Bob Hoskins
267
DVD
14 offers from $7.96
Dennis Potter
18
Paperback
15 offers from $2.67
Robert Downey Jr.
198
DVD
34 offers from $2.50
Donald Pleasence
13
DVD
13 offers from $6.96

Product Description

Singing Detective, The (DVD)

A gripping murder mystery. A lavish musical. An intense psychological thriller. A warped romance. Dennis Potter's legendary, award-winning mini-series is all this and more. Hailed by the Chicago Sun Times as "The greatest production in the history of television," this genre-deying masterpiece is soon to be a major motion picture starring Robert Downey Jr. and Mel Gibson.

]]>

Product details

Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.33:1
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ NR (Not Rated)
Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 5.75 x 1 inches; 9.6 Ounces
Director ‏ : ‎ Jon Amiel
Media Format ‏ : ‎ Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
Run time ‏ : ‎ 6 hours and 55 minutes
Release date ‏ : ‎ August 22, 2006
Actors ‏ : ‎ Michael Gambon, Patrick Malahide, Joanne Whalley, David Ryall, Gerard Horan
Language ‏ : ‎ Unqualified, English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
Studio ‏ : ‎ BBC Home Entertainment
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00007HGIJ
Writers ‏ : ‎ Dennis Potter
Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 3

Best Sellers Rank: #41,698 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #590 in Musicals (Movies & TV)
- #2,033 in Mystery & Thrillers (Movies & TV)
- #7,389 in Drama DVDs

Customer Reviews:
311 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

Customer reviews

5 star		75%
4 star		9%
3 star		4%
2 star		4%
1 star		8%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Josquin DesPrez

Raging masterpiece, though not for everyone

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 3, 2017

Verified Purchase

One of the most profound works in any genre that i have ever experienced. I saw it when it was first aired in the US (1987 or 88) and was mesmerized, as were all my friends. I bought the DVD as soon as I found out that it existed. It's not for everyone, and watching it now I find it suffers a bit from its somewhat dated production values. But its integration of the personal and the political is brilliant and completely organic. It is a work of the deepest humanity. Dennis Potter's use of the popular music of the time is brilliant and essential to the structure of the drama. Most movies use music as a cheap emotional cueing technique when they can't convey the emotions with skillful dramatic techniques and good acting. For many of us, music is a very significant part of our emotional life and Potter treats music as an essential part of the emotional landscape, enriching this profound and complex drama immensely. Stars the great Michael Gambon with an excellent cast of veteran actors.

If you can find any interviews with Dennis Potter I'd highly recommend listening to them. He was a great and compassionate observer of the human condition. (search for "Dennis Potter - Conversations in B&W")

18 people found this helpful

Helpful

John Erickson

British Quirkiness Meets Film Noir & Psycho Drama

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 1, 2011

Verified Purchase

This BBC short series is as unusual as it gets. The author of a film noir styled book about a Private Detective that is also the lead singer for a local big band is stricken with an awful condition. The author spends time in hospital and day dreams while bored, halucinates and dreams through his childhood memories as well as parts of his detective story in a strange combination of reality and non-reality. It is very tough going for the author and the series makes it that few people are ones that you would easily empathize with. Over time the author works through some bad things in his life while his medication and treatments begin to make for improvements in his health.

This series has some very interesting parts and is like a jigsaw puzzle that all of the pieces are not there, you probably won't get the full picture, I know i didn't, but it is worth seeing and sticking with because it is a series you will mull over for some time.

Not for the overly sensitive as to medical conditions. Some fine vintage portions of the author as a child and the private eye parts are fun to watch.

Not for little kids or the vapid type.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Raoul Walsh

The Singing Detective

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 1, 2003

Verified Purchase

Early in the history of television there were projects that resembled unrestrained theater production more than what we know of as television today. The Singing Detective is a high point in this unrestrained theater of the tube. What television can be when it isn't creating programming for the masses and solely concerned with selling as much commercial air time as possible is demonstrated in The Singing Detective. This masterpiece comes from one of the more obsessive and introspective minds that ever wrote for television, Dennis Potter. This work is not for everyone. It is extreme in many regards and it's use of language and sexuality would - and did - exclude it from American commercial broadcast and only a few PBS stations ever aired the 6-part work in its entirety. A journey into the mind of its creator as portrayed by the great Michael Gambon, The Singing Detective is a detective story of the mind. A tale of multiple stories that begin to intertwine and commingle until we are compelled to complete the journey - not for the sake of knowing whodunit but for the sake of finding our own sanity within the mind of the protagonist, Philip Marlowe. A rare gem and truly a work of genius that, if you seek the edge of expression and not the mainstream, will be a centerpiece in any DVD collection.

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

John Turcotte

In the Words of " ELWY YOST " Simply a " MASTERPIECE"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 21, 2011

Verified Purchase

For those of you, who watched and enjoyed the late " Elwy Yost " on "Saturday Night at the Movies", I present to you the very best BBC movie ever made to date, " THE SINGING DETECTIVE " with Michael Gambon, Patrick Malahide, Joanne Whalley, was with out doubt, the number one greatest movie ever made, and was always refered to by " Elwy Yost" as simply a " A MASTERPIECE FOR ALL ETERNITY " .

The other two greats of the fantastic three, were " THE SEVEN KEYS " by Alfred Hitchcock, and of course the other great BBC movie of all times, " PENNIES FROM HEAVEN" with Bob Hoskins .

PS: If anyone out there ever knows were I can legally purchase a DVD copy of the " THE SEVEN KEYS " by Alfred Hitchcock, please be sure to email me through this review. It's the only one of the "Fantastic Three" I do not own. The other two are available through "Amazon.com" and are quality DVD reproductions.

I hope you enjoy my tribute to you " Elwy " , it's lacking by your standards, but I thought you would enjoy knowing, that we all truly miss you !

Jonathon T. Ontario Canada.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

john m.

One of the best from the BBC

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 22, 2020

Verified Purchase

Saw it on PBS decades ago. Loved it then. Still love it today.

So far only seen the 1st episode. Image quality and DVD presentation are very good.
Commentary on 1st episode was very interesting.

Took about a week to come UK to California. Package was undamaged though the 1st disk popped loose and was rattling. No apparent damage to disk. Hopefully remaining 2 episodes on disk will show no issues.

Clearly states region 2. My supposedly region free Sony 4k bluray didn't work. Found a online code for my ancient Philips bluray. That worked. Otherwise VLC on my PC worked.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

DAL

As Good As British (or any) Television Drama Can Ever Get

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 28, 2016

Verified Purchase

Only about the the most creative, original and well produced TV dramas of all time. In a class by itself. This is where Michael Gambon made his name, and he made it big time. This is where Dennis Potter takes "Pennies from Heaven" and expands on the idea in dimensions you never imgained possible. You have to watch it at least 4 or 5 times to pick out most of what is going on. Knowing English culture is a big help, but you can't help but be impressed by the sheer imagination and skill that went into creating this tour de force,regardless. It's film noir, it's a detective story, and it's an unsparing portrait of life in Britain at the end of the 20th century. An absolute must see

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

kaycee

Still amazing after all these years

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 24, 2018

Verified Purchase

I saw this all those years ago when it was shown on the BBC - I think it was 1986. I remembered it being mind boggingly good and something everyone at work discussed around the ‘water fountain’ on Monday morning. I was talking to my 18 year old son and defending British TV series over American ones, and arguing that TV series ‘in my day’ were the best. He offered up The Wire, Breaking Bad and Six Feet Under to defend his case. I spoke of The Singing Detective but wondered if the years had faded my memory and I would now find it dated. So with a worry that it would not stand up, I bought it and sat down to watch it with said son and hubby.
Oh boy, it’s even better than I remembered, if that’s possible. It’s soo good that you can’t binge watch it (another little habit that is beloved of my son’s generation). We have been watching an episode a week as intended and discussing it in between. It’s like sampling the caviar of TV, the flavour is too intense for one sitting. My son loves it and finds the 4 different timelines clever and intriguing. He said it was a superb example of a meta-narrative which he wished tv would do more, but said that it’s something that can so easily go wrong, most writers don’t attempt it. Apparently a meta narrative is, if I understood him correctly, a narrative that shows how the writing process develops to reveal the story that you the viewer are now watching. Anyway, he’s now busy showing it to all his friends and a new generation is discovering what we always knew- the genius that is Dennis Potter. Why the BBC didn’t reshow this for the 25th or 30th anniversary I’ll never know.

16 people found this helpful

Throda tzen

“Let’s be economical, nothing fancy….” [Opening narration]

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 5, 2016

Verified Purchase

This ground-breaking 1986, made for Tv BBC surreal musical drama follows Mystery writer Philip E. Marlow who is suffering writer's block while hospitalised due to his chronic skin and joint disease. As a result of constant pain, fever and his refusal to take medication, Marlow falls in and out of three worlds; the hospital, the fantasy Chandleresque noir thriller, and his childhood in wartime England, the three often influencing events in the others.
Full of 1940’s era music, great dance routines, comedy, tragedy, dark themes, constant plot dreaming re-imaginings, seedy clubs, naughty ladies, shady guys, this has it all. Full of dry, dead-pan, cynical tongue-in-cheek humour designed to raise a smile, brilliant one liners abound [“I’m not as cheap as I look!” Marlow] but this is one tale where everything slots together perfectly, acting, photography, dialogue, music, even the profanity adds to the scenes as it all builds to show how the three threads are all entwined as one.
The six episodes are spread over three discs, the first 2 holding 3 episodes each and offering play, scene selection, commentary [on/off] and subtitles [English on/off]. The third disc has the extras being point of view, close up of Dennis Potter, photo gallery [about 30 pics], arena:Dennis Potter [a ten minute interview] and filmographies. Rated 15 with plenty of mild language this gained notoriety at the time for depicting a lead character suffering from psoriatic arthropathy, cleverly avoided nudity, racism [often reflecting the politics of the day], sexism and most other ’isms as well as constant references to suicide, and of course a young Joanne Whaley in a nurses uniform greasing up our hero [which is as funny as it is tragic]. The hospital ‘bedside’ scenes still hold true today and of course it could never be made now and for that reason gets a +*. Worth buying just for the ‘Dry Bones’ routine –excellent.

8 people found this helpful

happysouls

Great acting, beautifully woven plot!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 1, 2016

Verified Purchase

When my partner suggested buying this I had a lack of enthusiasm based on no knowledge of it whatsoever. He was right as always. I absolutely loved it.
Michael Gambon's acting as Philip Marlow is absolutely superb, he manages to be repellent and yet as you get to know him he grows on you! The flashbacks to childhood are incredible as you see all the dilemma and difficulty the young Philip faces. The sets, scenery and wonderful local accents for these flashbacks have immense character.
As well as the straightforward back and forth of the story, the lines between reality, what takes place in his novel, and what might be delirium keeps things blurred and is utterly gripping.
And for those who don't like musicals...there is not that much singing!
It also has incredible funny moments, some of them funny/sad.
For anyone who likes things that are a little odder than mainstream, this is well worth a try!

3 people found this helpful

NB

Our hero's painful journey and struggle for redemption are cleverly paralleled with ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 7, 2014

Verified Purchase

Potter's masterpiece and it's tempting to wonder how could he improve on this? Marlow's sickness (psoriasis) is entwined in his psychopathological psyche and guilt haunts him in a maze of interconnected scenarios - his schooldays during which his self-blame for his parents' rocky marriage and his mother's infidelity results in early neurosis plus his relationship with his mother whose licentiousness is projected onto his perceptions of his wife. Marlowe finds release in his writing where his alter-ego, the omniscient, super-cool bandleader cum sleuth, untangles every mystery except his own. Our hero's painful journey and struggle for redemption are cleverly paralleled with songs of the 40s lip-synched by the cast to add a savage satire to his agonies. Potter has never been better than when Marlowe claws his way through regression and fantasy (a scarecrow of guilt and a policeman super-ego) to face the final confrontation with his old ghosts. The acting - especially Gambon, Malahide and Suzmann - is magnificent and Trodd's masterful production makes this a joy. I'd give six stars if I could.

3 people found this helpful

EAP of B

... ago on tv when it was serialised and really enjoyed it. Very clever technique of using the characters ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 22, 2015

Verified Purchase

I first saw this film years ago on tv when it was serialised and really enjoyed it. Very clever technique of using the characters to tell the story in old musical numbers, which they mime to. Dennis Potter made several of these type of films. The hospital scenes were a bit sad and the makeup was a bit off putting especially if watching this whilst eating! But also very funny characters. I would recommend this if like me you have seen Lipstick On Your Collar and Pennies From Heaven.

See all reviews

Genre	Musicals & Performing Arts/Musicals, Classics, Mystery & Suspense
Format	Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
Contributor	Patrick Malahide, Leslie French, Geff Francis, Lyndon Davies, Sharon D. Clarke, Gerard Horan, Dennis Potter, David Ryall, Janet Suzman, Jon Amiel, Joanne Whalley, George Rossi, Ron Cook, Michael Gambon See more
Language	English
Number Of Discs	3

Image Unavailable

The Singing Detective

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Product Description

Product details

Videos

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries