The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Set 1 [1994] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Good writing and strong acting, but you'll need to deal with ambiguity and with characters who don't warm the heart
 The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Set 1 [1994] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Starring: Colin Firth , Robert Urquhart , Emma Croft , Sylvia Syms , and George Costigan
Director: Marc Evans
Manufacturer: Acorn Media
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000L21286
Release Date: 2007-02-20
The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Set 1 [1994] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Good writing and strong acting, but you'll need to deal with ambiguity and with characters who don't warm the heart.......2007-12-20

All to often the term "psychological mystery" can mean characters who are hard to like or at least easy to lose patience with, especially when their stories go on for two or three hours. There's also the ambiguity factor; you may need a high tolerance for ambiguity as the stories play out with interior conflicts, guilt-ridden angst or strange doings that may not be well clarified...was a murder committed after all, was that strange person real or imagined, are the tortured emotions justified or not? Three of the four mysteries in the Ruth Rendell Mysteries - Set 1 have ample quantities of ambiguity and quite a few hard-to-like characters. One, "The Secret House of Death," is a fine, disturbing story which, for me, has an unsatisfying conclusion. Getting there, however, was a nice excursion into the world of red herrings and false assumptions. "Vanity Dies Hard" is straight-forward...but, oh, those characters. They're all of the privileged class or from the class which serves them. The homes are gracious and the manners well-bred (and occasionally arrogant). What saves this story is that the motivations are satisfyingly nasty...jealousy, envy and sublimated love. The other two stories -- "Master of the Moor" and "The Double" -- are simply unsatisfying, with conclusions which are, in my view, nothing more than contrivances. "Master of the Moor," in particular, takes a long, long time to get to the resolution, and then it seems so unfair to one of the major characters.

On the plus side, and what makes these mysteries worth having, or at least renting, is that the writing is excellent and the acting is of a high standard. In particular. Colin Firth in "Master of the Moor" and Eleanor David in "Vanity Dies Hard" just about carry the whole dramatic weight of their two stories. Amanda Redman in "The Secret House of Death" not only plays one of the few really likable characters in the series, she is the mechanism by which we at last realize we all have been taken for a ride.

The DVD transfers look very good. The four stories are on three discs. Master and Vanity run slightly over two-and-a-half hours each; Secret House runs nearly two hours; The Double, not quite an hour. Extras include a Ruth Rendell biography and cast filmographies for a few of the actors.

Murder At The Presidio [2005]
Average customer rating: Not rated
    		Murder At The Presidio [2005]
    Starring: Lou Diamond Phillips , Victoria Pratt , Martin Cummins , Eugene Clark , and Leslie Easterbrook
    Director: John Fasano
    Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
    ProductGroup: DVD
    Binding: DVD

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    ASIN: B000AV3QIW
    Release Date: 2005-11-28
    Murder At The Presidio [2005]
    Murder at the Presidio [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      		Murder at the Presidio [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
      Starring: Lou Diamond Phillips , Victoria Pratt , Martin Cummins , Eugene Clark , and Kimberly Hawthorne
      Director: John Fasano
      Manufacturer: Columbia TriStar
      ProductGroup: DVD
      Binding: DVD

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      ASIN: B0009S4II8
      Release Date: 2005-08-09
      Murder at the Presidio [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

      The Tie that Binds [1995] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
      Average customer rating: Not rated
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        Starring: Daryl Hannah , Keith Carradine , Moira Kelly , Vincent Spano , and Julia Devin
        Director: Wesley Strick
        Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
        ProductGroup: DVD
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        ASIN: B000035Z56
        Release Date: 2000-04-11
        The Tie that Binds [1995] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
        The Rich Man's Wife/The Tie That Binds [1995] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
        Average customer rating: Not rated
          		The Rich Man's Wife/The Tie That Binds [1995] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
          Starring: Halle Berry , Peter Greene , Clive Owen , Frankie Faison , and Charles Hallahan
          Director: Amy Holden Jones , and Wesley Strick
          Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
          ProductGroup: DVD
          Binding: DVD

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          ASIN: B000067DHD
          Release Date: 2002-07-02
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          Solar Attack [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
          Average customer rating: Not rated
            		Solar Attack [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
            Starring: Mark Dacascos , Joanne Kelly (II) , Kevin Jubinville , Sugith Varughese , and Craig Eldridge
            Director: Paul Ziller
            Manufacturer: Lions Gate
            ProductGroup: DVD
            Binding: DVD

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