Hi Steve,

1. The Wolfe Pack is screening one of the infamous widescreen Missing Minutes episodes of the A&E Nero Wolfe television series this Friday, Dec. 4th, in NYC: “Prisoner’s Base.” There’s a downloadable brochure online on the Wolfe Pack’s Home Page, which describes the event, and also in the Missing Minutes section of the website:

www.nerowolfe.org

http://www.nerowolfe.org/htm/AE/missing_minutes/missing_minutes.htm

2. The Jim Hutton-David Wayne Ellery Queen series is reportedly getting a legitimate release next year:

http://tvshowsondvd.com/n/13043

Cheers,

Tina Silber

MELISSA. BBC-TV 3-part miniseries: December 4 through 18, 1974. Peter Barkworth, Guy Foster, Moira Redmond, Ronald Fraser, Joan Benham, Philip Voss, Ray Lonnen, Lyndon Brook, Elizabeth Bell. Story: Francis Durbridge; novelized as My Wife Melissa (Hodder, 1967). Director: Peter Moffatt.

   I have mystery writer Martin Edwards to thank for letting me know about this relatively ancient but remarkably well-preserved TV detective drama, first shown in the UK some 35 years ago and (believe it or not) available now in this country on DVD.

   Martin reviewed it on his blog back in June, and after his positive appraisal, I snapped it up from Amazon almost immediately. With the stacks of DVDs and shows on video tape all clamoring for my attention, though, I didn’t get around to watching it until the middle of last month.

   A piece of advice, if I may? If you’re a fan of complicated detective stories full of clues, false trails, mysterious happenings and twist after twist in the plot, don’t wait around as long as I did. Get this and watch it now. And do I mean that? Indeed I do. You won’t regret it. It’s fusty, it’s old-fashioned, and it’s absolutely terrific.

   Note that if you’re more of a fan of PI stories or hardboiled crime fiction, the recommendation I extend to you isn’t quite so urgent, but within its limitations, I think you might very well enjoy it too.

   I don’t know if a quickie, non-detailed recap will suffice, but here goes. A writer who’s been going through some tough times without a steady income allows his wife (Melissa) to go to a party with friends without him; when she calls him later to meet her somewhere, he goes, only to find her dead and all of the evidence pointing directly to him – and he has no alibi.

   Worse, a doctor specializing in neurological cases swears to the police that he was a recent patient, and so does his nurse, while Guy Foster, that’s name (played by a suitably rumpled and increasingly haggard Peter Barkworth) knows he has never seen either one before in his life.

   More funny business continues. By the time a second murder occurs, Foster is so wrapped up in elaborately phony (and highly unlikely) stories (although from his perspective, they are all perfectly true) he has nowhere to turn — until a chance comment he happens to make tells Detective Chief Inspector Carter (perfectly played by a suavely genteel Philip Voss) that the fantastic stories he’s been telling are the real truth.

   The story’s the thing in this case, and the only thing, with each of the first episodes ending in a beautifully constructed cliffhanger. I don’t imagine – no, make that I simply can’t imagine any killer going to such lengths to shift the blame to someone else, but it certainly creates a lot of fun for readers really, really fond of detective puzzles in their everyday brand of mystery fiction. In Melissa they’ll find something just as good, for a change, on the TV screen. Guaranteed.

   (On the other hand, I have to admit that Raymond Chandler might have found the overly elaborately and wholly invented affair utterly stagy and ludicrous, and therefore by extension, Raymond Chandler fans may very well follow suit. If you fall in the latter category, I can’t make you like it – but on the other hand, you might.)

   Other notes: Melissa was televised once before, as a 6-part mini-series beginning in 1964 with essentially the same characters (though not the actors) so I assume the story was the same.

   Another version appeared on TV in 1997, but the synopsis sounds makes it sound rather different in a number of ways. (The new guys who come along always seem to want to do that, for some reason.)

   Francis Durbridge, who wrote the story, is all but unknown in this country, but in the UK he was quite famous as a writer of detective stories and radio plays (e.g., Paul Temple), movie scripts and TV. The quickest way to check out his credits may be his Wikipedia page.

STATE OF PLAY. BBC-TV, 2003. [6 x 60m miniseries] John Simm, David Morrissey, Kelly Macdonald, Bill Nighy, Amelia Bullmore, Benedict Wong, Rebekah Staton, Philip Glenister, Polly Walker, James McAvoy, Marc Warren. Screenwriter: Paul Abbott; director: David Yates.

   First of all, do not confuse this with the film produced in the US in 2009 starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren and Robin Wright Penn.

   No matter how good this latter group of actors may be, and no matter how many names you recognize in the US production over that of the BBC series, when it comes down to sheer entertainment value, I doubt that there’ll be much comparison. In the overall scheme of life and a list of things that are possible, this doesn’t seem to be one of them.

   But I say that without having seen the US version. On the other hand, it’s just been released on DVD, so I’m sure I’ll give it a try. If and when I do, I’ll report back later.

   Having spent all of last week – eight hours’ worth — watching the BBC version and being completely enthralled, I don’t see how reducing the running time down to two hours can possibly improve either the story or the characterizations. (The eight hours includes watching each of the first and last hours twice, the second time in each case with running commentary.)

   Much of the miniseries takes place in the newsroom of a busy London newspaper, and although I’ve not been in a newsroom recently — not since I gave up my job reviewing mysteries for the Hartford Courant — it looked and felt to me as authentic as actually being there: a huge room bustling with people working and moving around with individual reporters’ desks with stacks of papers and files and anything else that a reporter might want his or her hands on at a moment’s notice.

   It was difficult, in fact, to come down from the giddy feeling produced by the top-notch overall atmosphere, the competitive camaraderie, the highs of stories when they’re panning out followed by the lows when they’re not, especially when the latter are caused by management buckling under pressure from those up above concerned with the bottom line, or even worse, from the government in the form of the police or some agency involved with rules and regulations regarding, perhaps, the oil industry.

   Dead in a railway accident is Sonia Baker, a research assistant to Stephen Collins (David Morrissey), a up-and-coming Member of Parliament who’s chairing The Energy Select Committee.

   When he falls apart in tears at an ensuing press conference, his secret’s out. Although married with two young children, he’d been having an affair with the dead girl.

   Was it an accident, or was it suicide? Of course we (the viewer) know better than that.

   On the story from the beginning is the suitably scruffy Cal McCaffrey (John Simm), with a little more inside information than any other reporter since he’s a friend of Collins and at one time his campaign manager.

   Complicating matters considerable is the affair that McCaffrey ends up in with Collins’ wife (Polly Walker). This adds an edge to an ever-widening story that points more and more to a grand conspiracy going on, but the facts could not be more elusive, always seemingly just out of reach.

   Every once in a while the British accents made some of the dialogue undecipherable but not once did I find the problem unmanageable. Surprising enough, I found the broad Scottish accent of reporter Della Smith (Kelly Macdonald) more understandable that some of the British ones, once my ear became more and more accustomed to it.

   All of the players are marvelous, pitch perfect (other than accents) in every way, including (and especially) Bill Nighy as Cameron Foster, the managing editor. He’s urbane, witty, snippy, dedicated and slightly acerbic in each and every situation where he needs to be each of the above.

   One flaw, if there is one, may also be a large one. The ending, while a totally natural one in one sense, also seems grafted on (or retrofitted, if you will), and it takes some effort to reconcile it some of the earlier threads of the plot — and there are a lot of them!

   Forgiving that is easily done, however, given the overall high quality of the presentation, and how delightfully and completely enjoyable the entire production is.

      

NEW TRICKS. BBC. Season Five [eight episodes]: 07 July 2008 to 25 August 2008.

   Last summer we had the fifth series (eight one-hour stories, no adverts) of this very popular programme. It has a nice set-up: a cold case team of three cynical ex-coppers (played by well know veteran actors Alun Armstrong, James Bolan and Denis Waterman) under the supervision of a female superintendent whose career has been sidelined (Amanda Redman).

   The characters are good and the humour and camaraderie are well done, but unfortunately the plots are rather a let down. The humour is obviously paramount to the producers and the logic of the plot seems to be given little thought.

   This is a pity as (as I’ve banged on about before) the pilot of this series was tremendous but, as often happens, the characterisation was sacrificed to promote the humour.

NOTES:   Season Six is currently in progress, 16 July 2009 to 27 August 2009. Season One will be available on DVD next week in the US.

GEORGE GENTLY. BBC1, 2008. Martin Shaw [Inspector Gently], Lee Ingleby [DS John Bacchus], Simon Hubbard [PC Taylor]. Based on the novels and characters created by Alan Hunter. Screenwriter: Peter Flannery.

   Following the pilot episode “Gently Go Man” (8 April 2007), we recently have had two more stories (each 90 minutes, no adverts) both based on the Gently series by Alan Hunter:

    “The Burning Man” (13 July 2008) based on Gently Where the Roads Go (1962) and “Bomber’s Moon” (20 July 2008) based on the book of the same title (1994).

   The Gently books (of which I’ve only read one, Gently With Love (1974), which didn’t do much for me) ran from 1955 to 1999 and were mainly set in East Anglia, which is where I was brought up. (Indeed I keep meaning to read the second in the series, Gently by The Shore (1956), since it is set in the fictitious “Starmouth” which I believe is the actual Great Yarmouth where I was living in 1956, aged eleven.)

   Hunter himself ran a second hand bookshop in Norwich (some 20 miles away) and may well have been the man who found me a copy of Sax Fohmer’s second Fu Manchu book, The Devil Doctor around that time.

   Anyway back to the series, which is set in the sixties (so we have the strange situation of a 1994 book being set back some 30 years) and in the North East of England (far away from East Anglia in both distance and character).

   I have to say that I didn’t find these stories particularly interesting and the characters of Gently (played by Martin Shaw) and ambitious young sidekick DS John Bacchus (Lee Ingleby) were rather marred for me as they both came over as unlikeable, though I’m not sure that was the intention.

   Overall a disappointing outcome for a series that I was hoping would be better.

ARREST AND TRIAL. ABC-TV, 1963-64. Ben Gazzara, Chuck Connors, Roger Perry, John Larch, Don Galloway, Joe Higgins, John Kerr. On DVD: The Best of Arrest and Trial, Part Two, Timeless Media Group.

   I was disappointed with this set of shows. This was the 90 minute 1963 ABC series that first tried out the Law and Order formula of having the first half chart the police work and the second half cover the resulting legal proceeding.

   The difference here is that the second half focused on the defense attorney, rather than the prosecutors, in this case, Chuck Connors as “Irish” John Egan. Some critics said this undercut the show’s premise but I think it expanded the storytelling possibilities, although there are times you wonder which side of the street Egan is working.

   What hurt the show, based on the nine episodes on view in this three-disc set, was its length. It was too long, it was sloooow, scenes dragged or were dragged out for padding. It was confusing as stories lost their way and guest stars like James Whitmore, John McIntire, Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall gave great performances that were swallowed up in the maelstrom.

   The writers didn’t seem to know how to write for the show’s length; potentially strong 60 minute stories became weak, discursive and ultimately boring behemoths.

   While Connors projected authority and had presence as Egan, Ben Gazzara phoned in his cop character, Nick Anderson. Anderson was an absolute cipher and Ben did nothing to flesh him out.

   This isn’t so much a bad show as one that didn’t live up to its potential. There’s another box set out there, but I don’t think I’ll be looking it up.

   From flash to futile: the Spy/Espionage genre in 1960s cinema and television. Seldom could a vogue have sprung so quickly from so little, and progressed so hurriedly from fresh beginnings to extravagant decadence and self-parody.

   Fortunately, for television at least, Victor Canning was one of those astute writers who was all too aware of the genre’s doomed direction and managed to maintain a masterly hand in its various manifestations with dexterity and with dignity.

   Recent re-examination of his TV career has revealed an astonishingly prolific contributor to the small screen. For devotees of Canning’s work, the 1960s must have been pure bliss. Various single plays, a sequence of multi-part serials, forays into episodic drama, each with its own particular flavour of veiled menace and sinister associations.

   Earlier TV credits had largely been adaptations of his short stories, more often in the tenor of the safe than the surprising: “Never Trust a Lady” (CBS, 1953), with Marcel Dalio as a silky gentleman burglar; “A Thief There Was” (CBS, 1956), the misadventure of a jewel thief; “Disappearing Trick” (CBS, 1958), the comeuppance of a blackmailer; “Man on a Bicycle” (CBS, 1959), with Fred Astaire as a likeable con-man; and “Girl in the Gold Bathtub” (CBS, 1960), a gentle yarn about an American ad agency man sent to Italy to retrieve the title combination.

   His 1960s quintet of serialised dramas, however, belong not so much to the espionage or the thriller form as to a new kind of anxiety fantasy, with their brooding heroes nursing neurotic doubts about their predicament.

   The first, The Midnight Men (BBC, 1964), was set in 1913 and featured a foolhardy Andrew Keir as a crack-shot recruit in an assassination plot to kill a king in a Balkan state.

   A rescue thriller (with shades of The 39 Steps) formed the basis of Curtain of Fear (BBC, 1964) in which a cabaret performer, Miss Memory, is kidnapped while under hypnosis and carrying state secrets in her extraordinary memory (which sounds uncannily similar to his later novel Memory Boy, 1981); George Baker was the perplexed fiancé in pursuit, dodging various British and Russian agents.

   Contract to Kill (BBC, 1965) returned to an Ambleresque milieu with a Frenchwoman seeking revenge on a Nazi for the murder of her son during the war, a German secret society pledged to aid ex-Nazis on the run, and with freelance agent Jeremy Kemp embroiled in the murky activities.

   Taking the form of a more conventional thriller, Breaking Point (BBC, 1966) tells of a metallurgist who has discovered a form of steel which is immune to metal fatigue, and the security agent assigned to protect him and his discovery from hostile international interests. The suspense of imminent discovery sustained This Way for Murder (BBC, 1967), involving a sinister corporate crime structure and its infiltration by reformed ex-crook Terence Longdon on behalf of British police.

   It was somewhat disheartening to learn that (save an episode or two, and with only This Way for Murder remaining complete) all the above BBC serials have been junked.

   More straightforward crime elements — the TV plays about diamond thieves in Miracle on Mano (ITV, 1962) and Double Stakes (ITV, 1963), blackmail in Come Into My Parlour (ITV, 1965), working admirably in terms of involvement and suspense — were woven into stories for BBC’s Paul Temple (1969-71) and the suspense anthology The Man Outside (1972), adding an understated, realistic quality.

   Surprisingly, there was even a two-part Mannix story in 1975 (scripted by Alfred Hayes) based on his 1951 novel Venetian Bird.

   The chill awareness of a lethal cloak-and-dagger world, however, couldn’t help but surface in the conspiracy-obsessed British Intelligence agent series The Rat Catchers (ITV, 1966-67) for which Canning composed two three-part stories, cheerfully spreading characters and plot across various European locales.

   The MGM TV film The Scorpio Letters (ABC, 1967) arrived somewhere between talkative mystery and uneventful spy thriller. Alex Cord’s laconic, mildly sardonic agent hero and the film’s underlying theme about the corrupting effect of temporarily-acceptable violence in wartime failed to stimulate the main plot: the discovery of the elusive blackmailer Scorpio.

   The always-interesting Man in a Suitcase (ITV, 1967-68), often entangled in its own conspiracies, produced the absurdly compelling “Blind Spot” in which Canning had Richard Bradford’s usually impassive McGill warm to a blind girl he is protecting as a ‘witness’ to a murder.

   The counter-spy series Codename (BBC, 1969-70), about a British spy cell which uses a university as its cover, also called on Canning for a story, allowing him further exploration of the cool and brutal sophistication about Intelligence procedure, and its extreme ingenuity as a mechanism.

   For the completists, there is also a German made-for-TV film, Das ganz grosse Ding, produced in 1965, but I have been unable to determine the original Canning story source.

   Some modern references suggest Canning appeared as an actor in a 1967 episode (“The Mercenary”) of BBC police series Dixon of Dock Green. On consulting BBC TV Broadcast Programme information (a record of actual BBC transmission details) for this particular episode, I found that although there is no Victor Canning given in the cast list there is an actor called Victor Winding playing ‘Ben Chambers’. Perhaps this soundalike name was the source of the confusion…?

         Victor Canning Television:

1. “Never Trust a Lady” / Your Jeweler’s Showcase (CBS, 9 June 1953). Dir: Ralph Murphy. Scr: Howard J. Green, adapted by Frank L. Moss; from original story by Canning. Cast: Marcel Dalio, Ray Teal, June Vincent.

2. “A Thief There Was” / Appointment With Adventure (CBS, 18 Mar 1956). Dir: Paul Stanley. Scr: Victor Canning, from story by Abby Mann. Cast: Christopher Plummer, Jason Robards, Constance Ford.

3. “Disappearing Trick” / Alfred Hitchcock Presents (CBS, 6 Apr 1958). Dir: Arthur Hiller. Scr: Kathleen Hite, based on s.s. by Canning [UK ed. Argosy, Sept 1957]. Cast: Robert Horton, Betsy von Furstenberg, Perry Lopez.

4. “Man on a Bicycle” / General Electric Theatre (CBS, 11 Jan 1959). Dir: Herschel Daugherty. Scr: Jameson Brewer, from short story “Young Man on a Bicycle [Cosmopolitan, Oct 1955]. Cast: Fred Astaire, Roxane Berard, Stanley Adams.

5. “Girl in the Gold Bathtub” / The U.S. Steel Hour (CBS, 4 May 1960). Dir: Allen Reisner. Scr: Robert Van Scoyk, from [original?] story by Canning. Cast: Marisa Pavan, Jessie Royce Landis Edward Andrews, Johnny Carson.

6. “Miracle on Mano” / Play of the Week (ITV, 14 Aug 1962). Dir: John Hale. Scr: VC. Cast: Patrick Magee, Derek Francis, Alan Tilvern.

7. “Double Stakes” / Play of the Week (ITV, 7 May 1963). Dir: John Hale. Scr: VC. Cast: Nigel Davenport, Jane Hylton, Richard Shaw.

8. The Midnight Men (serial; BBC, 21 June-26 July 1964; 6 x half-hour). Prod/Dir: Rudolph Cartier. Scr: VC. Cast: Laurence Payne, Andrew Keir, Derek Francis, Eva Bartok.

9. Curtain of Fear (serial; BBC, 28 Oct-2 Dec 1964; 6 x half-hour). Prod/Dir: Gerald Blake. Scr: VC. Cast: Colette Wilde, George Baker, John Breslin, William Franklyn.

10. Contract to Kill (serial; BBC, 3 May-7 June 1965; 6 x 25 mins). Prod: Alan Bromly. Dir: Peter Hammond. Scr: VC. Cast: Jeremy Kemp, Pauline Bott, Ronald Radd.

11. “Come Into My Parlour” / Suspense Hour (ITV, 11 July 1965). Dir: John Cooper. Scr: VC. Cast: Keith Barron, Renny Lister, Ray Barrett.

12. “Operation Lost Souls” / The Rat Catchers (ITV, 13 Apr 1966). Dir: Bill Hitchcock. Scr: VC. Regular Cast: Glyn Owen, Gerald Flood, Philip Stone; Tom Watson, Bernard Kay, Sally Home.

13. “Operation Irish Triangle” / The Rat Catchers (ITV, 20 Apr 1966). Dir: Bill Hitchcock. Scr: VC. Regular Cast [as above]; Eugene Deckers, Rachel Gurney, Patricia Haines.

14. “Operation Big Fish” / The Rat Catchers (ITV, 27 Apr 1966). Dir: Bill Hitchcock. Scr: VC. Regular Cast [as above]; Eugene Deckers, Rachel Gurney, Alan Gifford.

15. Breaking Point (serial; BBC, 22 Oct-19 Nov 1966; 5 x 25 mins). Prod: Alan Bromly. Dir: Douglas Camfield. Scr: VC. Cast: William Russell, Rosemary Nicols, Richard Hurndall.

16. “Mission to Madeira” / The Rat Catchers (ITV, 22 Dec 1966). Dir: Don Gale. Scr: VC. Regular Cast [as above]; John Abineri, Hannah Gordon, Richard Warner.

17. “Death in Madeira” / The Rat Catchers (ITV, 5 Jan 1967). Dir: Don Gale. Scr: VC. Regular Cast [as above]; Frederick Treves, Hannah Gordon, Susan Engel.

18. “Midnight Over Madeira” / The Rat Catchers (ITV, 12 Jan 1967). Dir: Don Gale. Scr: VC. Regular Cast [as above]; Frederick Treves, Susan Engel, John Abineri.

19. The Scorpio Letters (TV film; ABC, 19 Feb 1967). Dir: Richard Thorpe. Scr: Adrian Spies, from 1964 novel. Cast: Alex Cord, Shirley Eaton, Laurence Naismith, Oscar Beregi. [Cinema release in UK in May 1968]

20. This Way for Murder (serial; BBC, 3 June-8 July 1967; 6 x 25 mins). Prod: Alan Bromly. Dir: Eric Hills. Scr: VC. Cast: Hugh Cross, Terence Longdon, Isobel Black.

21. “Blind Spot” / Man in a Suitcase (ITV London, 10 Feb 1968). Dir: Jeremy Summers. Scr: VC. Cast: Richard Bradford, Marius Goring, Felicity Kendall.

22. “The Alpha Man” / Codename (BBC, 9 June 1970). Dir: Ronald Wilson. Scr: VC. Cast: Clifford Evans, Anthony Valentine, Alexandra Bastedo.

23. “With Friends Like You, Who Needs Enemies?” / Paul Temple (BBC, 30 June 1971). Dir: Michael Ferguson. Scr: VC. Cast: Francis Matthews (Paul Temple), Ros Drinkwater (Steve), George Sewell.

24. “Cuculus Canorus” / The Man Outside (BBC, 16 June 1972). Dir: Raymond Menmuir. Scr: VC. Cast: Rupert Davies (intro); Anthony Hopkins, Gerald Flood, Michael Gambon.

25. “Never Trust a Lady” / Of Men and Women (TV special; ABC, 6 May 1973). Dir: Lee Phillips. Scr: Harry Musheim, from Canning’s story. Cast: Jack Cassidy, Barbara Feldon, Mary Jackson.

26. “Bird of Prey” (two-part episode) / Mannix (CBS, 2 & 9 Mar 1975). Dir: Michael O’Herlihy. Scr: Alfred Hayes, based on the 1951 novel Venetian Bird. Cast: Mike Connors, Richard Evans, Robert Loggia.

27. The Runaways (TV film; CBS, 1 Apr 1975). Dir: Harry Harris. Scr: John McGreevey, from 1972 novel. Cast: Dorothy McGuire, Van Williams, John Randolph, Neva Patterson.

LORD EDGWARE DIES.    TV movie/episode of Agatha Christie: Poirot (ITV, A&E).. First shown in the UK on 19 February 2000 [Season 7, Episode 2]. David Suchet (Poirot), Hugh Fraser (Captain Hastings), Philip Jackson (Inspector Japp), Pauline Moran (Miss Lemon), with Helen Grace, John Castle, Fiona Allen, Dominic Guard, Deborah Cornelius, Hannah Yelland, Tim Steed. Based on the novel by Agatha Christie (US title: Thirteen at Dinner). Dramatization: Anthony Horowitz; director: Brian Farnham.

   In the comments that follow Geoff Bradley’s review of Toward Zero, David Vineyard and others, including myself, have been discussing the viability of movie and TV adaptations, as compared to the original books upon which they’re based.

   Which of course brought to mind (mine, that is) my disappointment in the preceding entry in this series of Hercule Poirot dramatizations, that being The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which I reviewed here quite some time ago.

   Regarding the latter, allow me to quote my slightly younger self: “I certainly did not recognize the shootout in the chemical factory between the killer on one side at the end, and Poirot and Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson) on the other. Good grief. What were they thinking?”

   With Lord Edgware Dies, however, they writer, producer and director get another chance to do it right, and except for one or two details, as far as I could tell, they did. I’ve read all of the comments on IMBD, and they all agree. This was an almost perfect reproduction of the book.

   In which the wife of Lord Edgware hires Poirot to intercede on her behalf in terms of his agreeing to grant her a divorce. Even though the good man (who is not, otherwise why are there so many possible suspects?) says he’s willing, he’s found dead later the same evening.

   The primary suspect is Poirot’s client, played most wonderfully by Helen Grace — she’s supposed to be a woman who attracts men to her like that other Helen, the one from Troy — and she does.

   The problem is, she has an alibi, an unshakable one, such as being at a dinner party set for thirteen at exactly the same time the murder takes place. And what’s more, a well-dressed look-alike is seen entering the dead man’s home just before he died.

   She’s been framed, and it’s up to Poirot, with a little help from Hastings and Japp, not to mention his long-time secretary, Miss Lemon to sort through the evidence, which insists on piling up, and picking the correct killer out of the long list of possibilities.

   Beautifully, beautifully done. Not perfectly done, though. There are some flaws in the story line that won’t come to mind immediately, but they may later. I knew who the killer was early on, but I confess I had my doubts when so many creatively manufactured red herrings did their best to tempt me off the trail.

   Books and books, and movies are movies, and the existence of one does not negate the existence of the other. And sometimes the twain do meet. What this filmed episode of Lord Edgeware does do is to show that it can be done with fidelity to the original, that liberties do not have to be taken, and that the end result can also be as delightful and entertaining as the original.

   As for Roger Ackroyd, if you’ve read the book, you know what the problems are in terms of converting it to cinematic form. It wouldn’t be easy. But the gunfight in a chemical plant? No way.

AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MARPLE: TOWARD ZERO.   ITV.   Series 3, Episode 3.   First telecast in the UK on 03 August 2008.   Geraldine McEwan, Julian Sands, Paul Nicholls, Greg Wise, Saffron Burrows, Julie Graham, Tom Baker, Eileen Atkins.   Based on the novel by Agatha Christie.  Director: David Grindley (uncredited).

   Agatha Christie’s Marple which is what it was called in the listings, returned with the penultimate outing for Geraldine McEwen in the eponymous role. It was an adaptation of Towards Zero, a Christie novel in which Miss Marple plays no part.

   Here she was interjected into the otherwise fairly faithful plot (if my faltering memory of reading it some twenty odd years ago plus the vague plot descriptions in a couple of reference books can be relied upon), involving a gathering of people at the home of Lady Tressilian — played by Eileen Atkins in a fairly star-studded cast which included Tom Baker (former Dr Who and Sherlock Holmes), Saffron Burrows (of Boston Legal) and Alan Davies (Jonathan Creek).

   I have been critical of previous outings in this series but I enjoyed this one. The post-WWII settings were superb, and I thought McEwen kept the knowing grins down to at least a reasonable proportion. There was an amusing gaffe when a scene showing the protagonist Neville Strange (Greg Wise), a tennis player, at Wimbledon (incidentally his opponent was played by Greg Rusedski), had the scores shown on an electronic scoreboard.

BRENNER. TV series. CBS-TV, 1959-61-64. Ed Binns, James Broderick, with Dick O’Neill, Walter Greaza, Sydney Pollack, Gene Hackman. Executive producer: Herbert Brodkin. Various screenwriters & directors.

   Brenner was one of those overlooked gems of the black-and-white TV era, a half-hour character-driven drama about two New York City cops, Roy Brenner (Edward Binns) a veteran member of The Confidential Squad (aka Internal Affairs), and his son Ernie (James Broderick), a rookie detective.

   The focus was police corruption and the emotional cost of police work, themes explored at greater length and intensity by such later shows as Naked City and Police Story.

   Brenner utilized a low-key approach, though, and it pays off. It doesn’t utilize the city as a character the way Naked City did, but its exteriors capture the time (1959) and place and Manhattan mood just as well.

   A big help is the supporting cast of then mostly unfamiliar New York actors, including Simon Oakland, George Grizzard, Michael Strong, Frank Sutton, Frank Overton and an unbilled Gene Hackman, who pops up several times as a patrolman.

   The recent DVD box set from Timeless Media features 15 of the 25 or 26 episodes produced. (See below.)

   The visual quality on most of the episodes is outstanding. I’d seen a couple of episodes years ago and always hoped I’d get to see more. I was not disappointed.

NOTE: The series was first televised in 1959 (6 June to 19 September) and appeared in re-runs on CBS during the summmers of 1961, 1962, and 1964, with two new episodes appearing in 1961. In the fall of 1964 (17 May to 19 July) a summer season of several new episodes appeared. According to the The Classic TV Archive, the total number of episodes that actually aired is considered to be 25.