Mystery crime stories with sometimes different cops and many now-famous faces.Mystery crime stories with sometimes different cops and many now-famous faces.Mystery crime stories with sometimes different cops and many now-famous faces.
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Did you know
- TriviaThe telephone played an important role in The Edgar Wallace Mystery series. However, the standard British phone ring of the day comprised two steady rings with a cadence of 0.4 sec on, 0.2 sec off, 0.4 sec on, then 2 sec off. Presumably, to save time and inject a sense of urgency into the proceedings, British telephone rings in both this and many other presentations of the day were frequently speed-up, sometimes to twice the normal rate.
- Alternate versionsIn US each episode was cut to 45 minutes to fit hour-long commercial TV slots.
Featured review
Good, but nothing more
Not originally meant as a TV series, The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre was a series of B movies, the movies played second in a double feature. In this case the movies were all based on books by Edgar Wallace (surprise, surprise!).
The movies are all murder mysteries and generally involve your standard "murder committed (maybe with a bit of scene setting) - cops arrive and investigate - detective solves case" formula. There are a few exceptions (one of the best episodes has an insurance investigator as the detective).
The plots are pretty good. The murderer is generally not that predictable and there is a fair amount of intrigue, twists and turns. Performances are solid, even for minor characters, and the feel of the movies is one of quality.
However, the character engagement is quite limited. This isn't Poirot: there's no colourful recurring central character. Nearly every movie has a different bunch of characters, including the lead detective, and it's all straightforward, by-the-book policework. There's very little in the way of sub-plots or humour: it's all pretty dour.
Overall: interesting enough, but not brilliant.
The movies are all murder mysteries and generally involve your standard "murder committed (maybe with a bit of scene setting) - cops arrive and investigate - detective solves case" formula. There are a few exceptions (one of the best episodes has an insurance investigator as the detective).
The plots are pretty good. The murderer is generally not that predictable and there is a fair amount of intrigue, twists and turns. Performances are solid, even for minor characters, and the feel of the movies is one of quality.
However, the character engagement is quite limited. This isn't Poirot: there's no colourful recurring central character. Nearly every movie has a different bunch of characters, including the lead detective, and it's all straightforward, by-the-book policework. There's very little in the way of sub-plots or humour: it's all pretty dour.
Overall: interesting enough, but not brilliant.
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- Country of origin
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- Also known as
- Edgar Wallace
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- See more company credits at IMDbPro
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- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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By what name was The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre (1959) officially released in India in English?
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