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Watch the Series
Foyle’d Again
A cop show for grownups
Foyle’s War has returned to PBS in the Sunday night “Masterpiece Mystery” slot. This is welcome news for fans of intelligent drama.
For the uninitiated, Foyle is Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle of the Hastings, England constabulary. He’s played by Michael Kitchen, now 61, a well-respected actor before Foyle, who reaches the peak of his considerable powers in these finely-crafted stories of Britain in its fight for survival between 1940 and 1945.
While Britain and the allies fight Nazism abroad (and at home), Foyle, a World War I veteran, fights crime in Hastings. But it’s a different Hastings, a different Britain. The war, almost a character in the series, involves everyone, transforms their lives, and is never far from anyone’s thoughts.
The juxtaposing of the big-picture of the war of all wars against the small picture of crime in Hastings, and the interesting way the two intersect and force unique moral questions and challenges on Foyle and his team, makes Foyle’s War far more than just another cop show, more than just a period piece.
In 22 episodes, Foyle, with the help of the series’ other two central characters, Sgt. Paul Milner (Anthony Howell) and Foyle’s driver, Samantha “Sam” Stewart (Honeysuckle Weeks — and I’m not making that name up), must, over and above rationing and bombing raids, deal with thievery, profiteers, traitors, black marketers, and of course, the staple of all crime shows, murder. Various of these villains, some of them highly placed, attempt to use the war effort and their own importance to it as an excuse for their common criminality. Foyle, with an admirable moral compass, will have none of this, even when his superiors put pressure on him to go along and get along.
The reserved Foyle, a fine example of England’s long-lost stiff upper lip, is no Javert. He has perspective. With him, justice and tolerance are two sides of the same coin. But he’s intelligent, observant, and relentless in his own way. If I were a bad guy I would not want DCS Foyle on my trail.
Foyle also does not have the soul or the testosterone deficiency of a bureaucrat. I would not want to be a high-ranking government official with a dodgy agenda who tries to bully Foyle into playing a part in his scam. In most episodes there’s the scene where Foyle economically eviscerates a high-ranking, establishment stooge without raising his voice. These scenes alone are worth the price of admission.
Compared to so many overwrought American cop shows, Foyle’s War is quiet, intelligent, and serious. The series is not edgy. (Edgy gives me a rash.) There’s no quick-cut or artsy cinematography, no car chases ending in flames, no gruesome corpses lingered over in close-up, no loud rock sound track (the theme music is a haunting clarinet melody), and no CSI gimmickry in the low-tech England of the forties. No my-gun-is-bigger-than-yours swaggering. In fact, Foyle and his colleagues don’t even pack. But they get the bad guys anyway. On Foyle’s team, Andy Sipowicz (to borrow a line from Raymond Chandler) would stick out like a tarantula on an angel food cake pan.
The good news for conservatives is that Foyle’s portrays an England where traditional values, patriotism, personal responsibility, and respect for the law are still the norm, even reinforced by the exigencies of war. Multiculturalism, shame in all things British, the nanny-state, bands of marauding yobs, and crime rates through the roof are decades off. The heroic efforts and sacrifices Brits made in the war are always respected and honored, though the war itself is never glorified. The me-generation hasn’t been born yet. (Where’s birth control information when we need it?)
Other strengths of the series are its historical accuracy, fine acting by all hands, and riveting scripts. It’s also beautifully filmed. Series creator and writer Anthony Horowitz takes no poetic license with the events of World War II, and uses many of them to base his episodes around.
Many period pieces get the costumes, the vehicles, the appliances, and many of the mannerisms right, but miss the period sensibility altogether, usually in favor of contemporary concerns and ways. Foyle’s War gets the physical stuff right, at great expense by the way, which partly accounts for the show’s hiatus from 2007 to last Sunday. But it also nails the mood and manners of 1940s England.
The central characters of Foyle’s War — Foyle, Milner, and Stewart — are complex and sympathetic. Milner, invalided out of the armed forces because of a injury sustained at Trondheim, must deal with losing a wife who can’t deal with life with an amputee. Sam, the loyal, enthusiastic, and sometimes head-strong tom-boy of a driver, explores the less sappy dimensions of the adjective adorable. (After the series aired, Weeks got fan mail from 80-something vets who had fallen in love with Sam.)
But the center of the series is Foyle. Through this character, Kitchen demonstrates what conservatives have known all along, that stoic doesn’t have to mean stick-in-the mud. Though he’s a man of few words (Horowitz said Kitchen was the only actor he’s worked with who asked for fewer lines), he’s clearly a man with heart. The widower Foyle, very much alone, clearly misses his wife, worries about his son Andrew the Spitfire pilot, and comes to develop a fatherly love for Sam without wearing any of this on his sleeve, as is thought to be required nowadays.
A note on sex: there is no attempt in Foyle’s to suggest that sex doesn’t exist, and there’s an understated romance between Sam and Andrew. But as the stories take place in a time when sex was considered a private business for behind closed doors, it’s not in the forefront. There’s no heavy breathing, little in fact that you would be concerned for your sheltered Aunt Eunice to see.
The Foyle’s War episodes are self-contained enough to be watched alone. But the maximum pleasure would be from watching them in order from the beginning. With this approach, in addition to the fine stories and acting, viewers will get to see the relationships between Foyle and Milner and Stewart develop. And see the war as it proceeded through the eyes of the people of Hastings.
There are plenty of places where the series is available. Many libraries carry it, and there’s always Netflix and the like. Go ahead, treat yourself. You’ve been good lately, right? And there just aren’t that many opportunities to see excellent drama based on a conservative world treated respectfully.
About the Author
Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (52) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Larry Thornberry
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/05/06/foyled-again
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Danny| 5.6.10 @ 6:43AM
Nice write up! I love the series as well. However, it was at Trondheim that Milner lost his leg.
Pingback| 5.6.10 @ 6:50AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Foyle'd Again [spectator.org] on Top links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
walt| 5.6.10 @ 7:31AM
Danny is absolutely correct. Mr. Kitchen was also wonderful in the movie Enchanted April.
Danny| 5.6.10 @ 7:43AM
Walt - if you want to see another great Kitchen performance, rent the House of Cards series - it's a trilogy of three British miniseries. Kitchen only appears in the middle one, but all three are excellent. Also stars the great Ian Richardson. One of the best productions I've seen.
Danny| 5.6.10 @ 7:44AM
The middle series that features Michael Kitchen is called To Play the King.
Miss Alabama| 5.6.10 @ 8:05AM
Walt,
As I recall, Enchanted April, a lovely film, tells the story of four dissimilar women in 1920s England who leave their damp and rainy environs to go on a holiday to a secluded coastal castle in Italy, where they find rejuvenation in the tranquil beauty of their surroundings.
Most Am Spec men would dismiss this film as a "chick flick," and would question the masculinity of a man who admitted seeing it.
I commend you for having the courage to admit seeing a film as quiet and sensitive as Enchanted April.
I simply had no idea there were readers of this blog whose sensibilities would allow them to appreciate a film of such refined caliber.
JP| 5.6.10 @ 11:35AM
Miss Alabama,
You should see the Cramford series (or read the novel). It is set in rural England during the 1850s, and depicts the lives of 6 english women during a period where rural aristocratic England is rapidly dieing out. The characters are and screenplay are excellent, as is the cinematography.
Miss Alabama| 5.6.10 @ 1:13PM
Thank you, JP, for the recommendation.
I shall read the novel.
As an Anglophile, I am looking foward to an enjoyable read.
Richard Ong| 5.6.10 @ 2:52PM
Miss Alabama,
I'm rarely accused of being refined but that is indeed a fine film. The "get on with it" point at the end should inspire many married couples. What could be more masculine than to enjoy a film with such insights.
LaneyB| 5.6.10 @ 8:08AM
I have been a devoted fan of Foyle's War since its first showing on PBS a few years ago. The beautifully acted, well-written and understated themes with no propaganda to spew made me an immediate fan. What strikes me is that the few productions of quality drama that make it from Britain to our shores are so far superior to anything the schlockmeisters of American entertainment produce that one wonders why some enterprising writer/producer does not try the same thing here. There surely is an audience for it.
MichaelAdams| 5.6.10 @ 9:02AM
The reason that we don't make quality television here is the same as the reason that we don't make Hong Kong suits here: Cheap labor. Every bit of that work, from the excellent writing to the loving attention to detail in costumes and cars to the fine acting, comes cheaper in Britain. Even better, once the shows are made, their costs can be recovered through further releases in the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa. Even so, most of the stuff coming from over the water nowadays is larded with socialist propaganda themes, with Foyle's War being a delightful exception.
Richard Ong| 5.6.10 @ 3:28PM
Not to mention the first episode I've ever seen that dealt with the monstrous Operation Keelhaul. Whoa! A British tv production that shines a spotlight on Stalin's executions. It also illustrates British government (as in Churchill) complicity in this monstrous betrayal so if it this particular episode isn't a hymn to socialism -- and negatively portrays Stalin, let it be said -- it clearly implicates the Conservative government. The perfidious government conduct highlighted pointedly takes place during the very 1945 election (depicted) that led to Labour's post-war victory. Tory's in charge!
Operation Keelhaul continued into 1947 but I don't know what part, if any, the Labour government participated in it.
crookedwren| 5.6.10 @ 8:47AM
Reading this article and these comments gives me hope that that odd combination of taste AND common sense is not completely lost.
Breath of fresh air this morning.
Thanks all.
KyMouse| 5.6.10 @ 9:07AM
My family recently started renting the Foyle series from Netflix, and are hooked.
We've also discovered a few other good wartime dramatic series, although they aren't mysteries: "Enemy at the Door," about citizens of the (English) island of Guernsey adjusting to the German occupation of their island; and "Doctor Finlay," about a Scottish physician who returns to village life after serving in the war. We also enjoyed "Danger UXB," about soldiers who destroyed unexploded bombs in Britain during the war. And "Piece of Cake," about British aviators. All are available through Netflix, I'm happy to say.
KyMouse| 5.6.10 @ 9:42AM
By the way, fans of the British "Midsomer Mysteries" will see a very young John Nettles (Tom Barnaby) playing a Guernsey police detective in the series "Enemy at the Door," from 1978.
Eric| 5.6.10 @ 10:34AM
Hooray for Foyle.
The series, for all its drama and suspense by inches, often packs a devastating emotional punch. The Dunkirk episode is perhaps my favorite. I loved the quiet determination in the fisherman, taking his boat out -- "we're going to go over there and get 'em." His return was nothing short of shattering.
I just wish the producers hadn't rushed through the years from Germany invading Russia to the end of the war.
(When a ministry official suggests that Foyle not do his duty, and Foyle tells him, in so many words, to get stuffed --drink. And whenever Sam gets blown up, finish the bottle.)
Petronius| 5.6.10 @ 11:30AM
The last time Masterpiece got so cerebral about the 40's was Dr. Finlay. My first trip to Scotland was back in the 70's and some of the cultural detritus peculiar to that time was ever present. Aside from hearing Jimmy Shand polkas in hotel bars, talking to the elder locals over a pint of McEwans Export was such a treat. But in this case Foyle stands atop Olympus unmatched in competence, constancy, and integrity. All that is missing is recognition. It is men such as him, though he is fictitious, who should be created Peers and sent to sit in the Lords. And this is not lost on the Crown, as Her Majesty matured in Foyle's time. But Britain is a shell of her former self having been undone, deconstructed, and utterly ruined by subsequent generations of cultural vandals. And here stands Christopher Foyle, embodied by an Actor: an affront to the social and moral decay that poisons our modern age.
Marc Jeric| 5.6.10 @ 9:30PM
After I read this I have nothing more to say. Well, perhaps that the "Foyle" is an unnatural departure of the usual socialist fare served by our public TV.
Dean| 5.6.10 @ 11:42AM
I am glad that "Foyle's War" is back. I am a fan of the British mysteries like "Inspector Morse" and "Rumpole of the Bailey." They have superb actors and thoughtful, intelligent plots. I have the first five sets of "Foyle" on DVD, and have ordered the sixth through Amazon.com. With luck, I should have it in about a month.
Blackwatch| 5.6.10 @ 12:41PM
Ditto to all the comments posted above.
We Love the program. Thought the opening tune was mostly oboe?? however I have a tin ear and mostly play the radio for my musical talent.
To really get in the spirit rent the fabulous Battle of Britian era movie "Mrs. Minivere" and then watch Foyle's War.
Even my 12 year daughter watches Foyle's War. She appreciates British humor too.
Robert Pinkerton| 5.6.10 @ 1:26PM
For reason of political efforts by the British Police, chronicled in Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm's Firearms Control: The British Experience, to ratchet restrictions on lawful British gun-owners ever tighter, going beyond statute law with their own accursed "discretion," I must strongly dissent from any descriptive of the British police that is even faintly respectful. Respect for them is disrespect for respect itself. Disarming the citizenry is a harbinger of indecent designs by the State on its citizens' other liberties; and in Britain the Police drove that process to the point where the law-abiding cannot defend themselves where the State will not.
Petronius| 5.7.10 @ 12:57AM
I have friends who are victims of police "discretion" over getting shotgun and class1 firearm licenses, but it stems from the same sources and chain of command. The same self serving despots who captured and control our legal establishment control theirs. Ergo the police are their hired guns. But their interest is disinterest. They don't want to have to deal with guns or those who own them when booting cars is so much easier. The most insidious thing is that you can't talk about shooting in public in the UK.
A few years back a senior detective and his best friend vacationing in London were in a pub I used to frequent off Baker St. when the BBC announced a walkout by immigration control officers at all ports of entry. The friend of our detective put down his pint and said, "If we'd known that we could have brought our 45's." The pub keeper told them he was calling the police. They showed their badges and said, "We're already here." They got thrown out.
While shooting sports are well beyond the means of the average Brit the folly of prohibition by the sophistry of the Law Lords will soon be brought to book. Whereas no person outside HM Police and Security Forces are allowed possession of any sidearm which fires fixed cartridge ammunition, where will the pistol competitions of the next Olympiad be held? Something's gotta give.
We have re-instituted Castle Doctrine in this country and that is derived from Magna Carta.
Britain has a long hard way back, but HM Forces are bringing pressure to bear in Westminster. Stay tuned.
Ronald Howard| 5.6.10 @ 4:46PM
I first went to British Isles in the middle 50's. It was my first overseas posting in the USAF. WWII had only been over about 10 years. There were still areas of London that were bombed out. My first tour was for 3 years. Subsequently I was stationed in the England on different tours for 9 more years during the 60's, 70's and 80's. The England I fell in love with in the 50's and 60's was very much Foyle's England. A tremendous place to be living in. Not so much in most of the 70's but when Thatcher was elected things started to become better. Having been married in the 60's in my wifes hometown, Northampton, we have been back many times and the country now is almost unrecognizable from the one I knew in the 50's. Most of the people we know are still solid, good English people and they do not understand what happened how it happened and based on the political leaders they have, what can be done to change the crazy political/social situtation they find themselves in. Todays British elections may well bring about a no clear winner problem that will be disasterous for the country. We cannot let ourselves slide into the same politcal swamp. It's time to take our country back in November.
KyMouse| 5.6.10 @ 5:05PM
Mr. Howard, thank you for your service to our country.
I've been to Britain a couple of dozen times since 1970, and also have been amazed by the changes. I've known so many Americans going over on their first trip who expect it still to be the land of clotted cream, fox-hunting in the shadow of castles, and Miss Marples in tweed suits. The Isle of Man is just about the only place I go to over there now, but even it is not immune to worrisome changes.
My British friends come over here to get away from it all.
JmsA| 5.6.10 @ 6:26PM
As a student of WWII, I always found this extremely well written and acted series in its depiction of Britain in those very trying times very interesting and entertaining. A very nice write up, indeed.
puzzled| 5.6.10 @ 6:36PM
RE: "..........The good news for conservatives is that Foyle's portrays an England where traditional values, patriotism, personal responsibility, and respect for the law are still the norm, even reinforced by the exigencies of war. Multiculturalism, shame in all things British, the nanny-state, bands of marauding yobs, and crime rates through the roof are decades off. "
Supporting the BBC? Neither Rupert Murdoch, nor James, would approve.
BBC has been doing wonderful programs for a very long time, e.g. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Pingback| 5.6.10 @ 9:11PM
Jessica Alba ready for second child | Jessica Alba Celebrity Monitor links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
carmen hench| 5.6.10 @ 10:46PM
love the series--thanks for the write-up
WAKE UP| 5.6.10 @ 11:11PM
Well done Larry, this is one of the most under-rated tv shows of all time.
Pingback| 5.7.10 @ 1:18AM
who saw the tv show LasVegas LAST NIGHT? | Vegas Cafes links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Don Carlson| 5.7.10 @ 12:07PM
Everyone interested in this high-quality detective drama should appreciate the latest story in the series. It takes place soon after the end of the war. Great Britain, already long leftish and made used to worse war-time tyranny, falls further prey to the promises of socialist utopianism and veers hard left with an odor of fascist determination. It is at this moment Foyle trips to a hidden government program (historic) that furthers the agenda of Joe Stalin while besmirching English principles. The story’s context of economic failure and leftist righteousness combined with smug bureaucratic abuse gives the true flavor of the post-war British decay which led inexorably to the political latrine that is Britain today. Foyle's reaction to a labor party bullhorn announcement of the coming of a better England is priceless—a one-man tea party in one take.
One can only wonder at the nerve of the producers in proffering this American-conservative (and humanly persuasive) view of a free nation going to the dogs. We should be reminded that F. Hayek’s The Road To Serfdom was addressed to the war-time British politicians in hope of persuading them to not make permanent in peacetime the totalitarian controls they had enjoyed under the threats of war. That Hayek failed to persuade them says more about the arrogant intransigence of socialists (see Obama and crew) than about his powers of argument.
Richard Ong| 7.30.10 @ 1:47AM
The episode takes place before the country turned hard left with the election of Labour.
MS office 2007 | 5.8.10 @ 10:55AM
Obama does NOT have an ostrich strategy. His actions are purposful, deliberate and intentional, consistent with the neo-communist, Marxist ,hate America-firster he is.
Ron| 5.8.10 @ 12:45PM
Why is it the best productions and the best acting comes from England?
John II| 5.9.10 @ 12:37AM
My wife and I were put on to the Foyle's War series a few years ago by the oldest of our grown children. We watched one episode through Netflix, and that was enough. We have bought all the episodes so far produced and available in DVD, and, so far, watched all of them at least three times (some of them more often).
It's amazing that the largely degenerate culture of Britain can still produce something like this: the good is a stubborn thing, rather like life itself, always causing and breaking through the cracks in the concrete.
IGC Blogger | 5.9.10 @ 8:22AM
Good show (as the British might say), but its slow pace is not for everyone, as the author alludes. The Foyle character had an interesting exchange with the commander of a POW camp that is applicable to the current GWOT, as I wrote about on my blog at http://ingeneralcounsel.blogsp.....rism.html. However, it's somewhat of a stretch that the show depicts a conservative world; some of the episodes contained an overlay of PC propaganda. But that aside, it is as everyone has acknowledged unusually high quality TV content.
Jerry White| 5.10.10 @ 12:38AM
If one looks in a US-UK dictionary for the term quality TV, you will see Foyles War. I am watching it and have the DVDs on order :^)
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FoyleFan| 9.7.10 @ 8:52AM
"The good news for conservatives is that Foyle's portrays an England where traditional values, patriotism, personal responsibility, and respect for the law are still the norm, even reinforced by the exigencies of war."
Glad to hear your definition of conservative includes acceptance of gays, which Foyle movingly expresses in the episode "Among the Few."