"Nine tailors make a man", which explains why Adolphe Menjou (Hollywood's best-dressed actor) titled his memoir "It Took Nine Tailors". In Dorothy Sayers's novel (and this adaptation), the title refers to a Church of England tradition: the parish bell chimes nine "tailors" (tolls) to mark the death of a man, six for a woman, three for a child.
Here we have a splendid example of authorial obsession: Sayers was deeply interested in change-ringing, a rarefied activity even in her day ... and nowadays downright obscure. I would need several thousand words to explain change-ringing properly. Basically, a peal begins with all the ringers tolling in an agreed sequence. In each successive change, any given ringer will chime at either the same point in the sequence as last time round, or one position before or after that position ... never altering by more than one in a single change. Ideally (though not always in real life), the peal continues until every possible mathematical combination has been rung ONCE only. (The number of changes in a full peal depends on how many bells are used.) Unfortunately, Sayers assumes that all her readers (and now her viewers) are as fascinated by this subject as she was. Throughout "The Nine Tailors", campanological terms like "Treble Bob" and "Tailor Paul" are tossed about with no explanation.
Ian Carmichael always had the advantage of being able to choose his projects, and he only ever worked in quality productions. All his Lord Peter Wimsey miniseries are excellent, but "The Nine Tailors" is the one I recommend for viewing first, as this one establishes the relationship between Lord Peter and his invaluable valet Bunter (the excellent Glyn Houston). A prologue shows them meeting in the Great War, with Bunter saving his subaltern and becoming Lord Peter's batman.
SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD. I agree with IMDb reviewer "hgallon" that the identity of a corpse in this mystery is too easy to guess. (This reflects one of the teleplay's few deviations from the original novel.) The villain has cut off the dead man's hands and head, hoping to nobble identification: nowadays, of course, DNA would reveal all.
IMDb's reviewer Fisher Forrest is technically correct about an error in change-ringing protocol, but change-ringing hobbyists (such as Miss Sayers herself) would overlook this. Come to that, the "rules" require all change-ringers to be male, but Dorothy Sayers was an enthusiastic pealer herself.
In the last chapter of this miniseries is a detail that I disliked. Lord Peter needs to access Church of England records, so he casually rings up his friend the Archbishop of Canterbury. There's an old film cliché stating that, when a real person is briefly portrayed by an actor, the actor is photographed in three-quarter rear view to avoid the aggro of finding a lookalike. See for instance the depiction of Franklin D. Roosevelt in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" or of Walt Disney in "Once Upon a Time". Here in "The Nine Tailors", the actor briefly portraying the Archbishop is shown from that same angle ... but, really, how many viewers in 1974 (or later) had any notion of what the Archbishop looked like forty years earlier?
The production design throughout this miniseries is a delight -- plenty of campanology, very little camp -- as is the ripe British dialogue. One crusty Englishman, confronting a French letter (quiet, you!), confesses: "I never could parley-voo." I'm slightly annoyed by Carmichael's attempts at Bertie Wooster diction, clipping his words and saying "ain't". Admittedly, Sayers deserves some of the blame.
SPOILER. The climactic scene of "The Nine Tailors" places Lord Peter in a deadly situation, but some viewers may be sceptical as to its fatal dimensions. This is something that Sayers got very right indeed, and Lord Peter is in genuine peril. My rating for these nine tailors is nine points out of 10. Well done, m'lord!
Here we have a splendid example of authorial obsession: Sayers was deeply interested in change-ringing, a rarefied activity even in her day ... and nowadays downright obscure. I would need several thousand words to explain change-ringing properly. Basically, a peal begins with all the ringers tolling in an agreed sequence. In each successive change, any given ringer will chime at either the same point in the sequence as last time round, or one position before or after that position ... never altering by more than one in a single change. Ideally (though not always in real life), the peal continues until every possible mathematical combination has been rung ONCE only. (The number of changes in a full peal depends on how many bells are used.) Unfortunately, Sayers assumes that all her readers (and now her viewers) are as fascinated by this subject as she was. Throughout "The Nine Tailors", campanological terms like "Treble Bob" and "Tailor Paul" are tossed about with no explanation.
Ian Carmichael always had the advantage of being able to choose his projects, and he only ever worked in quality productions. All his Lord Peter Wimsey miniseries are excellent, but "The Nine Tailors" is the one I recommend for viewing first, as this one establishes the relationship between Lord Peter and his invaluable valet Bunter (the excellent Glyn Houston). A prologue shows them meeting in the Great War, with Bunter saving his subaltern and becoming Lord Peter's batman.
SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD. I agree with IMDb reviewer "hgallon" that the identity of a corpse in this mystery is too easy to guess. (This reflects one of the teleplay's few deviations from the original novel.) The villain has cut off the dead man's hands and head, hoping to nobble identification: nowadays, of course, DNA would reveal all.
IMDb's reviewer Fisher Forrest is technically correct about an error in change-ringing protocol, but change-ringing hobbyists (such as Miss Sayers herself) would overlook this. Come to that, the "rules" require all change-ringers to be male, but Dorothy Sayers was an enthusiastic pealer herself.
In the last chapter of this miniseries is a detail that I disliked. Lord Peter needs to access Church of England records, so he casually rings up his friend the Archbishop of Canterbury. There's an old film cliché stating that, when a real person is briefly portrayed by an actor, the actor is photographed in three-quarter rear view to avoid the aggro of finding a lookalike. See for instance the depiction of Franklin D. Roosevelt in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" or of Walt Disney in "Once Upon a Time". Here in "The Nine Tailors", the actor briefly portraying the Archbishop is shown from that same angle ... but, really, how many viewers in 1974 (or later) had any notion of what the Archbishop looked like forty years earlier?
The production design throughout this miniseries is a delight -- plenty of campanology, very little camp -- as is the ripe British dialogue. One crusty Englishman, confronting a French letter (quiet, you!), confesses: "I never could parley-voo." I'm slightly annoyed by Carmichael's attempts at Bertie Wooster diction, clipping his words and saying "ain't". Admittedly, Sayers deserves some of the blame.
SPOILER. The climactic scene of "The Nine Tailors" places Lord Peter in a deadly situation, but some viewers may be sceptical as to its fatal dimensions. This is something that Sayers got very right indeed, and Lord Peter is in genuine peril. My rating for these nine tailors is nine points out of 10. Well done, m'lord!