Unnatural Causes *** (1993, Roy Marsden, Simon Chandler, Kenneth Colley, Mel Martin, Bill Nighy, James Cossins) – Classic Movie Review 10,445

The excellent Roy Marsden gives another impeccable, grave performance as P D James’s sensitive copper Commander Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard, who investigates a macabre murder on England’s Suffolk coast linked to a currency fraud, in director John Davies’s 1993 TV movie detective thriller Unnatural Causes. Maurice Seton (Arthur Blake), a well-known author, is found floating in a dinghy with his hands chopped off.

Like the rival TV show Inspector Morse, this delves unconvincingly into the emotional life of the enigmatic hero, which simply detracts from the main mystery rather than adding the depth that James intended. The film also makes Dalgliesh an out-of-character action hero in a climatic storm sequence that seems superfluous to the plot.

Still, when Peter Buckman’s script keeps to P D James’s novel, Unnatural Causes is most gripping and entertaining.

Also in the cast are Simon Chandler, Kenneth Colley, Mel Martin, Bill Nighy, James Cossins, Nicholas Jones, and Anne Lambton.

It is followed by A Mind to Murder (1995) (two-hour TV Movie), Original Sin (1997) (TV Mini-Series of three one-hour episodes) and A Certain Justice (1998) (TV Series of three one-hour episodes).

Marsden’s portrayal of Adam Dalgliesh in Anglia TV’s P D James series spanned 15 years, beginning as adaptations in serials of five or six one-hour episodes, recorded on outside broadcast videotape: Death of an Expert Witness (1983); Shroud for a Nightingale (1984); Cover Her Face (1985); The Black Tower (1985); A Taste for Death (1988); and Devices and Desires (1991).

Unnatural Causes and A Mind to Murder are the series’ only two bona fide single episode TV movies.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,445

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