I was reasonably entertained by the first two parts of this Victorian mystery. The set decor was very detailed, and I especially liked the Victorian warehouses used for exterior shots of the toy factory, as well as for Roger and Isabel's slummy love nest. But I simply could not get deeply involved in the mystery because of my dislike of pretty much every character. My lack of sympathy for "free-spirited" Isabel left my with a purely academic interest in seeing if she could beat the rap. Screwing her sister-in-law's husband while they're all living under the same roof is so barbarously selfish and cold, it didn't really matter to me if she was hanged for a murder she didn't commit. I would have been happy to see such a worthless woman removed from the world by pretty much any means.
The character of the police inspector seemed very exaggerated in his mannerisms. The usual excuse for this sort of thing is that he has a razor-sharp mind and no time for social niceties (à la Sherlock Holmes). So it was very perplexing to me that he seemed to completely fall apart in brain when Paul came to him with information about George's transvestite activities, and made a plausible case for George being the murderer. The police ALREADY knew that George was a transvestite, but it was not information they had shared with anyone else. When someone comes along who knows information that only the police know, they usually pay attention. So why did they suddenly turn stupid and act as if this were some tall tale Paul had just concocted to get Isabel off the hook? Especially as the case against Isabel depended upon the clerk IDing her as the veiled woman who bought poison from him? They should have realized that there was another possible culprit, who would have had access to Isabel's shoes as well.
But it hardly mattered, because the whole "George masquerades as Isabel" plot was so ludicrously far-fetched, it was hard to take the mystery seriously by that point. It could have worked if they'd cast an actor for George who was reasonably similar in size to Isabel - I would hope the original novel covered that plot hole by making them not so different in size. But the filmmakers couldn't resist going for the lurid thrill of making George a grotesquely fat pig, with jiggling titties, hanging jowls and bee-stung lips.
The "mystery" turned out to be so lame, I'd already drawn the conclusion that George was the woman on the common, almost as soon as it was revealed that he owned the corset (which hardly looked big enough to fit him, anyway). It's disappointing that mystery writers today seem to think that twisted sex is the only really exciting motive for anything anymore. No matter how much they set the scene with financial problems, wills, professional jealousy and ambition, they throw it all away at the last to show us a pervert in a tizzy. It's becoming downright boring. I could hardly believe that the final poisoning and Paul's confession were the actual conclusion - I kept hoping that there would be a REAL twist, and we'd discover, as Isabel steamed away to freedom, that she really WAS guilty of at least one of the murders, and that Paul had committed a crime to free a guilty woman. But alas, the program ended in a flat, drab anticlimax, with the stupid inspector closing the file with no particular concern to find out who might have murdered George.
The character of the police inspector seemed very exaggerated in his mannerisms. The usual excuse for this sort of thing is that he has a razor-sharp mind and no time for social niceties (à la Sherlock Holmes). So it was very perplexing to me that he seemed to completely fall apart in brain when Paul came to him with information about George's transvestite activities, and made a plausible case for George being the murderer. The police ALREADY knew that George was a transvestite, but it was not information they had shared with anyone else. When someone comes along who knows information that only the police know, they usually pay attention. So why did they suddenly turn stupid and act as if this were some tall tale Paul had just concocted to get Isabel off the hook? Especially as the case against Isabel depended upon the clerk IDing her as the veiled woman who bought poison from him? They should have realized that there was another possible culprit, who would have had access to Isabel's shoes as well.
But it hardly mattered, because the whole "George masquerades as Isabel" plot was so ludicrously far-fetched, it was hard to take the mystery seriously by that point. It could have worked if they'd cast an actor for George who was reasonably similar in size to Isabel - I would hope the original novel covered that plot hole by making them not so different in size. But the filmmakers couldn't resist going for the lurid thrill of making George a grotesquely fat pig, with jiggling titties, hanging jowls and bee-stung lips.
The "mystery" turned out to be so lame, I'd already drawn the conclusion that George was the woman on the common, almost as soon as it was revealed that he owned the corset (which hardly looked big enough to fit him, anyway). It's disappointing that mystery writers today seem to think that twisted sex is the only really exciting motive for anything anymore. No matter how much they set the scene with financial problems, wills, professional jealousy and ambition, they throw it all away at the last to show us a pervert in a tizzy. It's becoming downright boring. I could hardly believe that the final poisoning and Paul's confession were the actual conclusion - I kept hoping that there would be a REAL twist, and we'd discover, as Isabel steamed away to freedom, that she really WAS guilty of at least one of the murders, and that Paul had committed a crime to free a guilty woman. But alas, the program ended in a flat, drab anticlimax, with the stupid inspector closing the file with no particular concern to find out who might have murdered George.