Raffles: Sets 1 & 2 (1975)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVDs:

Written by Philip Mackie, based on the stories of E.W. Hornung
Directed by Christopher Hodson, James Goddard, David Cunliffe, Alan Gibson, and John Davies
Starring Anthony Valentine, Christopher Strauli, and James Maxwell

Features:

• Set One:
  
  • The Complete Novels on DVD-ROM: The Idea of March, A Costume Piece, A Thief in the Night
    
• Set Two:
  
  • The Complete Novels on DVD-ROM: The Amateur Cracksman, The Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman
    

Released by: BFS Entertainment
Rating: NR
Region: 1
Anamorphic: N/A; they appear in their original 1.33:1 formats

My Advice: Rent them

A.J. Raffles (Valentine) is a gentlemen's gentleman. He is well respected among pretty much everyone in the House of Commons and he's one of England's most famous Cricketers. However, he has a dark secret that no one knows about: at night, he has a passion for burglary...and he's damn good at it. He also happens to be close friends with Inspector MacKenzie (Maxwell), a member of the constabulary who has spent most of his life searching out the super Crack Thief.

Raffles is the ultimate anti-hero. Not only is he a master crack thief, but he's also an excellent con man. If he happens to get caught, he always knows exactly how to get away with it and make the people he stole from thankful that he did it! I'm of the opinion that there could not have been a more perfect actor during that time to play Raffles than Valentine. He is infinitely charming and seems to know his character inside and out. In fact, the other two major players in the story were not portrayed by slouches either. Stauli, for example, who plays Bunny, Raffles' right-hand man in all of these crimes, spends most of his time sweating while Raffles is completely cool calm and collected.

These stories are incredibly well written and appear to be a very faithful adaptation of the source material. My favorite of them is The Spoils of Sacrilige on the first disc. Bunny complains of not "earning" his share of the profits of their booty, so he convinces Raffles to let him take control of their next adventure by planning the whole affair. Needless to say, Bunny bumbles it up quite a bit with some hilarious results.

The only things these DVDs offer in the way of special features are the complete novels of some of the stories that appear in this collections. However, it's the way that those novels are presented that's great. You have the option to read the novels in your choice of Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Reader, HTML, Palm Reader or Rocket E-Book formats. I took the time to download them to my PDA and carried the stories about with me. I only wish that these had been available for other DVDs that I had reviewed here. This makes for a wonderful addition to this DVD and it more than makes up for the fact that there aren't any other type of special features. It would have been nice to have some interviews with the cast for posterity, but they can put them on the special edition DVD, if they ever come out with one. Whoever thought of this idea to put these files on the DVDs is a genius, and I want more just like this.

So, definitely pick these up as a rental, and make sure you check out the novels on these discs. They are not to be missed.