Steve, There was two series with Pepe Carvalho for TV. I saw
only the latest one, mid 2002, a set of 5 TVfilms (1h30 each)
made by Spanish TV with the help of co-productions (French
and maybe some others). Some were filmed in Barcelona, the
Spanish city so important for Carvalho (and for Manuel
Vasquez Montalban, his creator). It was programmed by Arte
(French/German cultural channel, as you probably know), but
the promotion was badly done: practically no announcements
and aired around midnight! Maybe they consider it was not for
everyone's taste due to the noirish tendencies of Carvalho
and his stories? It was like if they did not know what to do
with this series. The films are lacking the intensity of the
books, but the Spanish actor playing Carvalho IMO was well
chosen. The realization of the films were not always adequate
and some scenarios were really weak. But in the series I saw
at least one film was very good, and another one not far from
it. So, very mixed feelings for the series. Let us hope
better things for the future of this offbeat PI on TV.
Speaking of TV serials, Italian TV is programming a series of
TVfilms based on the books by Andrea Camilleri
(Italian-Sicilian writer) with his Sicilian "commissaire"…
Sergio Montalbano. As you probably know, the name given to
Camilleri's cop is a tribute to M. V. Montalban that
Camilleri admires a lot. But here the choice of the actor
playing Montalbano was not very adequate physically. As my
knowledge of Italian is reduced I could not follow a complete
film, but the cinematography seemed to be too pedestrian to
translate correctly the book.
IMO it's not so easy to translate noirish ambiance into film
images under sunny climates… Requires some talent from the
director; professionalism is not enough.
E.Borgers Hard-Boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
At 14:27 13-12-02 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>Merci Etienne for the info on Navarro that many of my
friends in France have
>talked about and my wife saw several times when she
lived in Paris until
>99...and I'm sad to know that it'll probably never
come here...and
>especially now since Tito Topin is one of my
favorites and I have many of
>his books here with me in Ann Arbor....While we're on
this subject wasn't
>there a series with Pepe Carvhalo, from the books of
Vasquez-Montalban, made
>in Spain a few years ago, and if so how was
it???
>
>Merci et pardon again...
>
>Sylvestre (Steve) Novak...le Montois de
D鴲oit
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