Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Jigsaw Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 14, 2022

Life in an English country village would seem to be the very definition of relaxed, civilized living, and yet as any fan of St. Mary Mead and a certain Miss Marple may tell you, it can also be the very definition of horrifying death. Jigsaw has some of the "small town" vibe that often accompanied Agatha Christie's tales involving the elderly female sleuth, but in this case there are two male police detectives trying to track down someone who has murdered and then butchered the corpse of a woman in the real life seaside burg of Saltdean. The opening vignette of the film (which kind of interestingly plays out sans underscore and with credits appearing as the scene develops, both kind of unusual for a 1962 opus) documents the neurotic tendencies of the woman one soon presumes is about to become a victim, a troubled lass named Joan Sherman (Moira Redmond) who is dallying with a lover and who informs him (as he's about to pay her and leave) that she's pregnant and he really should consider leaving his wife. In typically "polite" British fashion, director Val Guest cuts to an alarming train whistle just as the unseen man moves in to kill Joan, obviously playing on the subliminal link between that wailing sound and a scream.

When the next scene documents police arriving at a seaside shop of some kind, one might almost automatically assume it's going to detail news of the poor young woman seen in the opening, but there's actually been a seemingly baffling and low level burglary at a realtor's office, where only leasing documents have been stolen. The estate agent is a kind of fussy guy named Frank Restlin (Brian Oulton) who wants young Detective Sergeant Jim Wilks (Ronald Lewis) to immediately begin taking fingerprints, but Wilks is more intrigued by what it means that only leasing documents were stolen. When the estate agent actually calls the local precinct (or whatever the British equivalent might be) to complain about Wilks, older Detective Inspector Fred Fellows (Jack Warner) is called in as an ostensible "mediator". I'm not quite sure I completely understood some of the throwaway dialogue, but I believe Fellows is supposed to be Wilks' uncle.

Fellows agrees with Wilks' assessment that the thief wanted to hide their handwriting on a leasing document, and that ultimately leads the trio to a seemingly abandoned house in Saltdean, where the two policeman make the horrifying discovery of the partial remains of a severed body left in a trunk in the basement. This part of the story is evidently actually based on a series of shocking murders which rocked the town of Brighton in the 1930s, where two victims were found in trunks. While his name actually kind of sounds British, source novel writer Hillary Waugh was actually an American, and his original setting was in the United States, though it's a kind of interesting linkage that's made by screenwriter and director Val Guest to transport the story to a place very near where the real life trunk murders took place.

Now with regard to "Murder in a Small Town" (so to speak), and specifically with regard to Agatha Christie's Miss Marple stories set in and around various villages, there is often a slight sense of unreality and maybe even artificiality in the depictions of daily life, and I say that as an unabashed and devoted Christie fan. Christie almost always provides her readers with a group of "usual suspects", many with convoluted back stories, and then slowly assembles the puzzle pieces to arrive at "whodunit". Jigsaw takes almost the exact opposite approach in that a lot of the narrative is taken up with Fellows and Wilks trying to find any suspect, as they have very little tangible evidence to go on, and even seeming clues can turn out to be red herrings.

This is a rather interesting example of a police procedural, British style, and as such it doesn't really offer anything in the way of perceived "action" or frankly "excitement" in a traditional sense. It's arguably slow and methodical, like its focal detectives, but it has a really palpable sense of mood and especially place. Some of the seaside scenes with what look like acres of trailers that people evidently called home (it seemed to me to be a residential facility rather than a vacation spot, but I could be wrong) give those scenes an almost undeniable socioeconomic underpinning. The ultimate mystery here may not be overly "Christie complex", but it does at least hew to the well worn trope of a seeming minor character turning out to have more to do with things than might be assumed. There's also an interesting quasi- coda after the culprit is definitively outed that involves the killer's questioning by the police that involves basically pestering the guy into a complete confession, which he resolutely refuses to do. The film seems to be about to end without the killer actually being totally brought to justice, until a simple realization about a flaw in his alibi brings things to a close with a kind of cheeky joke.

Jigsaw Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Jigsaw is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection, an imprint of Cohen Media Group, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.44:1. Cohen is typically fairly mum on technical aspects of its releases, and once again offers only a generic "new 2K restoration" on the back cover of this release, without any information about the provenance of whatever element was utilized. This is a kind of interesting looking presentation where I have to assume there may have been inherent deficits in the source element that whatever restoration effort was undertaken couldn't totally ameliorate, let alone eliminate. There is some noticeable damage that includes relatively minor things like hairline scratches (see screenshots 18 and 19), but the presentation is also afflicted with larger blemishes on a number of occasions, and a number of optical dissolves are especially rough looking. There are also some kind of curious deficits in clarity that kind of ebb and flow. For example, pay attention to the "fine print" of the smaller fonts in the credits sequence and you can actually see things initially look a bit blurry but then start to come into focus as that particular credit fades. A later sequence featuring Yolande Dolan almost looks out of focus in passing. Some of the outdoor material in particular struck me as a bit too bright, without sufficient contrast. If you freeze frame, there's a clearly visible grain field, but kind of interestingly it, too, tends to ebb and flow when watching the film in motion. All of this said, this is certainly watchable and without further information on the shape of the source element, my hunch is at least some of what's on display is due to less than optimal original condition. My score is 3.25.

Jigsaw Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Jigsaw features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track. This sounded just a tad shrill to me in some of the upper registers, as for example with regard to the ringing police bell (I guess the equivalent to sirens on this side of the pond) that recurs in the film. One of the interesting things about Jigsaw, especially when one considers one of Val Guest's then relatively recent triumphs would have been the musical Expresso Bongo, is that there isn't underscore here. There is some good attention to ambient environmental sounds in the seascape scenes, and all dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Jigsaw Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:20)

Jigsaw Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Jigsaw should appeal to those who like procedurals without a bunch of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation-esque bells and whistles. There's a bit of presentational subterfuge that Val Guest engages in, and some may find the wrap up on the silly side, but engaging performances and a generally believable storyline keep things moving apace. Video has some iffy moments, and audio is just a bit brash on the high end, but with caveats noted, Jigsaw comes Recommended.