Customer Reviews

The Charmer

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Not too tight, old boy," says Ralph Gorse at the end of The Charmer. We've spent nearly 312 minutes leading up to this point. They are 312 well spent minutes.

Gorse (Nigel Havers) is a charming English con man in the early Thirties. He lives by his amoral wits, seducing, enticing and working the side deals. He wants everything he isn't and everything he hasn't. Eventually he works his way up to murder. The Charmer, a wonderful Masterpiece Theater presentation now twenty years old, maintains every bit of its queasy allure, thanks in large part to Havers, to Rosemary Leach and to Bernard Hepton. Leach plays Joan Plumleigh-Bruce, a somewhat frumpy upper-middle class, snobbish Englishwoman, a widow who attracts Gorse's attention because of her property and her income. Hepton plays Donald Stimpson, a man who wears round, thick eyeglasses, has a rather silly mustache and is a property broker. He is a long-time friend and wooer of Joan, and he also fancies a marriage to her, to her income and to her property. The idea of a regular bit of the old bed springs is attractive to Stimpson, too. When Gorse meets Donald and, through him, Joan, the main pieces in this sly, malicious and self-serving game come into play.

In the course of this six-part series we will watch Gorse woo and manipulate, empty bank accounts, impregnate, cause a fire with fatal results, seduce, and murder. Following his trail like a middle-aged, self-serving angel of retribution is Donald. And Donald pulls along in his wake Joan, a woman who knows she was had and scorned, who still loves her Rafe but has Donald whispering to her that Rafe must be held accountable. Donald, of course, would like nothing better than to see Gorse brought down, partly because he detests Gorse and partly because he is sure that will be the path back to Joan's heart, bed and finances.

Is there anyone likable in this drama? Not really, and that's so satisfying. It is the ability of Gorse, Joan and Donald to ignore their real motives and fail to hide their real moral characters from us that gives us so much pleasure. By the end of the drama, Gorse, Joan and Donald each in their own way find a comeuppance that allows us to think our own upright moral characters might even be real.

Nigel Havers has a particularly tough job giving us the picture of Ralph Gorse. Havers must show us what a heel the man is, yet he also must make us see Gorse's charm. We know when Gorse is thinking up some disreputable betrayal for his own benefit. We can see how he is justifying a death. Havers also is able to show us how seductive, how pleasant, how companionable Gorse can be when he wants to. Rosemary Leach gives us a wonderful portrayal of a singularly unlikable, self-deluding woman who wants to be loved, who flutters at Gorse's attentions, who rather likes Donald's insistent courting and who thinks nothing of giving her young Irish maid condescending disdain. And last, we have Bernard Hepton, in my view one of the best of Britain's skilled character actors. With those thick glasses and that mustache, Hepton turns Donald Stimpson into a figure of slightly pompous amusement for us; that is, until we begin to realize just how resentful Stimpson is becoming, and how relentless he is in the pursuit of bringing down Gorse. Hepton turns Stimpson into a little man dangerous to underestimate, who simply won't let go.

The Charmer is murderous black comedy that is a great deal of fun, and features three outstanding performances. The DVD transfer is not as crisp as we've come to expect, but is still very easy to watch.

Saw it on tv - it was a mini series at the time - and
I just loved it. The acting is very good, the story
itself excellent...when you get to the very end of
the story you begin to feel some sort of sympathy for
the bad boy because he was at times misunderstood, and
used as well. I was fortunately enough to get the videos
from the N.Y. Public Library, though sometimes one or two
at the time, but every time I watched it, I loved every
minute of it....even the sad end.

It's rare that a program makes you root for the villain and despise the "good guys", if there are any good guys in this wonderful production, but "The Charmer" does just that.

Nigel Havers plays Ralph Gorse, a handsome immoral man who has one goal in life, to rise above his station. This series takes place in the 1930's, when England as indeed most places, was still very class conscious. Unless you came from a good family, which meant old money, not money coming from "trade" like Ralph's father-in-law, it was very difficult if not impossible to become one of the beautiful people.

Ralph desperately wants to live in the same world as one of his conquests, a young Fiona Fullerton as the wild socialite, Clarice Mannor, who he comes the closest to having any kind of feelings for. To get into this world however, takes money, so he takes advantage (in more ways than one) of a dowdy middle-aged Joan Plumleigh-Bruce, played wonderfully by Rosemary Leach. Plumleigh-Bruce is a basically petty and selfish woman who richly deserves everything she gets in this story. The worst of the lot as far as petty and selfish goes to Bernard Hepton's Donald Stimpson, a perfectly horrible man in every way. Old, ugly and wearing coke bottle glasses, he is truly a viscous little man. Even after the money that was conned out of Joan is returned to her, he just will not let it go. He will not rest until he sees Ralph destroyed. This, he does, but at no small cost to himself. In the end he finds he's won the battle, but lost the war. Hepton is so good in this role, I hated his guts by the time it was over, a sure sign of great acting.

There are really no winners in this six-part drama, each character ends up miserable in their own way in the end, but for me at least, even with all the horrible things he did, I couldn't help but hope that Ralph had gotten away with it. He was a charmer indeed.

This is not, as one reviewer describes it, a black comedy. Instead, it is a splendid three-part television program about a complete bounder, the sort of "cad" film that George Sanders might have starred in earlier. The acting is marvelous--right down to the smallest roles, such as the maid and the hotel clerk. Nigel Havers is perfect, as are Rosemary Leach and Bernard Hepton. This is television the way it used to be on BBC before the Huns took over. I noticed one small cut, however, in the sex scene between Havers and Leach, a moment of complete disgust on the face of the younger man. Perhaps the contemporary editors thought that the facial expression was politically incorrect. In any case, this is an excellent production, equal to Havers' performance in Sleepers.

Ralph Gorse's boyish smile is enough to melt the heart of any woman. His honesty and caring personality captures their trust and loyalty. Ralph is the man that every woman wants until of course you go deeper into this charmer's life.

In this six part series we meet a man who has the uncanny ability to swindle women who fall in love with him. Ralph is young and ambitious but at his core we find a man who is a heartless schemer. Ralph can wiggle his way out of any situation no matter how bad it gets. Take a journey with Ralph as he begins a complex scheme to become rich by willfully deceiving his paramours.

Nigel Havers plays a great role as this young man who leaves hurt and havok where ever he goes. Yet he is not with out his challengers. Donald Stimpson played by Bernard Hepton is Ralph's nemesis. Donald is a stuffy old boy whose jealousy comes to a head when Ralph takes away his true love. Donald is determined to make him pay.

This is an enjoyable tale about greed, selfishness and deceit that everyone inflicts upon one another. No one is purely innocent in this complex world of Ralph's. No matter how vile Ralph acts he still comes across as quite a good chap. His victims appear to be worse than him. Enjoy these funny and thought provoking episodes of the life of a master deceiver.