The Murder Room

This is a great murder mystery story about a museum which is having problems among its administrators and there is a possibility it will be closed. The main attraction to the museum is a room dedicated to murders which were committed in a brutal and horrible fashion. For example, a person being stuffed in a trunk and a mallet that crushed in a skull and the list goes on and on. Martin Shaw, (Adam Dalgliesh) plays the role of a stuffed shirt uptight investigator who is told to his face he is hard to communicate with. Adam has his hands full trying to investigate various murders which were being copied from murders committed in the Murder Room of the museum. Adam meets up with a pretty female he knew in the past and his character seems to change after this girl hits on him for romance. Great Mystery story and a great film to view. Enjoy.

As an avid P.D. James fan and reader, I find myself critical of "The Murder Room" and Martin Shaw's performance in it. Unlike other comments, I feel that the movie must at least be true to the writer's creation of the character's personality. "Judge Deed" is NOT "Adam Dagliesh", but the portrayal by Shaw is similar. Adam Dagliesh is a classy, private, remote, creative intelligent, sensitive character, not the "Bull In a China Shop" personality that Martin Shaw portrays in Murder Room. Don't get me wrong, I love "Judge Deed" and Shaw's portrayal of him, but his performance simply doesn't fit as James's "Dagliesh" character. Let's dredge Mr. Roy Marsden out of his theater environment for these wonderful new productions of P.D. James excellent novels and enjoy his accurate and creative interpretation of the Dagliesh character. In closing I must say that the film itself was well written, well directed, and true to the novel.

Old P D James keeps the books coming and in no time they are on TV. This is a gripping story and is as good as her others.

It's all about a privately run museum, which has a room about murders of the past. People start getting bumped off in ways which resemble some of the earlier crimes.

It's well acted, but I found it hard to accept Martin Shaw in the lead role as Dalgleish. He seemed physically wrong for it -- too much of an ox for the poet Dalgleish. His two assistants also appeared to be lightweight and rather too young to be inspectors. They had to do mundane work that I would have thought would be done by lower ranks.

The subplot about Dalgleish's attempt to woo a girlfriend is a bit of a distraction and not well integrated into the rest of the story.

"The Murder Room," from a novel by P.D. James, is an excellent whodunit starring Martin Shaw as Adam Dalgliesh, and that's the problem right there. Though a fine actor, he just isn't Dalgliesh for me. I remember the old series starring Roy Marsden as being more exciting.

The story concerns a lease about to expire on a family museum, and there is one holdout, Neville Dupayne, who does not want to re-sign. The museum features a Murder Room, which displays information on notorious murders that took place between World War I and World War II. Neville, a doctor, thinks the money could be put to medical use.

When Neville dies in what appears to be a copycat murder of a display in the Murder Room, Commander Dalgleish is brought in. He has a lot of suspects to choose from -- the victim's brother and sister, museum employees who stood to lose their jobs, his secretary who is also his ex-mistress, and others. The solution, however, won't be found by investigating only the present day.

Though a good mystery and well-done, it was too long, in part because a subplot dealt with Dalgleish's love life, which I, for one, couldn't have cared less about. I didn't even understand why this woman was so interested in him, as the character was emotionally very uptight and a workaholic.

I found Dalgleish's relationship with his associates unpleasant, and both of them uninteresting.

I can only ask, where's Roy Marsden when you need him. He's only four years older than Shaw.

Dame P.D. James is one of the most respected and revered mystery writers of our times. At ripe age of89 she still writes marvelous books. I saw the other TV adaptations of her novels made on BBC, and they were done with great flair and creativity. Unfortunately, this TV movie wasn't done with the same flawless style as the previous installments. The script was very disjointed and hard to decipher. The editing was jerky and illogical. All in all a puzzling experience. Luckily, the saving grace was as usual a great cast of brilliant British actors. Martin Shaw is a good actor, but like most of the other fans I prefer Roy Marsden.