MovieChat Forums > Devices and Desires (1991) Discussion > My first Dalgleish story... I enjoyed it...

My first Dalgleish story... I enjoyed it but...

posted 16 years ago by nonicknames
7 replies | jump to latest

This is the first PD James story I've watched. I just finished it. Dalgleish is class. He goes on holiday to Norfolk on his own and there are murders happening in the background. He just goes to the pub everyday, or calls in to people's homes and has a tin of beer. He also runs people home from the pub. He doesn't actually stop any of the murders or catch a killer. So after 6 hours of drama he comes across to me as a beer-swigging, drink driving, hoity toity loner. He is supposed to be someone of a higher moral standing, especially given the manner in which Marsden plays him. But in every other scene he's either drinking beer in the pub or in someone else's house or he's in his house or a cop's and he's having whiskey. He was at a dinner party and boozing there too. But yet he is never even tipsy.

Is he a binge-drinker in all the mysteries or just this one?

[–] nonicknames 16 years ago

Anyone?

[–] JukeBox-Bill 16 years ago

Probably, Dalgliesh holds his liquor better than you expect. On the other hand, from one can of beer occasionally one does not get drunk, or do you?
In my opinion Devices and Desires is one of the best of filmings from the books about the Adam Dalgliesh character.

[–] nonicknames 15 years ago

He persistently and blatantly drinks too much in the course of day. In one episode alone he had 8 beers and 3 whiskeys in one day. I am half-expecting his next mystery to be set in Malia.

[–] kbjornsen 15 years ago

Is this a joke or some annoyingly politically correct bull? We see him having a couple of pints and half-pints, and a whisky or two, nothing at all. Nothing like the great Morse. There is an alcoholic in the series, but Dalgliesh is as stone-faced and calm as ever. My only complaint about this series is that hideous sweater he wears:-) But at the end he wears a great brown suit that makes up for it. Nice Jaguar too.

[–] nonicknames 15 years ago

It was a joke that took a year for anyone to budge on lol.

[–] Harold_Robbins 13 years ago

DEVICES AND DESIRES is the one P.D. James/Dalgliesh novel that I had to try at least twice before I finally got into it - I seem to be having a problem with the TV version, though I looked forward to it with much anticipation because I always enjoy Roy Marsden as Dalgliesh. But I'm finding it as hard to 'connect' with the series as I did with the book - there are so many characters and I have trouble keeping track of who they are and what their relationship is to the others. I just feel as though I were plopped down into the middle of things without a proper introduction/set-up. I remember some things from the novel (which I read at least 6 years ago), but I'm just kind of on the outside looking in.

"'Nature,' Mr. Allnut, is what we are put here to rrrrrriiiiise above!"

[–] jugatsu 10 years ago

He's making up for all the non-drinking he did in The Sandbaggers.