P.D. James - The Black Tower

Starring:Roy Marsden, Pauline Collins, Martin Jarvis, Maurice Denham, Rachel Kempson, Norman Eshley, John Franklyn-Robbins, Carol Gillies, Richard Heffer, Harriet Bagnall, Andrew Hawkins, Valerie Whittington, Sheila Ruskin, Antony Carrick, Valerie Holliman, Albie Woodington, John Benfield, Art Malik, Heather James, Martyn Hesford
Director: Ronald Wilson
Studio: Lance Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

Description

THE BLACK TOWER is classic P.D. James - its secrets deepen with every episode; it surprises at every turn. James' gift for creating characters, for crafting intricate story detail and for keeping her audience guessing has made her fifteen novels international best-sellers.

Three mysterious murders. Two suspicious suicides. One deadly secret.

A reckless move in a drug raid leaves Commander Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard badly wounded and with time off. When he arrives to visit a friend at Toynton Grange, Dalgliesh thinks he's on vacation. Instead, a string of highly mysterious deaths catapult him dead-center into a maze of mystery, blackmail and murder. Suspects abound, but there is only one witness - the brooding black tower at the top of the cliff.

Roy Marsden is Dalgliesh, a smart detective with a poet's soul - observant, intelligent, intuitive and caught in a diabolical scheme that may threaten his life.

Customer Reviews:

A Classic BBC Mystery.......2007-06-05
I hadn't seen this since it ran on PBS many years ago, though I recently reread the novel. This is way it should be done! The six-hour time frame allows the narrative detail and character development that P.D. James excels at to make their proper effect, and the casting is superlative. Roy Marsden is the definitive Dalgleish, and Pauline Collins is outstanding as Maggie. The locations and photography are quite lovely, as well. My only criticism is that the final resolution seems a bit hurried and unconvincing. This is a fine effort, and vastly better than the two-hour condensations (dumb-downs?) that are being done these days.
Great mystery!.......2007-01-03
Roy Marsden was great as usual in the lead role. This was another great PD James mystery - very absorbing and leaves you guessing. This is an intricate mystery, very well written and acted which takes place in a hauntingly beautiful coastal setting. Mystery fans all over will love it.

Average customer rating:

Dalgliesh I hardly recognize you here

The best......

P.D. James - The Black Tower
Starring: Roy Marsden , Pauline Collins , Martin Jarvis , Maurice Denham , and Rachel Kempson
Director: Ronald Wilson
Manufacturer: Lance Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

P.D. James - Original Sin

P.D. James: A Mind to Murder

P.D. James - Unnatural Causes

ASIN: B00008973M
Release Date: 2003-04-15

Description
Three mysterious murders... two suspicious suicides... one deadly secret and the only witness, a brooding black tower at the top of a cliff. It all adds up to a diabolical case that may threaten detective Dalgliesh's own life.
Amazon.com
Actor Roy Marsden's fourth outing as mystery author P.D. James's recurring hero Inspector Dalgliesh is a very satisfying affair: an unorthodox whodunit in a surprisingly creepy setting, all wrapped in a psychologically complex story in which love, duty, and loyalty become corrupting prisons for myriad characters. Beneath it all is Dalgliesh's own crisis of confidence after a bullet injury. An old mentor from school, a kindly chaplain, seeks the recuperating Dalgliesh's assistance with a problem at Toynton Grange, a nursing home. When the detective arrives, he finds the chaplain dead, a rash of threatening letters anonymously sent to the residents, a disabled man possibly murdered, and a Grange director twisted by missionary zeal, bitter disappointment, and the loathing of his staff and clients. Dalgliesh slowly penetrates the Grange's peculiarly insulated culture, looking for a pattern to bizarre events. James's lengthy story is gripping, but the splendid cast is reason enough to see this miniseries. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews:

Dalgliesh I hardly recognize you here.......2005-03-03
The Black Tower is one of my favorite PD James novels. I love the way that James uses dialogue by supporting characters to make one reflect on what Dalgliesh's inner thoughts and feelings might be. This novel has some particularly cutting commentary about disability and how that affects one's perception of oneself and relationships, and some discomforting reflections on the uncomfortability of the physically able in the presence of the disabled and their (the physically able) need to de-sexualize the disabled and aged. This is one of the novels where we see Dalgliesh at his most introspective. He is questioning himself and his profession and has resolved to leave the force and stop being a detective.

However, the ITV version of Black Tower loses all of this. It is only a detective story. Yes, it's good and entertaining. The supporting cast is generally good, and Pauline Collins is really excellent (I liked her performance here even more than in 'Shirley Valentine' where she was also great). I give it 3.5 stars on the merit of the film and the performances by themselves.

But as an adaptation of the book, it really falls short. No doubt, it was the intention to focus on the detective story part of the book. But this is one PD James book that I wish would be remade with another actor giving a more introspective performance (for example Shaw who starred in the lastest PD James adaptations). Don't get me wrong; I've seen all the PD James adaptations with Marsden and I certainly enjoy watching him, but IMHO he never convincingly conveyed the poet aspect of the character. PD James herself has said as much in some of her interviews. This side of his character is at the core of this particular novel (unlike some of the others), and I barely see a similarity between the Dalgliesh being played in ITV adaptation versus the poet Dalgliesh who we get to see in the novel.
The best.............2003-04-20
P.D. James is unequaled among contemporary mystery writers, an anachronism, a member of an older order that has sadly passed away. Like her counterpart-Dorothy Sayers-James not only provides an entertaining story filled with compelling characters and a well formulated plot, she is a realist who presents the world as it is-filled with moral ambiguity. Fortunately, the BBC dramatization of THE BLACK TOWER is faithful to James' book, and Lance Entertainment has been faithful to the BBC production-all 287 minutes. I have purchased the majority of the BBC-PBS Mystery productions and find the quality of this DVD a 10.
THE BLACK TOWER may have been the first P.D. James mystery filmed (1985?) but it is certainly one of James' better tales. She uses the country house setting-in this case Toyton Grange, a nursing home in East Anglia on the North Sea owned and run by a middle-aged man who may have been cured of MS on a visit to Lourdes. Typical of James, there is little bloodshed-her victims more frequently succumb to poison or smothering, leaving suicide as well as homicide a possible cause of death. By the end of the story, six people are dead and a more than a few have come close to the edge.
BBC television productions from the 1980s are akin to the U.S. staged television productions of the late 1960s and 1970s. The BLACK TOWER is a classic example of the era when stagecraft was more important than "special effects." The actors in this production include the wonderful Pauline Collins who played `Shirley Valentine' in the film and on Broadway where she won a Tony Award, and who was a member of the `Upstairs-Downstairs' cast. Other actors include Art Malik and Rachel Kempson from the "Jewel in the Crown" series. Roy Marsden is his usual quizzical self.
I like the video as well as the audio effects in the BLACK TOWER. Modern film makers use `fuzzy' mikes that drown out much of the background noise, which they then augment with synthetic sound. This `sound editing' is supposed to enhance the viewer's audio experience (mood altering, etc.), but what a treat to "hear" a film made before these modern advances. While it is true many of the shots where made on a sound stage, more than a few were filmed outside. The verisimilitude of the natural environment provides one with a sense of "being there" where a real breeze can be heard and it's effects seen, and real birds chirp in the bushes and trees.
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