I_Ailurophile nailed this movie in that review. A few points to emphasize:
Freddie Jones (the local conatable) is one of my favorite actors and he always comes up with deliciously unexpected line readings. But the prime scene stealer is Timothy West (father of Samuel), who knows how to use every inch of his body to good effect. A simple readjustment of his jaw always has me smiling. Patrick Allen is good, too. The whole thing is a veritable acting clinic.
Unusually for me, I don't mind the updating (I despised it with Ustinov's Poirot). Dragging in computers and probability sounded like a good idea at the time. I'm sure. Watching this in college when it was first broadcast I thought one scene was great, when so few people (myself included) didn't have home computers. I did college papers on a typewriter! Watching it after a number of years (and a number of computers) the moment where Bixby feeds all known data into a computer to find a suspect by probability before going to commercial looks kind of silly.
Leslie-Anne Down is to die for. I thought she was scumptious then and that hasn't changed with the years the movie and I have accumulated since.
Freddie Jones (the local conatable) is one of my favorite actors and he always comes up with deliciously unexpected line readings. But the prime scene stealer is Timothy West (father of Samuel), who knows how to use every inch of his body to good effect. A simple readjustment of his jaw always has me smiling. Patrick Allen is good, too. The whole thing is a veritable acting clinic.
Unusually for me, I don't mind the updating (I despised it with Ustinov's Poirot). Dragging in computers and probability sounded like a good idea at the time. I'm sure. Watching this in college when it was first broadcast I thought one scene was great, when so few people (myself included) didn't have home computers. I did college papers on a typewriter! Watching it after a number of years (and a number of computers) the moment where Bixby feeds all known data into a computer to find a suspect by probability before going to commercial looks kind of silly.
Leslie-Anne Down is to die for. I thought she was scumptious then and that hasn't changed with the years the movie and I have accumulated since.