Cheap The Singing Detective (DVD) (Michael Gambon) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Singing Detective

Michael Gambon plays Philip Marlow, a writer of mystery novels who is lying in a hospital, disfigured by psoriasis and crippled by psoriatic arthritis. Tormented, angry, he launches into caustic tirades against anyone who draws near. As he drifts in and out of delirium, we are allowed unique access to his mind. We watch a detective story he is creating unfold on film, interwoven with memories of his childhood and interjected with fragments of present events. It all flows together seamlessly, combining past and present, fantasy and reality.

The journey into Marlow's psyche is far from pretty. Sex and death intermingle in a way that is not always pleasant. Be forewarned.

The Singing Detective is a vast and complicated work; it cannot be done justice in a brief review. I wish to point out but one of it's accomplishments. Bill Paterson portrays a psychiatrist who treats Marlow. Their interaction is genuine in a way that has no parallel in the history of cinema, not to the best of my recollection. No sappiness and not a hint of fakery. The interaction between the two is an honest meeting of two brilliant minds - one calm, one agitated. It's funny, too. Marlow: "Are you pretending to be eccentric or are you genuinely cuckoo?" The doctor : "mm Hmm."

The sentimental musical score is a vehicle for that side of Marlow that he does not express directly. We learn through the music that the rough exterior is not all there is to the man. The music is deftly set, with an ironic edge, a sweet accompaniment to bitter scenes. It serves to underscore the pain that lurks beneath boisterous exteriors, and in doing so, gives us a sense of the inner torment of the hero.

In the seventeen years since I first saw this, the voice of the young Marlow has reverberated always in my mind, as only sounds which work their way into your unconscious will do. It was a day of joy when the DVD arrived. Eagerly I ripped off the wrapping and placed it in the player.

Oh, the dismay.

The transfer is awful. Simply awful. The picture blurs whenever there is movement. If you halt the DVD at such a moment you can see lines streaking across the picture - a sign of a very poor transfer. Also, there are wavy lines flowing across the screen - as one would see in a VHS.

Dennis Potter, along with the director Jon Amiel and the cast of brilliant actors, created something that is as close to perfection as one can get. This horrendous DVD does his memory a great disservice.

AMAZING!!!
They dont make many mini-series very often anymore. What would be the point? The Singing Detective would make them all look like an independent film by a drunk university flunkie.

I saw this Masterpeice when i was 14. My parents loved it, and i was just confused. The only thing i liked was the Hallucanations of the Grumpy Man in the bed.

Now that i am a little older(29), and have seen a lot more crap on TV and in the theater, i have a better feel for what good entertainment is. I assure you that there is nothing better than this story.

Phillip Marlowe is an author of pulp novels, an avid smoker and is a very sick man. He has to lie in bed in a sick ward of a hospital whose clientel would be more at hokme in an asylum. The staff is not much better. If this were not bad enough for our hero, he suffered from many hallucinations. Some are from his childhood, others from his present life, and many involving fictional characters created by him. Somewhere in his fevered dreaming the veil between reality and fiction is peirced, and people from his "real life" start interfering with his fictional characters.

This show can become confusing at first, but given time, (its 6 wonderful hours long), it will all come clear.

This show is much like a good book; a person must dedicate the time, and the anticipation will be great,but in the end it will leave you very satisfied.

Buy this DVD and let the Singing Detective sing for you, but dont just save it for a rainy day, its too magical for that....

Unbelievably good.
Marred only by it's curiously rushed ending. You need to stick with this because the story and its complexity grows slowly through the first few episodes. What it becomes is a complicated psychological thriller intertwined with hallucinations, a detective story and the goings on of the hospital ward denizens around our protagonist. Philip Marlow is revealed as a highly sensitive shell-shocked man residing within the physical body of an angry severe psoriasis patient. His return to humanity is the story that is detailed. This is a film for adults in the best sense of the word, exploring the complexities of what it means to have the accumulated experiences and wisdom that only come with time.
Excellent. Highly recommended.