City of Vice [DVD] [2007] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Koch Vision and BBC presents "CITY OF VICE:COMPLETE FIRST SEASON" (14 January 2008) (236 mins/Color) (Dolby Digital) --- Splendidly acted this drama is unlike any other it make you feel you are part of the mystery as it tells stories of these crimes --- But also has the makings of other crime dramas such as Cracker and Prime Suspect --- Historical true crime series CITY OF VICE pits magistrate Henry Fielding (Ian McDiarmid) and his brother John (Iain Glen) against the teeming criminal underworld of 18th century London --- The five part series follows the duo's attempts to police the city and rid its streets of prostitutes, violent gangs, and bands of thieves is dark and dusty streets and basic poverty --- But this story brought to life Georgian England, it's not your usual period drama.

Under the production staff of:
Justin Hardy - Director & Executive Producer
Dan Reed - Director
Clive Bradley - Screenwriters
Peter Harness - Screenwriters
Justin Hardy - Executive Producer
Lachlan MacKinnon - Producer
Rob Pursey - Producer
Richard Blair-Oliphant - Original Music

Story line set in the late 18th century, City of Vice tells the story of London's first police force the Bow street runners lead by John (Iain Glen) and Henry Fielding (Ian McDiarmid) --- London is a centre for debauchery with pick pockets, thieves, murderers and prostitutes, plus gang warfare combines the excitement of contemporary crime drama with actual historical events, this graphic, five part series follows magistrate and author Henry Fielding, his blind half brother John and the Bow Street Runners on their quest to clean up the streets of 18th century London amidst a population of prostitutes, pimps, gangs and villains --- Was very much impressed by the filming of the streets in that three dimensional dark style, the general Gothic- feel of depressingly, stifling despair is fantastic --- A great atmosphere! --- The two brothers are great actors and fascinating figures representing morality and justice, one Anglican one catholic, one blind one seeing. Great contrasts and characterization --- BBC and Koch Vision release.

the cast includes:
Ian McDiarmid ... Henry Fielding
Iain Glen ... John Fielding
Francis Magee ... Saunders Welch
Steve Speirs ... William Pentlow
Alice O'Connell ... Mary Fielding
Sam Spruell ... Lord Newcastle
Sean Francis ... Daniel Carne
Peter McDonald ... Tom Jones
J.D. Kelleher ... Quin
Ian Peck ... Talbot
Juliet Aubrey ... Jane Fawkland

SPECIAL FEATURES
1. The Making of Vice featurette

BIOS:
1. Ian McDiarmid
Date of Birth: 11 August 1944 - Carnoustie, Tayside, Scotland, UK
Date of Death: Still Living

2. Iain Glen
Date of Birth: 24 June 1961 - Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Date of Death: Still Living

Great job by Koch Vision --- looking forward to more high quality titles from the BBC Collection film market --- order your copy now from Amazon or Koch Vision where there are plenty of copies available on DVD, stay tuned once again for top notch releases --- where they are experts in releasing long forgotten films and treasures to the collector.

Total Time: 236 mins on DVD ~ Koch Vision KOCV-6534 ~ (6/10/2008)

I saw this series elsewhere and just had to add it to my collection. What this series managed to do was show the grubbiness and violence of the early 18th century and offer entertaining stories of the birth of English policing.

It certainly helps to know a little bit of both 1) the situation in London prior to the Fielding brothers and 2) the attitude of the English to the idea of a public police force.

In the years before this series was set the usual method of capturing criminals was to offer a reward. This was done by both the state and private individuals. Private individuals would then produce the criminals and/or the stolen goods in order to receive the reward. The upshot of this was the creation of a system where the people who caught the criminals were often hand in glove with the criminals. The thief takers would also manufacture evidence against innocent individuals if the true criminal could not be found or would give him a sufficiently large bribe. Jonathan Wilde,the self-styled "Thief-taker General of England and Ireland", was the most notorious of this fraternity. He was hanged in 1725 for his more criminal activities.

As for the attitude of the English toward a public police force, they didn't want one. An Englishman's home was his castle and he did not want to be forced to allow an outside force into his home. This attitude is very clear in the first episode and the third.

So the proposed course the Fielding brothers took in trying to track down criminals was very forward thinking and done in the teeth of quite a bit of opposition.

I think the depiction of the London underworld was very realistic. It's probably too gritty for the taste of some, and I admit to wincing at times, myself, but I could not fault the production for being anachronistic. There's brief but not gratuitous nudity. The lighting appears natural. A high quality television screen is needed to pick up the details.

I find the depiction of the homosexual life in London at the time very interesting. It brought to might Diana Gabaldon's Lord John and the Private Matter set a few years later in a similar milieu.

All in all an entertaining series and one that deserves a second season.

Well researched, well acted and well staged, without sacrifice to modern correctness or language - yes, this is the other side of the coin, and the language then was rough, as was the life for many, but people still poured into London by the thousands every year from the countryside seeking work, opportunity, fame, or just anonymity. There was nothing anywhere like London and it was seductive. During this period London's population stayed static despite the constant in-migration from the countryside, because the city consumed people like a monster: crime, overcrowding, bad food, gin - it's all here: The staging claustrophobic, shadowy and very real, the mapping innovative, the camera work nuanced and almost speaking, the fight scenes convincing. There's a great deal of humour in this series, as well, some of it very gallows, but that was another feature of the 18th century - a sense of black, ironic humour which may even seem a little callous to us today. The viewer sees how really rough the brothers had it during a time when you could get held up in Hyde Park at high noon by a highwayman, with little help but a few fellow crusaders like Saunders Welch. Henry alone, and then later (which this series depicts) with his younger half-brother John, fought 12-16 hours a day to keep the peace and to somehow, some way, put a stop to the Hydra-headed monster called crime that was devouring London. All in the face of deep distrust of anything resembling a standing police force from the mob and the aristocracy alike. The Brothers Fielding's efforts were paid from secret service money.

Here is where it all began, drawn from contemporary records (the Bow Court records) with a good job done even in small details. The series is worth watching more than once not only for pleasure, but to catch some of the subtleties.

Ian McDiarmid is older than the Fielding he plays, who died at 47, but he really captures the spirit of the man so well, his humour and his rough tongue, his passion and that awful gout - it could hardly be better! Even the way he guzzles rather than sipping his wine - Fielding could take down 3 bottles of port in an evening - with almost palpable pleasure. I feel John is also played quite well by Iain Glen, with a very haunting and really quite creepy questioning of a gang member in one of the latter episodes. This includes portraying the struggles the brothers first had working together until they could come to an understanding and a system - in his early 30s at this time, John was an ex-military man (he had had his eyes injured at 19 in the Navy, and later went blind by the 'ministrations' of a supposed noted London eye surgeon. He didn't have a barrister brother for nothing; Henry sued for £400-500); and like his brother, brilliant, if less wild. Although John looked up to and admired Henry, and Henry loved "dear Jack", their distinct and at times contradictory personalities were bound to clash under the constant pressure.

This is styled as a police drama - it is in a way a fictionalized account of a factual occurrence, based on solid historical research with the Fielding brothers working as detectives; something which, as noted in Hue and Cry (Patrick Pringle) actually did happen. In fact, John Fielding was a predecessor of Sherlock Holmes in implementing deductive reasoning in investigation. Henry did similarly in his close questioning and investigation, with subsequent recording, of various cases. Very unfortunately, much was lost when the Lord Gordon rioters torched Sir John Fielding's house in the 1780s, burning many of Henry Fielding's papers and notes, so in fact it is very difficult to recreate the exact methods of detection and interrogation.

The molly houses, the taverns, the dirt, the foul language and, yes, the mores, are all here and distinctly 18th century. I have only two bones to pick with the production - one is WHERE IS SEASON 2?? The other is, that leonine mane of hair John Fielding sported was not a wig - it was his own hair.

Notes to US viewers:
1. This is not a dramatization of the excellent Sir John Fielding novels. It is the story of the inception of the Bow Street Runners.
2. This is not a Hollywood production.