Morse a bit of a downer

Press, 19 July 1988, Page 11

Morse a bit of a downer

Some programmes leave you feeling fairly bleak towards humanity, and last Thursday’s Inspector Morse mystery, “The Dead of Jericho,” screened on One, was such a programme. There was a suicide, a murder, a peeping Tom who was also a blackmailer, and a drugaddicted student (the story was set in Oxford). Morse himself, perfectly played by John Thaw, reeked of loneliness and despair. Photography and direction were state of the art, or perhaps one should say state of the arty: one can get a bit tired of things half seen through halfopened doors and action reflected in rear-vision mirrors. The relentless quest for a novel angle to shoot scenes from can leave the viewer feeling not just uneasy, which is how he is intended to feel, but also irritated. Despite the frequent whiffs of something unpleasant which emanated from the story it was wellplotted and one was kept guessing until the denoue-

on television

ment. The show afforded the incidental pleasure of seeing the fine New Zealand actor, James Laurenson, doing some good work. But I found myself quite often harking back with nostalgia to “The Sweeney.” That programme’s violence and cynicism towards the rule of law used to bother me, and no doubt still would

unless I have become cynical and violent myself. The cop John Thaw played in “The Sweeney” had a bit of life about him: Morse, although very much his own man, irreverent towards authority and all the rest of it, is depicted as a semialcoholic loner, perpetually depressed, whose redeeming feature apart from his independent cast of mind is his fondness for music: he sings in a choir and listens to classical music constantly. He is a well-observed character and not uninteresting, but watching him is a bit of a downer. I am not suggesting that Morse should be continually bubbling over with an impish sense of fun, but I wouldn’t mind if he perked up occasionally. Oxford was a good setting, because of the contrast between the sleaze of the action and the beauty of the city, and there was no rhyming slang to be heard: presumably, if they go in for rhyming slang in Oxford it would be Latin rhyming

slang. There is one more of the Inspector Morse mysteries, to screen next Thursday, and I shall watch it provided I am in a mood of boisterous good humour before I start. Thanks to the miracle that men call video recording I was able to view both Inspector Morse and “Blazing Saddles,” which also screened on Thursday on Two. For some reason I never saw this film when it came around the cinemas all those years ago, and it was a pleasure to catch up with it last week: lots of over the top gags and lashings of vulgarity and bad taste. But mixed up with plenty of art, much of it supplied by Gene Wilder and Madeline Kahn, whose Marlene Dietrich take-off was first-rate.

When Mel Brooks gets it right he is one of the funniest writers and directors working in films. When he gets it wrong you wonder why you aren’t out doing something healthy in the fresh air. With “Blazing Saddles” he gets it right.