User Reviews

I have had mixed feelings about this series since I first saw it in the early 1970s. I read THE MOONSTONES in the late 1960s, and enjoyed Wilkie Collin's blending of a detective story with his social comments about Victorian hypocrisy and hypocrites. It was the first Collins' novel I read (THE WOMAN IN WHITE followed within two years). Then I heard that it was going to be on "Masterpiece Theatre". It excited me to see that two of the stars of THE FORSYTE SAGA were in it (Martin Jarvis and John Welsh), and I looked forward to it. Alistaire Cooke's introduction was also increasing my expectations. He pointed out it was the first "Who Dunnit" on "Masterpiece Theatre".

The series did tell the story of the novel, but I found it disappointing. Not that the acting and production was poor, but they did not follow the organization of the novel as Collins thought it out. Collins had different characters in the novel tell the story in overlapping manner (like Welles and Mankiewicz did in the screenplay for CITIZEN KANE) so that we got different perspectives on the actions and on the characters. This was jettisoned: so we missed the character of Miss Clack, and her self-serving religiosity, and barely got Gabriel Betteridge's love of using Defoe's ROBINSON CRUSOE as a source of philosophy. If you have read THE MOONSTONES you can tell this is a serious loss.

The plot of the novel is simple. Rachel Verrinder (Vivien Heilbron) is celebrating her coming of age birthday, and her mother Lady Verrinder (Kathleen Byron) is having a party for her, to which is invited some of the friends and young beaus interested in her. In particular Franklin Blake (Robin Ellis) and Godfrey Ablewhite (Martin Jarvis). The household plans are aided by Lady Verrinder's butler Gabriel Betteridge (Basil Dignam). But as the festivities are about to begin, a testamentary gift is sent to the house that Lady Verrinder is not too happy about. Her ladyship's uncle had been kept at arm's length since her childhood by the family - he gained a fortune by unscrupulous methods (including violence and murder) in a "battle" in India in 1799 at Seringapatam. The uncle felt the universal dislike, and became reclusive. Now he sends (in his will) a very valuable jewel: The Moonstone, possibly the rarest diamond in the world. It is his gift to his unseen grand niece, and, yet, Lady Verrinder has forebodings that it is pure evil.

Soon it seems to be attracting unease among everyone. Three mysterious Indians show up in the English countryside for no reason, and keep approaching the house. Rachel is favoring Franklin as a possible fiancé over Godfrey, but they have a quarrel. Then the diamond vanishes. The local police come in and are totally inept, especially as they tend to dismiss the investigation they should be conducting when Lady Verrinder orders it. A servant girl with a past named Roseanna Spearman (Anna Cropper) attracts some attention, but nothing is accomplished. Public opinion insists on action, and Scotland Yard sends it's best detective, Sergeant Cuff (John Welsh). Immediately the investigation starts getting really serious.

Cuff does not care who is shielding who, or whether the parties involved are nobility and gentry or not. He goes out of his way to solve the case. Soon he is aware that Lady Verrinder's interference is due to the behavior of Rachel, and that Rachel's seems pegged on her feelings about Franklin. Still he is also aware of the odd behavior of Spearman, who he tries to question (and who keeps putting him off). Ablewhite also leaves rather early, as did several other guests. The fact that a nightgown is missing that is a vital clue is bothering him. He appears to be approaching a solution, when Spearman commits suicide. The local police Superintendent Foley causes a backlash, forcing Cuff to be recalled. And the case is left unresolved, until two years pass. And I will leave it at that.

When Collins wrote the novel in 1868 he was using elements from several recent events. One was the Road Murder Mystery of 1860. If you have seen the complete version of DEAD OF NIGHT, you see part of that story when Sally Ann Howes meets the little boy ghost. This is the murder of Francis Saville Kent, possibly by his half-sister Constance Kent. A leading clue in that case was a missing nightgown belonging to Constance. The detective on the case was Inspector Jonathan Whicher, got recalled when local opinion swerved against him after he began suspecting Constance. He was recalled, and like Cuff was forced to resign (and like Cuff was subsequently vindicated to see his suspicions proved apparently true). Professor Richard Altick also found that a later incident in the story was based on an 1864 crime, "the Northumberland Street outrage", involving waylaying a person into a house.

The performances were good though, despite the change of the novel's story-making structure. Welch's Cuff was perhaps too restrained (the novel pushes his habit of growing roses and humming "The Last Rose of Summer"). Robin Ellis was on the edge of television stardom (POLDARK was in the future) but he gave a good performance as Franklin, who finds the discovery of the truth more upsetting than he bargained for. Cropper's Spearman was very sympathetic, as the cursed jewel's unexpected victim. The show was, if not all it should have been, a good dramatization.

I was hypnotized by this series when I was in high school. I fell in love with the articulate, precise words that communicated longing, disappointment, worry, prejudice and forgiveness. These actors use English so beautifully. I watch this DVD about twice a year just to see what polished actors can do during the awful British labor strikes--seven of them when this was being produced. This means having light only three days a week in Britain (the coal strikes if anyone remembers), color production was threatened (watch early Upstairs, Downstairs to see the early black and white offerings), and sets that no one would put up and the actors did it themselves. As a British friend of mine told me, the 1970s in Britain was like living "in North Korea without the hope."

That being said, don't miss Rachel Verinder forgiving Franklin. Don't miss Rachel's mother, the great actress from "Black Narcissus" standing firm against religious extremism, and don't miss the profound longing of the poor maid, Roseanna, in love with Franklin. Don't miss the discussion at the table of the hatred of medicine and the importance of the missing diamond to the Indians. The actor who plays the doomed Mr Jennings breaks my heart. His description of opium addiction can be read on his face. So what if the sets are simple--BBC had NO MONEY--yet these actors told the story exquisitely. The recent Moonstone production (with Greg Wise- -a great actor wasted here-- with only the gifted Tom Hollander being worthwhile) was unwatchable and should not have been produced). The novel addressed class, race, money, banking, usury, and Antisemitism and this production also has the guts to examine these issues. Again, it is the spoken flow of the beautiful English language that is the great gift here. Don't worry about the diamond- -that's just a trope around which all the characters rotate.