Campion - The Complete First Season
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DVD details
Author: Margery AllinghamActor: Brian Glover, Peter Davison
Brand: Warner Home Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 428 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-10-25
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: E1742
Studio: BBC Worldwide
Product features:
- Behind his distinctive owlish glasses and gentle, deceptive naivete, Albert Campion conceals a passion for excitement and danger. Peter Davison (All Creatures Great and Small, Doctor Who) plays Margery Allingham's enigmatic sleuth, with Brian Glover as his loyal but slightly shady manservant in theseic mysteries set in the 1930's. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE Rating:
DVD Reviews of Campion - The Complete First Season
DVD Review: In a world where most of us will never be invited to supper, at least we might be murdered
Summary: 4 Stars
Is it possible that the English upper classes could simply be too well bred for their own good? Probably not as long their money holds out. But for a mystery series, maybe. With Campion, a BBC series that ran two seasons in 1989 and 1990, we have Peter Davison as Albert Campion, bespectacled, balding, well bred, well educated and well off. In the stylish world of 1930s wealth and society, Campion has dedicated himself to solving crimes and catching villains. These crimes almost always put him among equally well bred and well-off members of the upper class, in their stately homes and country houses, amongst their daughters and their horses, and amongst their black-sheep relatives.
The series is drawn from the mystery novels of Margery Allingham who, as so many British mystery writers of the Twenties and Thirties did, specialized in civilized crime. When the mysteries were good, they were very good. When they weren't (or when they became dated), they usually seemed to represent a way of life we are well rid of (except, of course, we aren't. It's just the cut of the dinner dress and the price of the vices that has changed.)
For me, the Campion television mysteries are a mixed blessing. On the plus side, Peter Davison makes an engaging, intelligent and sympathetic protagonist. He's one of the most likable actors I've ever seen, whether he's playing a young country vet in All Creatures Great & Small: The Complete Series 1 Collection or a put-upon, middle-aged detective constable in The Last Detective - Series 1. The mysteries are often satisfyingly complicated and the production looks like a million dollars (or pounds). The BBC spent what it took to make the upper classes' dress, their homes, their gardens and their cars look as if it were all theirs by right. Campion drives a red (Triumph, I think) roadster I'd be tempted to sell my children for. On the down side, Campion sets his traps with cleverness, but much of the time he spends listening with his eyebrows slightly raised. Combined with the excruciating gentility of the world he moves in, the episodes, which run close to two hours each, more often than not had me dozing off now and then. I'll admit to being something of a Leveler, but those who worry unduly about whether to send the port to the left or the right have always seemed more silly than sympathetic.
Campion and his manservant, the ex-burglar Magersfontein Lugg (Brian Glover), find themselves involved in four cases in this first season. One is a standout and another is very good. My favorite is Police at the Funeral. Campion finds himself in a country home stuffed with good breeding...but also stuffed full of resentments old and new, and with bizarre murders that seem to have no solution or rationale. Campion also must deal with the singularly stiff upper lip of the ancient doyen of the family. Mary Morris, 75, tiny, spare and wrinkled, plays this authoritative woman. She dominates the proceedings. Morris died shortly after production was finished. Forty-eight years earlier, in 1941, Mary Morris played Ludmilla Koslowsky, the young woman Leslie Howard, playing Professor Horatio Smith, fell in love with in Pimpernel Smith, If you can track down this old movie, it's still a great one. A nice job also is done with Death of a Ghost, a tale of more resentments and murder, this time mixed with envy and famous paintings. Campion nearly gets himself killed by being too clever.
I've not read any of Allingham's mysteries so I have no idea how well the BBC brought Campion to life with Peter Davison. If you enjoy well-bred detectives and murderous doings amongst those who'd never, ever invite you to supper, you'll enjoy these four programs. On balance, I did. But now I'm returning to Ross Thomas. I'm half way through Briarpatch.
Description of Campion - The Complete First Season
Behind his distinctive owlish glasses and gentle, deceptive naivete, Albert Campion conceals a passion for excitement and danger. Peter Davison (All Creatures Great and Small, Doctor Who) plays Margery Allingham's enigmatic sleuth, with Brian Glover as his loyal but slightly shady manservant in these classic mysteries set in the 1930's.Bestsellers in DVD
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