Reviews

Fast-moving, intelligent plots; excellent scripts and acting; credible and interesting characters; and good detail on the law, the show's legal adviser being a prominent solicitor in real life.

I remember Episode 1 of Season 4 very well but apart from that I didn't see it at the time, so the Talking Pictures rerun was new to me. I was riveted, and indeed, now they are showing it again, I am watching once more.

As for Main not being very nice, he throws away his career to stand by a friend who made a bad misjudgment, and he regularly prioritizes cases to help the poor over much more lucrative work. He ain't all bad!

I'd have bought this like a shot on DVD - if it had ever been made available. But tonight, even better, I found it on All 4 and watched it streaming. Characters, script, plot, acting, all marvellous. Episode one is a little slow and that probably hurt the ratings; otherwise it's hard to account for the lack of repeats or a DVD.

I believe the Michael Gambon Maigret was shot in Budapest because Paris didn't look like Paris any more! There are no such problems here. This is the Paris of the books, and Rupert Davies is Maigret exactly as Simenon conceived him. It was this authenticity that made me buy it as soon as it came out.

Thus the scenery and atmosphere are perfect. The stories, inevitably, are variable, but I'd call them good to excellent. The acting is solid rather than anything better - clearly there were no funds for retakes and there is usually a fluffed line or two in every episode.

The weak spot is the technical quality. Episode One is an outlier, in that it is so poor it is difficult to watch. From Episode Two it is very much better, but still not great. But then, would it have been any better for the TV viewer of the time, watching a 405 line transmission on an 18 inch set?

Anyway I'm delighted to have bought this wonderful time capsule.

The first episode of any new show will be below par because they have to set the scene, introduce the characters etc. Even making allowances for this Episode 1 here was really terrible. I mean, Stabler is broken up by the murder of his wife - as he would be. But...we get it! We don't need to be reminded every five minutes. Episode 2 wasn't much better.

More generally the big problem is that neither the crime nor the criminals grab you. You don't recoil in horror at the crime; you don't burn to see the villains get what's coming to them. None of the characters apart from Stabler are very interesting, and the relationships stretch credulity to breaking point and beyond.

About episode 4 or 5 I just gave up. I don't care whether they get Mr Big or not. I don't care what the real motive for the murder of Stabler's wife turns out to be. I don't care how things develop between Stabler and Mr Big's ex.

How did the victim before our heroine know the whole backstory - did the demon drop in for a little chat one day? Why do the characters think electricity will harm a being that is impervious to bullets? What is the demon's motivation, its objective?

A good cast and some tense moments don't make up for a misconceived story.

Rains's actions are almost incomprehensible today. I can only put them in the context of crime books from the 50s I have read - Crime in America by Burton B Turkus, the Kefauver commission - in which the words "gambler" and "gangster" are used completely interchangeably. Clearly gambling was a very, very big no-no then, and for an executive with fiduciary duties to be caught gambling would wreck the reputation of the firm he worked for.

With that said, it's a nice little story, well acted and scripted. And as with all this show, I can watch it for the cars and the NYC location shots alone!

The storylines were credible, as well they might be, being taken from real life. They were also informative and entertaining. Well acted and scripted too, this was a very solid show. A couple of episodes were total turkeys, but nobody's perfect.

What I found quite exceptional were the episodes about corruption in politics. As was pointed out, the sums of money involved dwarf even big business, and the potential is there for real tragedy. Building a highway 3 inches thick when it needs to be 4 inches for safety could result in mass fatalities, but you can see why crooks would be attracted to it. The materials savings per square yard might not be that great, but if it's a six lane highway covering 100 miles, that's an awful lot of square yards.

The show made the point that this sort of corruption is in our hands as voters. And when you read of people going into Congress with nothing, but then being worth $100 million 30 years later, you have to wonder. The salaries are good but they're not that good!

Qua movie it's pretty poor, as everyone else has said, but it's worth a watch for two things. First is the great, always watchable Tod Slaughter in an atypical modern role, although he's as villainous as ever. Second is the view of post war London, shabby and dingy, with all the buildings still covered in a thick layer of black-grey-brown-green filth, the legacy of a century's industrial and domestic discharges.

It's beyond me why this has such a poor rating here. Annoying, really, as it nearly put me off a fine piece of entertainment. It's incomparably better than the similar Cube, which is rated 7.2.

Well scripted, well acted and with credible characters.

The intro should have been cut and instead put in its proper place in the narrative, because without context it doesn't work that well, and the ending was a twist too far and unnecessary. But overall a good little movie.

The photography and recreation of the fifties were excellent; the cars were wonderful, although I don't know why Mr Big would have gone about in a car that must have been 10 years old. Did they think, oh, they're all old cars, people won't be able to tell one from another?

On the negative side, it was too long and there were a lot of flat spots. Worst of all, I can't see how the Tourette's angle helped in any way; it was probably there so Norton could show off his virtuosity. And that might be the clue to most of the faults: written, directed, and produced by, AND starring, Edward Norton - who's going to say, do you think xyz might work a bit better, do you think this character is credible, do you think that plotline holds water?

Why did we have his secretary give the date of the Battle of Hastings and say it was "10 degrees centigrade"? No English person would have said this at the time as centigrade was pretty much unknown, in England as in the US. A trivial point in itself but it makes me wonder how reliable other, more important, elements of the film are.

And while I'm writing anyway...the CGI scenery was often terrible, much worse than in an old-style movie shot on the studio lot and using back projection. Perhaps they were making some point but I don't know what it might have been.

For me, these things didn't ruin an enjoyable movie but they did niggle.

The Civil War killed more Americans than all other wars put together. How the nation went from that low point to becoming an industrial colossus in just a few decades is a fascinating story, well told here by concentrating on a few of the key players. The idea of having commentary from top modern industrialists worked well; they often had insights most of us wouldn't have. The reconstructions were very good and sometimes spectacularly so - you really felt you were watching film from the time. Overall an entertaining, enjoyable, informative show.

The worst flaw was the repetition. We're used to "previously on XYZ" type stuff, even "next week on" - but this show would rehash something it had just done ten minutes ago, sometimes word for word. It even crossed my mind it might be meant for people with learning disabilities. For the rest of us this was totally unnecessary, and it made it hard to watch streaming - I sometimes thought, have I seen this episode or haven't I?

The narrative would have flowed better if the rest of the world had got more acknowledgement where relevant. With Carnegie, the critical British invention of the Bessemer Converter was discussed; but with Morgan's Panama Canal, the previous unsuccessful attempt by the French wasn't mentioned at all. Worst of all, when Rockefeller needed a new use for his oil beside kerosene, we were told he looked for a use for gasoline which was then a waste product, and found it in the automobile - as if cars had sprung into being out of nowhere in response to his wish. Why not say this German invention started to flourish in America at just the right time?

There's something very funny about the ratings here - lots of 1/10s and it just isn't anything like that bad on any objective basis.

I thought it very good. For those shocked at how terrible crime is nowadays, it's a reminder that it always has been terrible. It's interesting also to be shown that it was nearly as bad for the gangsters as for their bookie/shopkeeper victims.

The main characters are vividly and credibly portrayed as seriously nasty people you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of.

It's true there's not really a story leading up to a conclusion, but that's rather the point - the faces change but the evils of greed, cruelty and crime go on. All the police can do is try and keep a lid on it.

The second series wasn't as good as the original but it wasn't at all bad. This, on the other hand, is just total dreck. I don't know how it got green lighted. No intelligence, no rational underpinning, no imagination, no entertainment value.

There were some silly bits and some sugary bits, but I was happy to overlook them because overall it was a lot of fun. No doubt it helps to be of a certain age and to remember British TV of the 80s.

It's distinctly slow to get going. The vileness of the hoodies seems a bit overdone; later on you know why it's necessary, so we feel there's nothing whatsoever so bad but they deserve it; but at the time it's just a bit much. Worst of all, the punishment doesn't fit the crime - it's not the very worst of them that meets the worst end. But for all that tremendously enjoyable, entertaining and with a feel good factor.

I love Ealing, comedies and serious dramas, love seeing the old actors, love looking back across time. I came very well-disposed to this movie.

But oh dear! The railway family story was by the numbers stuff, inoffensive but that's the best you can say for it. I agree with most others here that the musical story was ridiculous. Where I disagree with others is on the story about the murderer and his faithless wife - it's hard to say whose acting was more atrocious, Peter Finch or his on-screen wife. The wife was a downright cartoonish villainess; and Finch was mugging away as if nobody ever told him that the silent era had passed 20 years ago.

The only story with a germ of interest was the plain girl and her German boyfriend. Why was he so desperate not to return to Germany? Was he utterly disgusted with what his country had done - or had he taken part in a way that might lead to a prison cell, perhaps in the SS? Whatever he had or hadn't done, her all-consuming love was nicely handled.

I enjoyed being transported back to a dreary, grimy post-war London, and loved the railway stations full of steam trains; but apart from the setting there's not a lot to commend this. I'm glad not to have paid for a DVD.

You won't see a worse movie than this. No surprise it took 3 years to get released.

What I wonder is, how does something like this work? It is inconceivable there could be any good reviews or word of mouth recommendations. Does it aim to get its production costs back purely through product placement?

Incidentally.....I gave 2 stars solely because I've read that 1 star reviews don't get counted. It should really be 0 stars.

It has a remarkably fine cast, lots of old favorites from the time - for them, I suppose, a paycheck is a paycheck. But why would anyone think this was a good idea? And why anyone would finance it really defies understanding.

It has the same fundamental flaw as another movie made around the same time, the 1981 The Black Cat - House. Moggies. Are. Not. Frightening. They cannot be made frightening. They are harmless little things.

The third section is mildly amusing and this makes it the best of the three. The second story is only poor. The first is quite offensively bad.

When I saw a plot summary mentioning Santa killing zombie elves, my instant reaction was thanks, but no thanks. It was lucky I did decide to give it a try because it turned out very good.

The build-up of atmosphere, horror and suspense was so skillful I thought they could never deliver on so much promise. They did though, with every story tied up neatly and ingeniously.

I love the way Eamonn Andrews, in his introduction, saunters over to the mantelshelf, picks up the cigarettes and lights one! How better to make him seem to be acting naturally in the 50s?

Story 1 is intriguing and disturbing but a bit too long. Some of the flat spots add to the suspense and atmosphere, but some are just flat spots.

Agatha Christie has spoiled us for the likes of Story 2. I'm sure most people see the twist coming a mile off. The only sub-standard section.

A great actor and a master storyteller come together to produce something special in Story 3, marginally better than Story 1 and thus best of the bunch.

As well as being an entertaining picture, this is a realistic examination of crime and criminals. The descent of the photographer, essentially a decent enough man, into crime, and his staying with it even when offered an out, is very well handled.

We see there are three main things keeping crime in check. The police of course, but also pushing victims until they crack and are no longer rational and predictable, and rivalries among the insanely greedy and self-centered people we call criminals.

My TV guide gave this a very lukewarm review and I nearly didn't bother with it, but I'm glad I did.