Campion - The Complete First Season
by Martyn Friend, Michael Owen Morris, Robert Chetwyn, Ronald Wilson
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DVD details
Actor: Barbara Jefford, Brian Glover, Gordon Jackson, Peter Davison, Robin LermitteDirector: Martyn Friend, Michael Owen Morris, Robert Chetwyn, Ronald Wilson
Brand: BBC Video
Writer: Alan Plater
Writer: Elaine Morgan
Writer: Jeremy Paul
Writer: Jill Hyem
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Dictionary), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Published), 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: 2003-05-13
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC Warner
Product features:
- 2003 - BBC Video - Warner Bros. - DVDs
- Campion : The Complete First Season
- Stars: Peter Davison & Brian Glover
- The Margery Allingham Mysteries
- New - Collectible Set
DVD Reviews of Campion - The Complete First Season
DVD Review: CAMPION, THE FIRST SEASON
Summary: 5 Stars
WE FELL IN LOVE W/PETER DAVISON WHEN WE SAW HIM IN ALL CREATURES - WERE SO HAPPY THAT WE FOUND HIM AGAIN ON AMAZON IN THE CAMPION SERIES. THE SHOW IS WITTY, ACTING TERRIFIC AND STORY LINES UNIQUE.DVD Review: MysteryFan
Summary: 5 Stars
Campion is great fun, and a good detective! Wish there were more than two series.DVD Review: Campion, First Season
Summary: 5 Stars
I have only recently received this item and have not had a chance to watch all of the episodes. However, I do not regret buying, since I have read Margery Allingham's books and wanted a chance to watch the DVD. If the DVD's follow the written stories fairly good, then I will be pleased with the product. It is nice to envision the characters as I read the books, even if they are actors.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.
DVD Review: Campion-The Complete First Season
Summary: 5 Stars
I enjoy mysteries that surprise me. This one does! It gives you all the clues, but I seldom know "who done it". It's light and fun---enjoyable!!
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."Do you take the long road?" asks a gruff restaurant manager of a hapless drifter. Thus is launched one of the serpentine mysteries written by Margery Allingham, featuring a genteel 1930s sleuth named Albert Campion (played by Peter Davison, a former Doctor Who), whose bland good manners mask a macabre humor and a relish for solving crimes. All of Allingham's stories take the long road, winding their way through a collection of eccentric personalities, improbable murders, and unexpected narrative twists.
Look to the Lady centers around the attempted theft of a 1000-year-old golden chalice from the upper-class family entrusted with it care, encompassing witchcraft, a vast criminal organization, strange rituals, and a murderous horse. The Case of the Late Pig takes Campion and his cantankerous manservant Lugg (Brian Glover) into the British countryside, where they encounter a childhood bully, enigmatic letters, a human corpse replaced by a dead pig, and some very important ice cubes. In Police at the Funeral, Campion and Lugg investigate a murder among an upper-crust family of bickering middle-aged siblings and their imperious mother. And in Death of a Ghost the normally unflappable sleuth loses a bit of his objectivity when murder strikes among some good friends, the bohemian enclave that's built up around a deceased artist who decreed that every year after his death one of his 12 last paintings should be unveiled. During a sudden blackout at the annual event, someone stabs an abrasive young artist with a pair of ornate scissors. Campion's interplay with the crusty Lugg, a former burglar with an almost impenetrable Cockney accent, is the series' strongest element. The roundabout plots poke fun at the conventions of murder mysteries while providing all the comfortable pleasures of the genre. --Bret Fetzer
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