10/21/2011

Masterpiece Theater: Blackheath Poisonings (1993) Review

Masterpiece Theater: Blackheath Poisonings  (1993)
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The BLACKHEATH POISONINGS is a great film. Originally, a BBC/Masterpiece presentation on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting network, the film features a cast of familiar British faces such as Judy Parfitt (JEWEL IN THE CROWN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE), Patrick Malahide (MIDDLEMARCH, THE SINGING DECTECTIVE); Zoe Wanamaker (MORSE) and dozens of other actors you've seen in various Mystery Theater presentations.
The transfer of the film is reasonably good. The plot is very complex. The cast of characters excepting the doctors who treat the poisoned and the police who investigate what turns out to be murder, are all members of the same family). The family business is toy manufacturing, and a number of curious 19th century toys are featured in various scenes. The action takes place in a fabulous Victorian house (red and green and filled with nicknacks), a 19th century factory, a brothel, a train station, a cemetery, and a park. Think Sherlock Holmes crossed with Gilbert and Sullivan.

Parfitt plays the domineering, stingy, and uptight matriarch "she who must be obeyed" to a family comprised of resentful adult children - sons, sons-in-law, daughters, nephews, stepchildren. The seven deadly sins are represented by the various family members - anger, lust, greed, avarice, lust - did I say lust? Sex and money are at the root of their problems - often the case in repressed Victorian society.
This mystery is SO good my 74-year old husband who usually falls asleep at 8:00 p.m. in front of the tv stayed awake until 11:20 p.m. When I asked him 2/3 of the way through the three hour showing if he wanted to continue, he said, "Bring her on."

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