Lord Peter Wimsey comes to the trial of Harriet Vane for a glimpse at one of the most engaging murder cases London has seen in years. My advice is, if such an one wants to play detective, to get a good poison reference source and read up on arsenic poisoning and its history.Harriet Vane may face the hangman for the murder of her fiancé-and only Lord Peter Wimsey can save her-in this “model detective story” ( The New York Times). I suppose there are some who will see these films who have not read Sayers, so I must be careful not to spoil her rather clever denouement. For example, the action in the novel takes place around Christmas and after, with the murder having occurred in June.
A few strange changes were made from the novels in this otherwise faithful adaptation.
The "Bunter" we get seems a bit young, but these are minor cavils. Petherbridge looks the part almost ideally, but his interpretation is somewhat more subdued than my conception of "Lord Peter" from having read the "canon" through at least half-a-dozen times since I first encountered Dorothy's sleuth about 1940. The BBC has done a good job of giving us STRONG POISON (about which film these remarks are mainly directed), HAVE HIS CARCASE, and GAUDY NIGHT, with a "Harriet Vane" acted by a lady who would seem to have been born for the part. It may be so, but luckily for us, Harriet Walter looks nothing like Dorothy. Sayers fell in love with "Lord Peter" and that "Harriet Vane" is a reflection of herself. Some commentators have said that Dorothy L. Harriet Walter reflects all three throughout the series. He says, repeatedly, that he admires her character and intelligence, even if she isn't "beautiful". Would any normal suitor continue in the face of this "battlement"? Well, Lord Peter is not exactly normal. That he would be interested in the case, was his nature as Dorothy has presented him to us, but Harriet in the dock and afterward was such a "distant" woman to Peter's adoring advances.
Sayers could explain that, and she tries throughout all three stories in this series. Either from the novel or this film you might come away wondering why Lord Peter fell in love with Harriet Vane at first sight of her in the dock at the Old Bailey.
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