That too.

No, Bleak House (1852) predates Moonstone (1868). The former is certainly one of the earliest mystery/detective novels in English, although the latter is easier to describe as a 'mystery novel' in the sense that we know them now (that is, while the mystery is an important part of Bleak House, it wasn't intended to be…

No Name is brilliant. I can't think of any adaptation of it, off the top of my head, which surprises me, because it's got such a great plot and a wonderful tough female lead.

Much as I admire the Brett Sherlock Holmes series - which in its early going is brilliant - by the time they came to film Hound Brett was in very poor health, and it shows in his performance. This version is okay, but by no means the best; I'd go with the 2001 BBC version starring Richard Roxburgh as Holmes, Ian Hart…

I first saw Ciarin Hinds in the Granada TV adaptation of the Holmes story 'The Cardboard Box', where he played Jim Browner. He has a long monologue at the end, confessing to the crime, and the camera stays steadily on him, drawing closer slowly in one long take. I'd never seen him before, and was blown away, and…

Not Victorian (it just misses Edwardian), but I'd nominate the 1981 TV version of Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier as a well-nigh perfect adaptation of a novel that many would consider unfilmmable. Julian Mitchell's screenplay is brilliant, and Jeremy Brett, Vickery Turner, Susan Fleetwood, Robin Ellis, and…

The wordless moment when she meets up with him in the street, after reading his letter - beautiful. No huge dramatics, no swelling of the orchestra, just two people who know each other so well that no words are necessary. It reminds me of lines from a Hardy poem about love in middle age:

Yes, he's wonderful; such a nice change to see him playing a good guy for once. His scenes with Susannah York as Mrs Cratchit are especially good.

Edward Woodward. Also the original Equalizer, and the naive policeman who discovers something nasty on a Scottish island in The Wicker Man. And yes, he's brilliant.

To me, the great moment was when Daryl looked - really looked - at Carol when he repeated 'You don't have to do this.' The urgency in his face was raw, and you really felt you were eavesdropping on an incredibly raw and intimate moment. It made me realise how often, on TV, an actor looks at another actor while…

I have fond memories of Alistair Cooke on Masterpiece Theatre, which means I'm terribly old.

This season has been terrible for that. So many momentous events have happened off-screen, with everyone discussing them afterwards in hushed tones. Dammit, Fellowes, you've got far better actors than you deserve; trust them to be able to deliver the Big Moments! Although given how ham-handed Fellowes's dialogue…

Molesley is this season's stealth MVP. Mind you, the credit is more due to actor Kevin Doyle, who insists on finding a real human being there, than it is to writer Julian Fellowes, who long ago labelled Molesley 'put-upon buffoon' and considered his job done.

"He wasn’t being malicious or vainglorious; he just realized that he had
nothing of value to offer in this new world, and took the necessary
steps to protect himself."

Oh, to be alive in such an age. . . .

Random Halloween - not the movie - story, because it's 5.14am here and I've been carving pumpkins:

The irony of this is that a great bloodless slasher film immediately inspired a raft of very bloody indeed slasher films, so that when Carpenter went to make his next film, intending it to be a relatively bloodless ghost story, the studio insisted on gore being added to it. Fortunately, it doesn't really harm The Fog…

The theme from Spy Hard is a huge favourite in this house; absolutely spot on pastiche of the great Bond themes (the orchestration and arrangement are such that if you just listen casually, you'd be trying to think which Bond film it was from). And props to any song that can work 'reiterate' in as a legitimate and…

When I saw the conga line of people waiting (I presumed) to pay their last respects to Bob, I thought ‘Please, God, no.’

Sorry; in my early morning pre-caffeinated state I conflated the BBC TV series and the Hammer film.