DPMay

As the other user reviews indicate, there are many different ways to interpret this beautifully shot but truly whacky film by Louis Malle.

The easiest way I could find to accept it was to treat it as the girl's dream, and in that sense it seemed to work very well, capturing many of the things we commonly experience in our dreams - insecurities (the girl hearing a rather unflattering description of her appearance), other people knowing things you've not told them (the old woman knows about the girl's experiences before she arrived at the farm, communication without words (the girl 'talks' with the man through touch), embarrassment (the girl's underwear repeatedly falling down), inanimate objects behaving as though they're against you (the music sheets turning in the breeze whilst she's trying to play the piano), locked doors, trying to get something that's forever out of reach (the unicorn), awkwardness performing simple tasks (drinking the glass of milk), and even encroachments from the sound of the alarm clock that tries to rouse you from your sleep.

To try to unravel exactly what the girl is going through in real life, one must unpick the metaphors her subconscious mind is dreaming about. Which will make Black Moon an intriguing puzzle for some. Others may find it just too baffling and unrewarding.

I came across this once on British TV, way back in 1989 and although it was just a fairly run-of-the-mill TV Movie, for some reason the memory of it stayed with me so I recently sought out a copy of it and gave it a re-watch.

Sure, it's a bit cliched and contrived in places, but overall it's a decent, very watchable story that covers numerous themes including justice, forgiveness (and lack of it), class, prejudice, abuse of authority, the power of the press, impartiality, second child inferiority complex and the parental fixation that no one can ever be a good enough suitor for their child.

Handsome young football team captain Bo Reinecker (Alex McArthur) was incarcerated in a mental institution for causing the death of his cheerleader girlfriend Lisa Nolen, but four years later he is now out and returning to his home town of Bannon to try and piece things together as his memory of the incident is lacking due to a blow he received to the head in the struggle.

Of course, his return gets under the skin of Lisa's embittered father, Thomas (Karl Malden), an influential figure in the town as he runs the local bank. The Reinecker family, who operate a humble haulage company in the town, have carried the stigma of Bo's guilt and are at breaking point - physically, mentally and financially. But now Bo's return is ramping up the pressure on them.

Caught in the middle is Thomas Nolen's surviving daughter Wynn (Holly Hunter), now trying to establish herself as a journalist in the town's newspaper. Whilst her father expects her to respect Lisa's memory and support him in using her influence to get Bo taken back into custody, she knows she has the professional responsibility to remain impartial. Yet Wynn also remembers when she, like all the other young girls in Bannon, was attracted to the rugged young football captain and those feelings have not entirely deserted her.

Although far from being an A-list movie, decent performances, strongly-defined characters and a plot that unfolds well with one or two unexpected twists along the way, make this a perfectly watchable drama.

This mid-1990s series is certainly deserving of more attention. Most private detectives we meet on screen tend to be great at their job but down on their luck or else afflicted by some vice. However, in this instance we're presented with a pair who are in secure backgrounds but completely new at the job, hence they're as hopeless in their technique as they are naïve about the ramifications of what they're getting involved with.

Catherine Russell plays Elly Chandler, the driving force behind the new venture who was inspired to try the profession after employing a private eye to prove her (now ex) husband was cheating on her. In an unusual link, her partner in this scheme is her ex's sister, Dee Tate, played by Barbara Flynn. Dee is a happily-married mother of two children and now that they're growing up she needs something to fill her time so Elly's idea seems appealing - at first. But work often ends up interfering with her home life and her successful husband David (Struan Rodger) is often resentful of this stupid enterprise that Elly has roped her into.

As novices, they turn to the same private detective that Elly had previously employed for advice, Larry (Peter Capaldi) who clues them up on method and provides them with kit, and also on occasion gets personally involved with their cases. But he also finds himself getting personally involved with Elly...

The characters all work well, and the stories are strong and snappy, if a little too reliant on 'cheating spouse' as the required investigation, but there's often a twist in the tale. But after just six excellent episodes the first series finished.

Chandler & Co then returned for a second series of six episodes, but with much change. Catherine Russell's Elly is the only returning element, and she recruits her latest client, the thoroughly-disorganised but bright and empathetic Kate Phillips (Susan Fleetwood) as her new partner. Phillips' eldest son Benji is also taken on as an assistant on the technical side. Other new faces are geeky computer-programmer Simon Wood who helps as the agency's new 'tracer', in place of Misty who performed that function in the first series, and a new beau for Elly in the form of Dr Mark Judd (Adrian Lukis), who seems very bland compared to Larry.

The second series tends to consist more of straight detective stories and a bit less around the private lives of the main duo, and loses the element of their inexperience which was part of the charm of the earlier episodes. Personally, I also found Mike Moran's music for the second series much less appealing than Daemion Barry's score for the first. But the scripts remain well-written, most of them by women including series creator Paula Milne, and the last episode is startling for its sudden change in tone as the stakes are raised.

The second series remains a poignant watch for its position in the life and career of actress Susan Fleetwood, who reportedly kept the details of her personal cancer fight secret from her colleagues while it was being made, and she unfortunately succumbed to the condition less than a month after the second series was broadcast. With such hindsight, it one can only guess what must have been going through her mind when she was making the episode "No Tomorrow" in which her character has to pretend she's a cancer sufferer in order to investigate two other characters who are battling the disease.

Luckily, all 12 episodes were finally given a DVD release some twenty years after the series concluded its run and although its hails from the age before mobile phones and internet took over people's lives, Chandler & Co remains a fresh and entertaining watch today.