In a mood to see a television series about the advertising business in days past with clever, witty dialogue and flawless period details in terms or costumes, props, sets, and automobiles? No, I’m not talking about Mad Men. I’m referring to the BBC’s 1973 four-part mini-series based on Dorothy L. Sayers’ 1933 Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novel, Murder Must Advertise. (Murder Must Advertise is included in The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, Set Two DVD release from Acorn Media.)
As with Mad Men, much of the pleasure of watching Murder Must Advertise derives from observing how the behavior and standards of the early 1930s compare with today’s world. Smoking is much more prevalent in the time portrayed, of course. There is much less emphasis on sexism in Murder Must Advertise than in Mad Men, although the differences in the privileges and duties between the male and female employees in the advertising industry are made clear. The attitude of the men in Murder Must Advertise towards their female co-workers is far more respectful than their male counterparts in Mad Men, however. (Whether this difference in attitude accurately reflects the mindset of the average British gentleman of the period or whether it reflects Sayers’ own taste and imagination is not known to me.)
Murder Must Advertise was something of a departure from both Sayers’ previous Wimsey novels and the format favored by British mystery authors in general, and is constructed more along the lines of the American approach to the genre. British-born film historian William K. Everson succinctly explained the difference between British and American mystery stories in his book The Detective in Film: “British detective novels tend to make the murder the be-all and end-all of their plots, whereas in the American equivalents, murder is often a launching pad to the revelation of much more ambitious and far-reaching crime.”
Thus, in Murder Must Advertise, the mystery of who killed young copywriter Victor Dean by causing him to take a fatal plunge down a circular staircase at the offices of Pym’s Publicity quickly takes a backseat to the much more important question of how Pym’s is connected to London’s thriving cocaine smuggling racket. It is, however, Dean’s demise that brings amateur sleuth Wimsey (played wonderfully, as usual, by Ian Carmichael) to Pym’s, posing as a novice copywriter named Death Bredon (actually Wimsey’s middle names). Pretending to be one of those archetypes affectionately known as “a silly-ass Englishman,” Wimsey insinuates himself among the other copywriters and secretaries in order to gather information about Dean and the functioning of the office itself.
The trail soon leads Wimsey to London’s clique of beautiful young hedonists who provide the cocaine traffickers with their primary clientele. Chief among this crowd are bored, dissipated socialite Dian de Momerie (Bridget Armstrong) and her frequent companion Major Todd Millingan, who is the connection to the mobsters who distribute the goods. (Milligan is played by Peter Bowles, a familiar face to fans of British television, thanks to his roles on Rumpole of the Bailey, To the Manor Born, and The Irish R.M.) Eventually, Wimsey deduces that there is indeed a mole within Pym’s working for the drug racketeers, but who that culprit is, how they are using Pym’s advertising, and exactly what services are being provided to the criminals remains to be discovered…
Murder Most Advertise is superbly acted (Carmichael recycles some of his Bertie Wooster characterization when Wimsey’s in his Death Bredon persona) and expertly directed by Rodney Bennett and adapted for television by Bill Craig. The satire and social commentary of Murder Must Advertise may be gentler and less scathing than in Mad Men, but still, for those who enjoy classic mystery fiction, watching it will be like taking a vacation in a different, and some ways, simpler era.
The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, Set 2 is available from Amazon.
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