Alleyn Mysteries (TV Series) Final Curtain (1993) User Reviews

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[lotekguy-1 · 7/10 · 31 July 2022]

If you table the series' usual dramatic tone, and rig your sails for comedy, this episode is a hoot! Ridiculous hyperbolic posturing from a family of drama queens - male and female. Stir in one super-brassy gold-digging bimbo echoing the 1930s' screwball comedy prototypes, and a brat who earlier would have plagued a W. C. Fields character, and you have a fine genre spoof.

Just don't take any of this installment seriously. I can't imagine that THEY did during the shoot. I envision the cast regaling each other, starting from the table read, competing for who could chew the most scenery without coughing up one of the cat's furballs.

One of my favorites - Canada's long-running Murdoch Mysteries - serves up one or more comical episodes per season. So do other series. A change of pace can be fun for the cast AND the viewers. Lighten up and enjoy the cringeworthy dialog and overacting in the way they intended.

Macbeth Paints

[tedg · 20 October 2006]

I haven't seen all of these productions. Usually I go through the whole series, and I may eventually come back to this.

I watched this because I saw "Death at the Bar," which was truly superb. It was because they built it around director Winterbottom's special skills, the writer working to them and not encumbered by adapting a Marsh story. This was chosen because though produced by the same enlightened folks, it has an ordinary filmmaker at the helm and it uses a Marsh story, one I have read.

The story is rather typical of the genre, one which wants overly dramatic characters so they are made people of the theater. In this case, we have a triple fold: the key character is a famous actor at the end of his life. He is having a painting made of himself in a Shakespearean role. (These mystery writers don't differentiate among these roles, instead clump them together and equate them all with some unspecified depth.) And the final fold is that he arranges a dinner "performance" of the reading of his will, which of course everyone hangs on.

Then there is a scene right afterward in which all these are at their most active.

It makes for a good read, and it has some Christie-influenced machinery behind it. But this specific trick is not well captured cinematically here. So the whole project sort of plods along.

A shame. Yes, That "Death at the Bar" was a fluke.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Strictly "for Toffs"!

[davyd-02237 · 4/10 · 11 June 2020]

I did watch this when originally shown. Watching it again over 16 years later I never realised that apart from "the blonde" everyone else was supposed to be "a Toff" and it really doesn't work in terms of modern day entertainment. The plot is somewhat thin but IF you can bear the snobbery accents then you will enjoy, IF on the other hand you struggle with a large group of snobs then DONT Bother!

Great for doing household chores!

[catnapbc · 5/10 · 15 January 2023]

This fluffy series, and especially this episode, is perfect for background noise whilst vacuuming, dusting or washing dishes. You'll get the gist of the scenes and won't miss much if you don't actually watch it. It's a terrible waste of some otherwise perfectly good actors and occasional witty lines, but it is clearly not to be taken seriously. Patrick Malahide is able to pull off his character, as are a few of the other solid British participants, but it's hard to define if this series is a comedy/drama, spoof, or just lazy interpretations of the crime stories. Apart from lovely scenery and nice period detail, you feel like you're watching a low-brow, low-cost imitation of Agatha Christie short stories, with none of the suspense. Entertainment is fine, but this borders on pantomime of the small screen.

Dated

[ander-3 · 4/10 · 4 March 2022]

Might have made it in its day, but it is hopelessly dated. About a ham actor, full of ham acting. Outrageously overacting by some, making it laughable. Let it rest.