English shows dominate DVD releases this week
Offerings include the 'Jeeves & Wooster' series and 'Invisibles'
British programs dominate this week's look at new-to-DVD television programs.
"Jeeves & Wooster: The Complete Series" (A&E, 1990-93, eight discs, $59.95). Long before he became the dysfunctional but brilliant Dr. "House" on American TV, British actor Hugh Laurie starred in several riotous comedy series in his homeland, not the least of which was this adaptation of the "Jeeves & Wooster" stories by P.G. Wodehouse.
Laurie plays wealthy dim-bulb Bertie Wooster, and his frequent comic partner Stephen Fry is Wooster's long-suffering, stiff-upper-lip valet Jeeves, who sees his primary duty as rescuing his naive, impulsive employer from one silly escapade after another. Funny stuff.
Extras: full frame, 23 episodes, text biography/filmography
"The Invisibles" (Acorn, 2008, two discs, $39.99). This engaging hour-long caper-comedy (which is also surprisingly heavy on the sentiment) follows a pair of retired thieves (Anthony Head, Warren Clarke) who have been living off their ill-gotten gains in Spain but have now returned to England to live out their lives quietly with family. But, of course, old habits die hard, and the pair are pressed back into service with a petty crook (Dean Lennox Kelly) whose late father was once their partner.
"Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" fans will recognize Head in the lead, and fans of such older films as "Logan's Run," "An American Werewolf in London" and "Walkabout," will spot Jenny Agutter, who plays his wife.
Extras: widescreen, six episodes
"Murder Most English" (Acorn, 1977, three discs, $49.99). There's also a fair amount of humor, though decidedly more low-key, in this veddy British mystery series about a soft-spoken, gentlemanly, pipe-puffing detective (Anton Rodgers) who solves twisted, complicated crimes in a small (fictional) English town.
Extras: full frame, seven episodes
"The Village Affair" (Acorn, 1994, $24.99). This fitfully interesting drama, with performances that are all over the map, has an unhappy wife-and-mother (Sophie Ward) and her husband (Nathaniel Parker) returning from the States to his small English village.
Post-partum depression (after their third child) is blamed for her malaise until a free-spirited woman (Kerry Fox) shows up, to whom Parker is attracted. But, as it happens, she is more interested in Ward. (Look for 9-year-old Keira Knightley as one of the children.)
Extras: full frame, text filmographies/biography
Comments
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