The Singing Detective (1986)

[Woland]

Oh, this is the cream of the crop...

I was superglued to my television when it was first shown and recently bought it on DVD.
Was afraid that it might have aged badly, but no.
Still full of fantastic acting, fantastic writing, unbelievable use of music and editorial techniques.

Written by the notorious Dennis Potter.

Directed by Jon Amiel..



starring Michael Gambon,

Patrick Malahide,

Joanne Whalley,

Charon Bourke,

Lyndon Davies, as the young Philip Marlowe (Gambon)

Fantastically intricated story with four narrative dimensions.

1.
The pulp fiction writer Philip Marlowe, hospitalized with extreme psoriasis and arthritis.

2.
A pulpish, feverish and hallucinated post-WWII world, where Marlowe himself appears as "The Singing Detective".

3.
Marlowes childhood.

4.
Where every dimension meets.


A fantastic structure which still leaves me in awe of the genius behind the scene.
Catharsis on a very high level.
Strongly recommended, (and do stay off the puny & putrid feature length US remake which surfaced a couple of years ago ).

"Am I not wrong? Neither am I wrong!"

An excerpt courtesy of "You Tube":

Them Bones!

 

[John in Covina]

I have ordered this through Amazon.com and am looking forward to seeing it.

 

[Tomasso]

I've seen the Hollywood version; never knew of the TV series.

 

[dhermann1]

Oh, man, I loved this show! BUT!!!! The last episode, a friend promised to tape it for me (I had something I had to do, God knows what). The show was during the pledge break, and it ran about 20 minutes past the 11 o'clock slot. My friend programmed his VCR (remember those?) to turn off at 11:05. So I saw all but the last 15 minutes of it! AARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Haven't seen it again, ever.

 

[dhermann1]

Poor Dennis Potter had psoriatic anthropy himself. It's an immune disorder, where the body recognizes its own tissue as alien, and starts attacking it. He had a horrible case of it. His psoriasis would just dissolve vast areas of his skin, while the arthritis ravaged his joints. The scenes of Michael Gambon in the hospital being covered with unguents were straight from his real life. It's about as hideous a disease as you can imagine. He finally died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 59, nine days after his wife died of breast cancer. But what a brilliant writer. But what a horrendous life.

 

[John in Covina]

Well, I watched it , sort of! I kept falling asleep so I have to go through it again to fill in what I have missed. What is wild is the fact that it is built up by a mix of his present time at the hospital. his flashbacks to his youth, his dream like areas of the book and then the mixed hallucinations. Then I have me getting bits and pieces of these bits and pieces!

As it stands now I am still very intrigued by it but can't decide yet how much I liked it.
I haven't latched into being very sympathetic to any of the characters yet.