The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries - Speedy Death dvd movie.|
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List Price: $19.95 Our Price: $17.99 You Save: $1.96 Features • Closed-captioned • Color • DVD-Video • Full Screen • NTSC In Theaters : 07 March, 1999 DVD Release : 24 June, 2003 |
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The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries - Speedy Death description This free adaptation of Gladys Mitchell's classic crime novel Speedy Death as a vehicle for a full-blooded performance by Diana Rigg as the louche 1920s analyst Mrs. Bradley is a splendid piece of period drama with an intriguing puzzle at its heart. Mrs. Bradley attends the engagement party of her crippled goddaughter Eleanor, only to find the home of her old beau, Eleanor's father Bing (John Alderson), a hotbed of intrigue and sudden death. Eleanor's unsatisfactory fiancé Everard is found drowned in the bath after quarrelling with the former suitor whose bad driving crippled Eleanor; someone tries to shoot the fiancée of Eleanor's brother Gorde. Full of memorable characters like the sinister housekeeper Mrs. McNamara (Lynda Baron), Speedy Death is an impressive feature-length curtain-raiser to a popular series. For once, a detective has to investigate a crime where she has something seriously at stake--her sense of her own past and her own friends. --Roz Kaveney |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | Murder with style and skeptical asides; and be discrete when you look in the bath tub |
| "The countryside? A place where the birds and animals wander about uncooked." That's Mrs. Adela Bradley speaking. The place is a large country manor home. The time is the 1920s. And the who include an old friend of Mrs. Bradley, the wealthy Alastair Bing; his daughter Eleanor, who is Mrs. Bradley's god-daughter, confined to a wheelchair since an auto accident two years earlier and who will come into a fortune when she marries; Eleanor's fiancee, Everard Mountjoy; his son, Garde; Garde's best friend (who was driving when Eleanor was crippled), Bertie Philipson; and Garde's house guest, Dorothy Manners. Of course, there are assorted servants as well as Mrs. Bradley's chauffeur, George Moody (Neil Dudgeon). George is big, capable man who dislikes boredom as much as Mrs. Bradley does.
Adela Bradley (Diana Rigg) is a wealthy woman of a certain age, a divorcee, a psychoanalyst, a catcher of criminals, a woman who drives about in a Rolls Royce, enjoys cocktails, is skeptical about many things, especially love and husbands, and who some might say is, in one of the great descriptive words of the Twenties, louche. "I'm never entirely sure if I'm famous or notorious," she confides to us in one of her asides spoken into the camera. "Someone once said famous is to live in poverty and end up as a statue. Naturally, I prefer to be notorious." Little does Mrs. Bradley realize that during her weekend at the Bing estate, where Eleanor's engagement to Mountjoy will be formally announced, she will encounter murder. That's in addition to calculated emotional manipulation, pre-planned adultery, psychotic obsession and a shocking discovery that takes place in a bath tub. There also is a red herring that, in a well disguised twist, turns out not be a herring after all. Several people wind up getting happily married, a state that neither we nor Mrs. Bradley expect to last for long. Does this all sound a bit over the top? Or just "Scary biscuits!" as one character says? Actually, it's a solid story, thanks to Diana Rigg. She brings to the role such authority and skeptical amusement that the plot becomes a pleasure to follow. Rigg was 60 when she made this 90-minute TV movie (followed the next year by four additional episodes). She's a first-rate actress to begin with; she looks a knock-out in some almost outlandishly sleek Twenties dresses and hats; and she doesn't hesitate to show us the character, meaning herself, without make-up. If you like British mysteries, you'll most likely enjoy this one. The DVD transfer is excellent. Extras include a key cast biographies and a cast list. |
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