Stars: Robert Downey Jr, Robin Wright Penn, Mel Gibson, Katie Holmes, Jeremy Northam, Adrien Brody

Director: Keith Gordon

Summary: Dan Dark is in hospital with a severe case of psoriasis. His head is filled with confusion as he tries to visualise his first book thinking he is a detective who is investigating the murder of a prostitute in Los Angeles in the 1950s...

Director Keith Gordon (MOTHER NIGHT, WAKING THE DEAD) makes another brave adaptation with THE SINGING DETECTIVE. Based on Dennis Potter's stunningly brilliant 1986 mini-series of the same name, Gordon's version finds the film's troubled hero transplanted to 1950s America, not post-WWII London. Dan Dark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a pulp novelist in the thralls of a crippling skin disease that has rendered him delusional and immobile. Bitter, angry, and at the end of his tether, Dan manages to offend everyone he encounters. As he lies in bed, scenes from his novel swim into his mind, blurring with experiences from his own childhood. In the present, he remains paranoid that his ex-wife Nicola (Robin Wright Penn) is out to steal a script he wrote. Adding to his disgust are forced visits with an uptight psychotherapist, Dr. Gibbon (Mel Gibson), who is determined to make a breakthrough with his hateful patient. Along the way, Dan envisions several musical sequences, which appear out of nowhere and add glorious confusion to his fevered state. Gordon, working from a script that Potter himself wrote before his death, delivers an imaginary, vibrant film that is aided greatly by Robert Downey Jr.'s ferocious performance.

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The late Dennis Potter was a master at mining the popular songs of the 1930s and '40s for dramatic effect, but he never did it better than in The Singing Detective. The inestimable Michael Gambon plays a mystery writer named Philip E Marlow, who is suffering a torturous bout of psoriatic arthritis in hospital, where he is a victim of both his disease and the National Health Service. Unable to move without pain, he escapes into his imagination, plotting out a murder tale in which he is both a big-band singer and a private eye. But Potter and director Jon Amiel also mix in flashbacks of Marlow's youth and his unhappy marriage to explain how the real Marlow reached this sorry pass. Flawlessly, intricately, kaleidoscopically assembled, the six one-hour episodes fly by like some fantastic fever dream. -Marshall Fine

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Cast & Crew Interviews, Original Theatrical Trailer
Year:	2003
Release Date:	July 19, 2004
Runtime:	109 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	10001235
Keywords:	General, Singing, Drama, Detective
Genre:	Drama