Brat Farrar

Our family was fortunate to have taped this off the TV broadcast many years ago when A & E still aired these excellent British series. We have watched it many times and invariably find it wonderful. The cast is uniformly outstanding, the characterizations are subtle and multi-layered, and although we know the outcome by now, it is still very suspenseful.

I can't imagine why this hasn't been released in video format, and I wish PBS or A & E would air this Josephine Tey classic mystery again.

Josephine Tey's "Brat Farrar" is,along Daphné Du Maurier's " the scapegoat" ,the most absorbing British detective story dealing with the impostor subject .Tey has the edge ,as far as plausibility is concerned ,for an eight-year gap changes a person, whereas a man who reluctantly replaces a real count overnight without his family noticing any changes is a little hard to swallow .

The novel has undergone some changes: the main difference is the role of Alec loding: it was fleshed out as he continues to coach his protégé as he makes his way through his new life ,and he is greedier than in the novel,asking not a small allowance but a hefty sum.The scenes given over to the "coach" make sense: many frames of mind of Brat and the suppression of the shepherd Abel character ( a good name for this kind of story) mean that the hero needs a person he can secretly talks to.

The rest is faithfull to Tey ,though her book was written in the late forties,and the action is transposed to the 80s, when the series was made. I have always thought that Uncle Charles 's providential intervention was the weakest link of the book (Du Maurier's denouement is stronger).

But ,by and large ,a good miniseries ,very absorbing ;it's too bad French TV never bothered to show it ,as they recently did for Agatha Christie's "and then there were none" .

Saw this first as a small child, since my mom watched all the British mini series on Mystery! on PBS. We ended up seeing it again re-run on the Disney channel of all places. Mark Greenstreet was fantastic in this playing dual roles flawlessly. I wish so badly that he had become "James Bond" at some point, or risen to super stardom in some other way. Its a mystery to me why Mr. Greenstreet or this series are not more widely well-known. Just thinking about this series still makes me yearn to move to England and run a riding stable.

First off, Josephine Tey died in the early 1950s, so her participation in this project or 'Paranoiac' (an earlier poster comments on Tey's direct participation in both these projects, and "storming" off the set of 'Paranoiac' despite having been dead a decade! Which certainly sounds more like the plot outline for a Hammer film!) must have been facilitated through a seance or oujia board session. In any case, Miss Tey's ghost was certainly justified in "storming" of the set of 'Paranoiac'. The earlier film is an enjoyable B movie which simply bastardizes the novel and has Oliver Reed going completely looney tunes by the end. This version does owe more to Robert Bloch's 'Psycho' than it does to Tey's 'Brat Farrar'. I would surmise that Hammer optioned the film rights to 'Brat Farrar' only to avoid any potential copyright conflicts.

The 1986 Television version of 'Brat Farrar' is much more faithful to the novel than 'Paranoiac' (This is probably due to the direct involvement of Miss Tey's poltergeist!) One major difference is that Farrar & Simon are now played by the same actor. In 'Paranoiac' Reed's brother was played by another actor who had no physical resemblance to him at all -- being that the characters in the Hammer film were no longer identical twins, in fact they were re-named! The lead does a remarkable job in playing both th ersatz 'Brat Farrar' and the cunning, sociopathic Simon. Despite the fact that, at points, the effect of the actor being on screen as both characters looks fake (as it did in many movies, especially flatly lit television movies in those pre, or very early post CGI days) the lead actor was able and adept enough in both performances, that I very often forgot that this was the same man. Another major advantage that 'Brat Farrar' has over 'Paranoiac', is that it was shown over the course of a few episodes (two at least if memory serves me!) and the tension is allowed to build slowly, almost painfully, to it's concluding climax. Despite being a British television film, the look, and feel of 'Brat Farrar' is much more akin to an American TV Soap Opera, and oddly enough, this adds greatly to the surreal, almost claustrophobic tone of deception and imminent danger.

The movies is served well by the fact that plot is allowed time to develop. This also allows the actors to develop and reveal their character's true natures and motives slowly, with all due fairness to the earlier film, 'Paranoiac' didn't have this luxury given the limitations of a feature film's restricted time frame. 'Brat Farrar' features a great cast especially the lead actor. Also noteworthy is Francis Matthews, a good actor who incidentally was featured in many Hammer horror films of the 1950s and 60s. If you can find this film, it is well worth watching!

I actually saw this when it was first aired on the BBC, over the course or a few weeks I got hooked. I was actually totally distraught when I went on holiday the week of the last instalment, and forgot to set the video. I got hold of the book on holiday, but as with many TV or Film adaptation their are always differences (Althought it was as close as i've seen an adaptation), and I am still wishing almost 20 years on that I had seen that last instalment. As you can tell from that comment I thought it was a great watch at the time. Unfortunately the BBC is yet to cotton onto the fact that there are many people out there waiting for them to release the DVD. Even though after 20 years I am sure it has dated I would still be at the front of the queue, jumping up and down to get my copy! If you ever see it up for a rerun (which so far I never have) then I would definitely recommend it to be watched. I believe that sometime this year, or next, there is a remake with Ben Afflek being made. Even though I might give this a watch, I am sure Brat will suddenly sprout a Yank accent and the British estate be transplanted to the mid-west or some such "across the pond" location. Ho Hum. *Am hoping that this might poke the BBC into releasing the UK version, as interest in the story will be sparked. One can always hope! :o)