When his eye is caught by a pretty bride-to-be in a sleepy Victorian town, a dashing stranger finds himself up against more than the groom ... with deadly consequences.
Truncated telling of an uncompleted story, the history of which other reviewers have covered. There's plenty of Dickensian delights in the minor characters and great potential in what is not a love-triangle, but a square: one object of attraction for three men with differing motives. So maybe a love-rhombus? Sounds rude.
The early scenes brush past a lot of humour, but once the characterization establishes itself the mood improves - that is, after the music editing stops drowning out the dialogue. The hero is a dark-skinned Indian, which is surprising given the author's blood-curdling views on the Indian mutineers from a few years previous.
The potential really is for dark secrets to emerge from the past, and there's one poor piece of editing after the first ring scene that accidentally shows how it might be done, when it seems the relationship of the betrothed couple has all of a sudden taken a sinister twist. But no - instead, the screenwriter has filled in the author's work with an implausible plot disguise, leaving the past untouched. Also untouched is the background of the drug abuse, but by this point I'm imagining a heap of dark psychology. The potential is there, just as in Great Expectations, and I'm sure Dickens wouldn't turn in his grave.
The sets and costumes are charming. Cinematography has its moments, especially the close-up on the hero at the river, with torch-lights framing his head.
Could do with a remake on a more entangled plot.
Truncated telling of an uncompleted story, the history of which other reviewers have covered. There's plenty of Dickensian delights in the minor characters and great potential in what is not a love-triangle, but a square: one object of attraction for three men with differing motives. So maybe a love-rhombus? Sounds rude.
The early scenes brush past a lot of humour, but once the characterization establishes itself the mood improves - that is, after the music editing stops drowning out the dialogue. The hero is a dark-skinned Indian, which is surprising given the author's blood-curdling views on the Indian mutineers from a few years previous.
The potential really is for dark secrets to emerge from the past, and there's one poor piece of editing after the first ring scene that accidentally shows how it might be done, when it seems the relationship of the betrothed couple has all of a sudden taken a sinister twist. But no - instead, the screenwriter has filled in the author's work with an implausible plot disguise, leaving the past untouched. Also untouched is the background of the drug abuse, but by this point I'm imagining a heap of dark psychology. The potential is there, just as in Great Expectations, and I'm sure Dickens wouldn't turn in his grave.
The sets and costumes are charming. Cinematography has its moments, especially the close-up on the hero at the river, with torch-lights framing his head.
Could do with a remake on a more entangled plot.