Please welcome back
Jeanne of the Bookblog of the Bristol Library on this final Monday of November….
Sidney Chambers, Ian
Carmichael, and The Nine Tailors
I have been reading my way through the Sidney Chambers aka Grantchester
books by James Runcie and was intrigued by a particular aspect of one of the
stories. In it, Sidney is persuaded to
take a bit part in a movie production of “The Nine Tailors” by Dorothy Sayers. Sidney is rather put off by having to do several stereotypical vicar things—shots of him
riding his bike are described, for instance—but is soon sidetracked by a
mystery. Which I can’t quite remember,
because I was sidetracked by the idea of a filmed version of “The Nine Tailors.” (In case you aren’t familiar with the
structure of the Chambers books, there are generally at least four novellas in
each book with a mystery—not necessarily a murder—attached to each.) I had read
the book years before and remembered it as being difficult for me because so
much of the plot revolved around the formal ringing of the church bells (the
“tailors”) and I got more than a bit lost.
For what it’s worth, reviewers seem to think it’s one of the best of the
series but Sidney and I were not convinced.
Curious, I checked the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) just to see what filmed versions
existed and found only one listed: a
four part series with Ian Carmichael as Wimsey.
I had enjoyed that series and knew I owned at least one episode, but I
was delighted to discover I actually owned the complete set. There must have been a good sale at some
point. So I settled in to watch.
As I said, I really enjoyed the Ian Carmichael Wimsey
series. Many have pointed out that
Carmichael was actually too old to play Wimsey—he was in his 50s at the
time—but I liked the way he talked piffle: he was very good at playing Wimsey
as air-head aristocrat when needed, but
always allowing the audience to see the sharp intelligence behind the
pose. For me, that was one of Lord
Peter’s best investigative techniques, just as it was Miss Marple’s: the ability to appear to be harmless and a
bit air-headed so that suspects would let down their guard.
For those unfamiliar with the book or series, the plot
revolves around the theft of a very valuable emerald necklace from a guest at
the Thorpe family’s manor house near the village of Fenchurch St. Paul. The thieves are caught—one of them being the
manor’s butler-- but the necklace is not recovered, and its loss drives the Thorpes
into near bankruptcy as the family feels obligated to pay for the loss. Some twenty years later, Lord Peter and
faithful valet Bunter end up at the village in time for a ringing of the bells
just as Lady Thorpe dies of influenza. Not many months after, Lord Thorpe dies
but in the process of digging his grave next to his late wife’s, a mutilated
body is found to have been added to her grave. The news reaches Lord Peter, who believes
there may be a connection between the body and the theft of the necklace.
The first thing I noticed was that the series must have been
shot on tape instead of film. It has
that faded, grainy quality one gets from tape.
A good bit of the action took place in winter or early spring, which
added to the drab look.
The other unfortunate choice was that the program opened
with a young Lt. Wimsey headed off to war.
This was accomplished by putting a mustache and a lot of makeup on
Carmichael which to my eyes made him appear older than ever and was actually
kind of confusing when later (20 years later, in story time) he looks much
younger than he did at the beginning. Apparently, the idea was to show
audiences how Bunter—Lord Peter’s batsman in the War—came to be his
butler. This is absent in the book, by
the way.
The plot is more than a bit convoluted in both book and
movie. I had to watch parts of it twice
to get some of the characters straight for reasons I can’t explain without
spoilers, and I still do not grasp the finer (or coarser, for that matter)
points of bell ringing which is essential to the plot. (For one thing, cracking a cipher depends on
knowledge of bell ringing.) Still, I found it worth watching which was good,
because it took a couple of viewings to get some of the plot points straight.
As for the story which inspired the original question, I
concluded that the scenarios Runcie described came from reading the original
story and not from the filmed version.
There were also a couple of pointed comments from Sidney’s POV about the
plot of the original novel. I gathered
that Sidney—and I presume Runcie—are not fans.
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