Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective (1981)

Best movie of this year hands down!

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I watched the original broadcast of this television film which got a big build up on ITV. I even recall while promoting this film, Bernard Cribbins got cornered by Eamonn Andrews for This is your Life.It suspiciously looked like pilot for a television series that never materialized well not until it was rebooted over two decades later with Peter Davison in the lead role.Cribbins plays Dangerous Davies. A tenacious detective, regarded as a plodder, he drives a vintage car and accompanied by a big dog. Sometimes his best friend played by Bill Maynard helps out.Right from the initial scenes he ends up getting beaten up, so appears in bandages, gets beaten up again and progressively gets bandaged up more and more. Not sure how he survived the multiple baseball attacks. By the end of the movie he is in a wheelchair and bandaged almost head to toe.Davies is asked to investigate a 15 years old cold case, the disappearance of a teenage girl who might had been raped and killed. Davies is doggedly determined to get to the bottom of the case.The film had an uneasy mix of comedy and dark drama which is probably the reason why it never became a series. It also relied on too many plot contrivances and you are left wondering why this case was left unsolved for so long as Davies seems to have solved it rather too easily which kind of points towards some dirty cops.The film has a nice mix of well known faces such as Joss Ackland, Pam St Clement and Maureen Lipman as well as actors who were well known at the time but some of them are no longer with us.I recall enjoying the film at the time but now does not stand up too well as a drama outside its nostalgia.

What an excellent film. Good casting and a great performance by Bernard Cribbins - although he has a constitution of an ox to survive three attacks with a baseball bat. He wears bandages very well.It is a story which moves with just about the right kind of pace - not rushed with developments at regular intervals.Different from the latter series with Peter Davidson but with the same elements I think - good sporting cast, thoughtful main character and a gentle pace - and fans of the series will be familiar with the storyline.I was hooked very quickly.John

Brilliant film. Love it. Definitely NOT dated - except that there's no swearing or sex. If the lack of these dates a film then perhaps you can call it dated but then in that case I'd call that a major advantage, because this one needs none of that. It's a story of a old unsolved murder, and a much maligned detective who is generally treated like rubbish but who comes through in the end. For any of us who struggle for what we think is right but only get stomped on or ignored or ridiculed, this is a wonderful film.Bernard Cribbins is perfect casting. Anyone else would have made a hash of it. You need vulnerability for this role and he literally oozes vulnerability. Yet he knows that a young girls disappearance is really her murder and if the crime is 15 years old, that doesn't change anything. People are important - even 15 years later. Something that many mothers and fathers of missing children certainly know.I'd like to think that there are people out there like Dangerous Davies doing their best against the odds. I'm not so sure of it though. But while this film exists it gives you hope.

Back in my teens I became a big fan of the novels of witty Welshman Leslie Thomas. Rude but never sleazy, funny, bordering on slapstick but never becoming childish, emotive without being mawkish and dramatic enough to make you care. Very few of Thomas' novels appear to make their mark on screen and I reckon that's because too much of Thomas' work would have to be cut, leaving what remained on screen too uninvolving. The Peter Davison TV series of recent years has been OK - I like Davison and that show has been a decent comedy drama but it has rarely felt like classic Thomas. It has taken me some 25 years to view the Cribbins version and I love it! It really is a top class effort that makes the most of everything that made Thomas so great in the first place. The film may look a little dated now but rather than spoiling it, this simply makes the whole thing more nostalgic. And what a cast! A cavalcade of British TV screen greats including Maureen lipman, Bill Maynard, a future Doctor Who and a future Eastender. Check this one out if you are proud of your Brit heritage - if you're an American who likes our sense of humour - and there seems to be quite a few of you - then you'll love it too.