taped-off-the-air VHS. The opening animation, adapted from the show's title sequence, is far less annoying than the majority of you-have-to-sit-through-this front pages, and the navigation is excellent: the chapter selection pages include links to all the episodes on the disc and six of the twelve chapter stops per episode (i.e., you can get to any chapter stop on the disc within 3 clicks). And miracle of miracles, chapter choices are intelligent. Where the discs are lacking is in presenting "Extras" that aren't: a few background texts about the principal cast and promotional trailers for other products; and virtually identical offerings on all three discs. Either give me real extras (like the MYSTERY! Petherbridge interview footage, photos of Petherbridge and Emily Richards in the Lyric Hammersmith BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON, or even descriptions of the 1940 MGM Robert Montgomery BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON aka "Haunted Honeymoon" which has amusingly awful lines in it like: "I'm Lord Peter Wimsey. And this is my wife, Lady Wimsey...") or stop teasing me.
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