Five Red Herrings

Sandy Campbell is an artist with a high temper and ability to upset all in his path, it comes as no surprise when he's found dead.

It's a great four part mystery, a fine adaptation of Dorothy L Sayers book. Some may argue that by today's standards it's a little slow, perhaps so, but made at a time where crime dramas focused on story and character development as opposed to gore and action.

Carmichael is wonderful as always, he's charismatic, charming and clever, Bunter is on hand offering support and showing off his artistic skills. I loved Kenny Ireland's memorable performance as the antagonistic Sandy.

It looks smart, we get some gorgeous scenery, great buildings and some awesome cars. The production values are fine. 8/10.

Originally produced for British television and shown on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre, this mystery is one of the finest of the 'dilettante-ish yet ever so successful' Peter Wimsey series. The plot is pure Golden Age detective fiction with its solution depending upon demanding attention to arcane detail. Portrayals are up to the standards of Masterpiece Theatre and production values satisfy Beyond these facts, I have seen all the Ian Carmichael-Peter Wimsey mysteries many times and , though this mystery is not my favorite, I continue to think of this one as the best. The plot is faithful to the book and doesn't betray the solution as one other has done. The characters in a small Glaswegian town are delightful and Carmichael's Wimsey is not as insufferable as the character was originally written.

"Five Red Herrings" (1975)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072502/

reviewed by Jay Rothermel

By the early 1940s many creative artists were pushed toward defeatism, capitulation to the bourgeoisie, and sometimes outright reaction.

The rise and triumph of fascism in Germany, the class collaborationist policies of the Stalin leadership in the USSR, and the fall of republican Spain were all prelude to September 1, 1939. In Dorothy L. Sayers this is seen in her complete abandonment of novel writing after Busman's Honeymoon (1937) and embrace of religious obscurantism. Her play cycle The Man Born to be King (1941) and the later Dante translations are today a mere pendant, ignored completely by those who know her true faith in craft and social life was best expressed in the Wimsey stores, filled with life and exalted aestheticism.

The contempt and dismissiveness leveled at Dorothy l. Sayers' novels about Lord Peter Wimsey runs like an unbroken thread through most criticism of the genre. Damned by damns and faint praise, Sayers is depicted as a woman who made a fool of herself over the detective in her novels.

"Falling in love with her hero" is a commonly used phrase, and an undeserved one. Sayers, unlike most crime novelists, developed splendid gifts as a writer in exploring Wimsey, bringing him forth as a real character and not the usual genre stereotype.

Wimsey is a hard, harsh and haunted man. Like many who came through the Great War, he could not find a proper use for the rest of his life. Over the no-mans-land of his mind, Wimsey was able to spread a thin patina of simulated humanity: interest in incunabula and detection; a passion for "butting in" and correcting the fortunes and destinies of others. He mastered the fine psychological art of silly-ass self-deprecation which harried opponents and friends alike.

All but four of the novels feature Wimsey in his bachelor days, before falling in love with accused poisoned and novelist Harriet Vane. While the Vane novels are not inferior to the others, or to the wonderful short stories collected in Lord Peter Views the Body (1928), they do suffer a certain limitation of scene compared to the open air and rude good health of Unnatural Death (1927) and The Nine Tailors (1934).

In the early 1970s the BBC made a series of adaptations of the non-Vane Wimsey novels. They starred Ian Carmichael, who had previously donned the monocle in The World of Wooster. Each production has been released on video and DVD, and the DVDs are also presented as a box set.

In TV mysteries, pacing is all. Carmichael's performance as the brittle, bracing aristocrat pushes the plot forward beyond all the patent absurdities of the mystery genre. Why would the police tolerate an amateur sleuth bulling his way through a murder investigation? Always steps ahead, Wimsey leaves neither police nor viewer time to reflect upon the question. The pleasures of language, character, and mis en scene take care of the rest.

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Well-written mysteries are as enjoyable as any other well-wrought fiction. It was P.D.Q. Bach composer Peter Schickele who famously said of music: "If it sounds good, it is good."

Puzzle mysteries are said to appeal to snobbish intellectuals who want to put their reasoning to a test, much like scrabble or chess players or people who work newspaper crosswords each day. The smug certainly want to justify reading mysteries by equating them with some form of august mentation. Such comparisons usually smack of sham or guilty conscience. When Edmund Wilson wrote "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" (1945) he was declaring independence from rationalizing readers who tried disguising their desire to be titillated as though it were a date with Finnegan's Wake.

* * *

Five Red Herrings takes place in and around an artists' colony in wildest Scotland, near Gatehouse and Kirkcudbright. The area is a raw St. Ives of the north, populated by various bohemian painters. Fine exterior photography lends the cold, unforgiving sky and clear waters of frigid trout streams a vivid and almost palpable life. When Wimsey dons thick gauntlets before driving in his open car, one's own hands begin to ache of cold.

Scottish painter Sandy Campbell (Ian Ireland) is the terror of the colony. A "maudlin brute," he bullies and terrorizes the men who become suspects in his murder. His explosive temper and bloody-minded contrariness have alienated fellow artists who would normally be natural allies and confidantes. He takes any comment as just cause for battle. His most obscene outrage is taking a cut-throat razor to the beard and scalp of a fellow painter (Russell Hunter) he has waylaid one night on a lonely road. Justifiable homicide never had more justification.

Most murder mysteries deal with social humiliation, vigilante retribution, and redress of balance: all pragmatic expressions of bourgeois ideology that disguise and make bearable the unpredictable violence bred by the workings of the law of value. The Wimsey stories are no different. The enjoyment resides in how the changes are rung.

The "puzzle aspect" of Five Red Herrings is Lord Peter's demolition of the murderer's alibi. It is a buoyant, open-air series of deductions, a far cry from the stereotypical "gathering of suspects" which sinks the ending of so many Golden Age of Mystery novels and their film adaptations. One of the great strengths of any Dorothy L. Sayers novel is variation of setting, and the BBC version of Five Red Herrings replicates this perfectly.

The pleasures of Sayers' Wimsey stories and novels are many. Freshly imagined and ingeniously presented characters, evocative locations, logical scene building, consistent and clever handling of point of view (one thinks of Miss Climpson's letters in Unnatural Death) are all Sayers strengths. "Simplicity itself," as the saying goes.

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I'm not really certain where the idea that Wimsey is stupid and Bunter a detecting genius comes from, as per the previous review. The novels certainly never suggest such a thing, in any way. Dorothy L Sayers' ideas, in social terms, were certainly what some might call progressive (I just found them utterly reasonable), but Lord Peter's intellect and sensitivity were never belittled by her. She was more interested in presenting a vision of equality than anything skewed in either direction. Bunter and Lord Peter are equally matched in intelligence (as is Harriet Vane, when she appears in the later novels) although Wimsey has the advantage of being able to make those occasional fantastic leaps of imagination which a great detective needs. I've always found Wimsey an attractive, intelligent and sensitive character and that, to my mind, is exactly how he should be portrayed.

If you like to pit your own wits against "Lord Peter" this is your chance. Dorothy L. Sayers shows you everything "his lordship" knows, so you ought to pick out the culprit as soon as he does, maybe even sooner. Along the way you'll get some delightful looks at the Scottish landscape, hear a lot of broad Scots dialect, and meet some really interesting, not to say often delightful characters, well interpreted by a sterling cast.

That said, I would have to agree with the critics over the years, who have rated this mystery of Dorothy's as not quite up to her usual standard. It's, in the novel at least, just a trifle too complicated, possibly boring at times, with all the emphasis on railway timetables and such. The BBC has foreshortened much of this. You won't be bored, I am sure, with this TV film version. Briefly, the story involves the death of a curmudgeonly Scottish artist named "Campbell" and six suspects known to have possible reasons to kill him. Only one can be guilty, hence there are five who are "red herrings". In the U.S. at one time, this novel was published as SUSPICIOUS CHARACTERS.

In the course of solving the mystery for the Scottish constabulary, "Lord Peter", and "Bunter" travel over a good bit of the landscape southeast of Glasgow in "his lordship's" Bentley (Yes, I know Dorothy said he drove a Daimler. I wonder why the BBC changed it. Better to advertise the home product perhaps?), and sometimes via bicycle and "shank's mare".

By the time "Lord Peter" exposes the culprit you will have ample opportunity to judge how well Ian Carmichael has realised "Lord Peter" for you. Physically, about 15 years later, Edward Petherbridge has physically presented what I think is a more authentic "Lord Peter". He gives us, though, a much more dour and brooding character than what I imagine Dorothy intended. Iam Carmichael, although he doesn't look like my conception of "Lord Peter", does seem to show the insouciance and "whimsical" charm that the character displays throughout the novels.

There are many lovely little cameos sprinkled through this film. The women especially shine. Irene Sunters simpers wonderfully as "Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier", the clinging vine who is painter "Jock Graham's" nemesis. And Julie Peasgood as "Penella Strachan", 15 years old going on "30", will surely knock you over. I don't think there is a bad performance in the lot.