Stars: Ian Carmichael, Glyn Houston

Summary: Lord Peter Wimsey attends a wedding where a valuable emerald necklace is stolen. He finds the culprits but the emeralds remain missing. Years later Lord Peter again attempts to recover the necklace. Adapted from the novel by Dorothy L. Sayers.

In THE NINE TAILORS, Ian Carmichael plays the role of Dorothy L. Sayers's aristocratic detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. After spending a snowy New Year's Eve in a small town in eastern England, the upper-class investigator is called back to investigate a mysterious murder there. Soon, pieces of an intriguing puzzle start to come together....

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Based on the series of novels written by Dorothy L Sayers in the 1920s and 30s, Lord Peter Wimseywas dramatised for TV by the BBC between 1972-5. Ian Carmichael, veteran of British film comedy, played the genial, aristocratic sleuth; Glyn Houston was his manservant Bunter. The pair are similar to PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Bertie Wooster (whom Carmichael played in an earlier TV adaptation) though here the duo are equal in intelligence, breezing about the country together in Wimsey's Bentley and stumbling with morbid regularity upon baffling murder mysteries to test their wits.

Those for whom this series forms hazy memories of childhood might be surprised at its somewhat stagy, lingering interior shots, the spartan paucity of music, the miserly attitude towards locations, especially foreign ones, and the rather genteel, leisurely pace of these programmes, besides which Inspector Morseseems like Quentin Tarantino in comparison. It seems that initially the BBC was reluctant to commission the series and ventured on production with a wary eye on the budget. The Britain depicted by Sayers is, by and large, populated by either the upper classes or heavily accented, rum-do-and-no-mistake lower orders, which some might find consoling. However, the acting is generally excellent and the murder mysteries are sophisticated parlour games, the televisual equivalent of a good, absorbing jigsaw puzzle.

There were five feature-length adaptations in all. "The Nine Tailors" weaves an especially elaborate tale, involving jewel theft, campanology (the art of bell-ringing) and dual identity. --David Stubbs

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interactive Menus, Scene Index, Exclusive Ian Carmichael Interview, Filmographies, Trivia
Year:	1974
Release Date:	August 6, 2001
Runtime:	208 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	A V 9218
Keywords:	Peter, Two, General, Mystery, Lord, Nine, Tv, Drama, Discs, Whodunnit, Wimsey, Tailors
Genre:	Mystery/Whodunnit