Father Brown - Set 1
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Movie Reviews of Father Brown - Set 1
Movie Review: Interesting but not a real winner!
Summary: 3 Stars
I love British mysteries, but Father Brown seems a little flat. I wouldn't buy it again.Movie Review: Disappointing British Series
Summary: 2 Stars
I am a big fan of British mysteries and had reasonably high hopes for this series from the reviews. Alas, I found them much less than I had hoped for. The stories and the acting, with the possible exception of Kenneth More, seemed sophomoric and overdone. The secondary actors (several of whom I am familiar with from other films) were way over the top, shouting and declaiming far more than the part called for amd much more than I have seen them do elsewhere. While some of the stories were pretty good and some were really pretty bad, the acting almost without exception made me feel as though I were watching an amateur play.The episodes all had a very stage-y feeling that became very wearing after a while. All in all, this series was a severe disappointment.Movie Review: Caveat Emptor
Summary: 2 Stars
This is simply not up to par. Yes, Kenneth More is a fine actor, but nearly everything else is inferior to awful. Take the second program on disc one, "The Oracle of the Dog." The acting is on the high school level, the camera work is painfully awkward, the script is filled with cliches, and the ending is embarrassingly predictable. This is a collection of some of the worst British television programs I've ever seen--and I'm familiar with a great many. Alas, Chesterton had so much to say.Movie Review: Hugely Disappointing
Summary: 1 Stars
Please be warned -- the quality of these videos are so excruciatingly bad, it makes them almost impossible to sit through. A couple of the comments on here said exactly this but I bought it anyway, thinking "How bad can it be?"
I was wrong. They're terrible. They're boring. And I write as a huge Chesterton fan and an avid reader of all the Father Brown stories. This is a pale imitation of the sparkling wit and vivid descriptions of those classic tales. Now, Chesterton himself said "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly," so if this stuff works for some people and it introduces them to the Apostle of Common Sense, that's great...but be assured, in this case it has indeed been done badly. Very badly.
I was puzzled by the great variance in comments on the Amazon site for this DVD -- such gushing reviews and only one or two dissenters. Perhaps it's a generational thing? I'm not sure. But all I can say is that I suspect that most people who are used to the quality of current television shows, or who have a modicum of understanding and appreciation for the details and decisions that go into contemporary TV or film production will be dumbfounded by how truly bad this is. The video and sound quality are worse than home movies. The characterizations are overly exaggerated and the dialogue is often quite dull. Also, the pacing, editing, camera angles and movement are incredibly amateurish. It's like someone found a video camera on the street and was using it for the first time.
Don't make the same mistake I did. If you want good televised British mysteries, invest in the excellent Jeremy Brett series of Sherlock Holmes by Granada television. If you want Chesterton, sit yourself down in an overstuffed Victorian armchair with a bit of brandy, a good cigar, and your favorite pair of spectacles, and settle down with the massive set of Complete Works put out by Ignatius Press. The time you spend working through them will be infinitely better spent than any second watching these videos.
Movie Review: Father Brown falls flat
Summary: 1 Stars
I picked Set 1 up at the library, thinking that it would a nice change. I may have seen these in the '70s, I dimly remember Kenneth More. But oh my, this is dreadful.
The acting is amateurish in the extreme, except for Kenneth More, and he's been better. Everybody else was a caricature. There were plenty of other BBC productions in the '60s and '70s that were excellent, so I don't understand why this one is so bad.
They used video tape for the interior scenes and film for the exterior and the change is very noticeable. The sound is poor, too. (I thought it was me, or my TV, but I see others have commented on the problem as well.)
This was painful to watch. It took me a couple of days and nothing else to watch to get through the first story. Such a disappointment.
I recommend reading the Father Brown stories. They're good. This doesn't do them justice.
One refreshing thing is Fr. Brown's common-sense explanation of the mystery, and his not being fooled by the baloney of the other characters to cover up the mystery. But OMG, read the books, don't buy these series.