Father Brown - Amateur Detective / Investigator Father Brown Father Brown Father Brown is a fictional detective character created by G. K. Chesterton which gained a lot of appreciation from its readers. G. K. Chesterton is well known for writing various short stories and for creating the character Father Brown; he was inspired by a parish priest named Father John OâConnor. Father Brown was a stumpy priest in Essex who started working in London in later years of his life. The series featuring Father Brown as detective has exposed him as a character wearing baggy clothes holding an umbrella with a supernatural way of seeing the darker side of the people. Introduction The first ever appearance of Father Brown as a private detective was in the novel âThe Blue Crossâ which continued till five volumes and was highly cherished by readers. All the volumes have depicted a clear image of Father Brown who deals with crimes in an unusual manner. He reflects upon each and every detail of the case that can link him to the actual criminal and help him to prove innocence of the suspect. As a priest and a confessor, Father Brown becomes very sharp in judging people and his experience of years helps him to solve even the most complicated and mysterious cases.

Many readers also feel that abilities of Father Brown as an investigator have been shaped up right because of his immense experience as a priest and closeness to god. In novel âThe Blue Crossâ, father Brown says that he has been listening to the real sins of people which makes him quite aware of the evil inside a human. Father Brown constantly devotes time in investigating cases so as to find out the real criminal. Most of the cases that he solves clearly reflect his emphasizes on rationality that is, considering all the evidences and proofs in a systematic manner so that finding the actual offender becomes quite clear. Father Brown as an Individual Father Brown is a very modest character, both as a priest and as an investigator who remains quiet most of the times. He is not in a habit of discussing the case with people around, but when he speaks something regarding the case, it is always thoughtful and has a deep meaning. He handles the crime cases very steadily and is capable enough of solving the case, no matter how complex it may be. Apart from solving mysteries, Father Brown also describes Chestertonâs view in his own words in most of the books which is an interesting part.

He also keeps his point of view in a very unique manner which enhances the interest of the reader in the story. The philosophies and spiritual aspect of Father Brown always facilitates him to solve the difficult mysteries as well and this was something which made his character very popular among people. Chesterton was greatly inspired by Conan Doyleâs Sherlock Holmes and this has been clearly depicted by his character Father Brown. The increasing popularity of Father Brown led the character to commence with movies, as well like âFather Brown Detectiveâ and âThe Adventures of Father Brownâ to name a few. The Detective (1954) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Works of art are disappearing, stolen by a master thief, a master of disguise. Father Brown has two goals: to catch the thief and to save his soul.

Director: a list of 27 titles created 25 Jun 2011 a list of 39 titles created 13 Feb 2012 a list of 31 titles created 21 Apr 2013 a list of 48 titles created 7 months ago a list of 50 titles created 5 months ago Search for " The Detective " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. 1 win & 1 nomination. See more awards » Photos Add Image Add an image Do you have any images for this title? A middle-aged widower (Guinness) and his son go to Paris on vacation and try to find wives for each other in this charming romantic comedy. In HD. Director: Robert Hamer Father Brown (TV Series 1974) Crime | Drama | Mystery Based on the stories of G.K. Chesterton, a British Catholic Priest solves mysteries. Stars: Kenneth More, Dennis Burgess, David Buck A cardinal is arrested for treason against the state.

As a prince of his church, and a popular hero of this people, for his resistance against the Nazis during the war and afterward his ... See full summary » Director: Peter Glenville A man seeks revenge but will he destroy himself in the process? After a long jail term for a crime he did not commit, a man is torn between revenge (which will probably destroy him) or ... See full summary » Director: Robert Hamer An English schoolteacher meets his lookalike, a French count; and unwillingly swaps identities with him. Director: Robert Hamer In 1875 London, young Wheeler (who lives by scavenging) finds a cameo of Queen Victoria which he thinks so beautiful he risks his life to save it. Possessed of a desire to see the Queen, he... See full summary » Director: Jean Negulesco In WW2, the island of Malta, strategically located and vital to supply lines in the Mediterranean Sea, is fiercely attacked by the Germans but staunchly defended by the British. Director: Brian Desmond Hurst An altruistic chemist invents a fabric which resists wear and stain as a boon to humanity, but both big business and labor realize it must be suppressed for economic reasons.

Director: Alexander Mackendrick Brothers from a Welsh village take their first trip to London to collect a prize, and meet a con artist and sundry other urban distractions. Director: Charles Frend A meek bank clerk who oversees the shipment of bullion joins with an eccentric neighbor to steal gold bars and smuggle them out of the country as miniature Eiffel Towers. Director: Charles Crichton A charming and ambitious young man finds many ways to raise himself through the ranks in business and social standing- some honest, some not quite so. If he can just manage to avoid a ... See full summary » Director: Ronald Neame Edit Storyline Amateur detective Father Ignatius Brown defies his Bishop and decides to transport to Rome a holy relic from his church - a cross that once belonged to St. Augustin - rather than allow the more elaborate plans to proceed. On the channel crossing he becomes suspicious of a fellow traveler, a Mr Dobson, whom Brown quickly determines is not the automobile salesman he claims to be. He does befriend another priest whom he takes into his confidence but soon realizes that his suspicions should have been reversed. The fake priest is in fact Gustave Flambeau a professional art thief and an expert at disguise.

After he gets away with the cross, Brown refuses to work with the police, insisting that he wants to save the man's soul, not put him in prison. With the assistance of his friend Lady Warren, Father Brown sets a trap for Flambeau but Brown realizes that his work is only just beginning. Written by garykmcd See All (11) » Taglines: An open and shut case of Guinness! Up to his EARS in chaos...Up to his NECK in laughs See more » Genres: 1 November 1954 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Did You Know? Trivia Alec Guinness was spotted in costume when walking home through the French countryside. A young boy ran up to him, yelling "Mon père! Mon père!" ("My father! My father!") Guinness did not speak French, so he could not correct the young boy's mistake, but was touched that the young boy apparently immediately bonded to him on the assumption that he was a priest. Soon after the film was released, Guinness converted to Catholicism. See more » Goofs What St. Augustus is he speaking of. St. Augustine was alive at about 300 AD.

That's not 1200 yrs ago. See more » Quotes (San Francisco) – See all my reviews This is another of the often ignored 'small' Guinness films from the early and mid-50's that rarely get the attention they deserve. While it had a brief revival last fall at Britain's National Film Theatre, it doesn't seem to show up that often in Guinness retrospectives. A number of elements in this gently comic film that are worthy of notice: Sir AlecÕs performance is deft, subtle and delightfully wry whether he is playing the sleuth or spouting philosophy to the villain Flambeau. An added treat is a cast that includes Peter Finch, who won an Oscar for Network, Joan Greenwood, who was Lady Balleston in Tom Jones and Bernard Lee who portrayed M in the James Bond series. Guinness, Greenwood and Cecil Parker (The Bishop) also appeared together in the Ealing Studio comedy, The Man in the White Suit. Another interesting aspect is that a large part of the film was shot on location in Paris and rural France, apparently a rarity for the British films of that era.

Finally a bit of trivia: After his portrayal of Father Brown, Guinness converted to Catholicism 27 of 29 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Father Brown (TV Series 1974– ) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Based on the stories of G.K. Chesterton, a British Catholic Priest solves mysteries. Stars: Father Brown and Flambeau come to the aid of Christabel Carstairs, the daughter of a famous coin collector, when she is shadowed by a mysterious figure dressed in a disguise and bent on blackmail. 8.1 A hotel bar with an exotic, Far East dÃ©cor provides the ironic setting for the murder of John Raggley, a village curmudgeon who rails against immigrants. Only Father Brown can deduce the truth in ... 8.0 When Professor Gerald Smaill, an American archaeologist, discovers a golden Byzantine cross in cave in Crete, a disembodied voice threatens him with death.

7.9 a list of 53 titles created 17 May 2011 a list of 41 titles created 01 Jan 2015 a list of 32 titles created 24 Mar 2015 a list of 1188 titles created 08 May 2015 a list of 1231 titles created 03 Jul 2015 Search for " Father Brown " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Father Brown (TV Series 2013) Crime | Drama | Mystery Series inspired by the stories of GK Chesterton; a Catholic priest has a knack for solving mysteries in his English village. Stars: Mark Williams, Sorcha Cusack, Nancy Carroll Works of art are disappearing, stolen by a master thief, a master of disguise. Father Brown has two goals: to catch the thief and to save his soul. Director: Robert Hamer A friend of Miss Marple's sees a woman being strangled in a passing train.

When police cannot find a body and doubt the story, Miss Marple enlists professional housekeeper, Lucy Eyelesbarrow, to go undercover. Director: Martyn Friend With her caustic wit and singular charm, DCI Vera Stanhope and her trusted right-hand man DS Joe Ashworth face a series of captivating murder mysteries set against the breathtaking Northumberland landscape. Stars: Brenda Blethyn, Jon Morrison, David Leon Inspector Robert Lewis and Sergeant James Hathaway solve the tough cases that the learned inhabitants of Oxford throw at them. Stars: Kevin Whately, Laurence Fox, Clare Holman Faced with two false confessions and numerous suspects after a despised civil magistrate is found shot in the local vicarage, Detective Inspector Slack reluctantly accepts help from Miss Marple. Director: Julian Amyes An unusual announcement in the newspaper leads the curious villagers to Miss Blacklock's home, where they become witnesses to a murder. Stars: Joan Hickson, Ursula Howells, Samantha Bond Amateur detective Miss Jane Marple investigates the murder of a young woman whose body is found in the library at Gossington Hall, home of Colonel and Mrs. Arthur Bantry.

Stars: Joan Hickson, Debbie Arnold, John Bardon From England to Egypt, accompanied by his elegant and trustworthy sidekicks, the intelligent yet eccentrically-refined Belgian detective Hercule Poirot pits his wits against a collection of first class deceptions. Stars: David Suchet, Hugh Fraser, Philip Jackson When a young bride moves into a country manor, long repressed childhood memories of witnessing a murder come to the surface. Director: John Davies When a handful of grain is found in the pocket of a murdered businessman, Miss Marple seeks a murderer with a penchant for nursery rhymes. Director: Guy Slater 2 November 1982 (USA) See more » Also Known As: El padre Brown See more » Company Credits The series was rebooted in 2013 with Mark Williams as Father Brown. See more » Connections (United States) – See all my reviews I've been listening to the BBC radio adaptations of the Father Brown stories with Andrew Sachs in the lead role. I have to say I much prefer Sachs' version of Father Brown, but this series is perfectly good with Kenneth More in the role.

Considering when the series was made, the production is reasonably good, and the acting, while occasionally stiff, is fine overall. Some changes are made from the stories, which I have no problem with. Of the episodes I've seen so far, none have been damaged by the changes. It is important that Father Brown is a Catholic priest, and not just another amateur detective, and in this sense some of the religious reference seem to have been taken out of the stories. This subtracts from the distinctive flavor of the stories, but it plays fine on television. You won't get the production values or the acting found in the later Christie series, but these are well worth trying if you favor British detective/mystery series. I'm certainly happy I found them, and I'll be watching them one per night until I've through the lot. 7 of 9 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Father Brown Season One DVD Review: Uninspired Priest Detective Series - Cinema Sentries Father Brown Season One DVD Review: Uninspired Priest Detective Series Catholic priest detective isn't particularly Catholic, nor much of a detective, in this BBC series.

By Kent Conrad on October 13, 2014 3:30 PM | Comments It is difficult to determine where Father Brown fails more completely: as an adaptation, or as a mystery show in its own right. Based on a character created by Catholic apologist G.K. Chesterton, the TV Father Brown's Catholic priest isn't particularly Catholic. The series is set in the '50s (all of Chesterton's stories were contemporary and written from 1910 to 1936) but though the look of the '50s is mostly right, the feel is not. This show is a series of mistakes, of strange and uneven characterization, and, the greatest sin of all, of outright boring mysteries. Set in a provincial English village filled with provincial people (and, for reasons that are never clear, with a camp of Polish refugees settled nearby) Father Brown has an aesthetic and appearance that should make it a pleasant home for cozy mysteries - the style of murder mystery where the murder's are only so grisly, where passions can run high but still, all the suspects can be placed into one room while the detective takes them through the evidence, piece by piece, until his conclusions are irrefutable.

A kind of puzzle for the viewer, without too much dependence on any kind of realism. What makes Father Brown a different kind of detective is that he is, first and foremost, a Catholic priest. He's a small, amiable, and completely unintimidating figure (and in this series he is well played by Mark Williams, best known as the head of the Weasely clan, Arthur Weasely, in the Harry Potter movies.) He is also the cleverest person around, and can see through the most fiendishly clever plots, but he's not a cop. He's not an amateur sleuth. He cares about souls, not crimes. Father Brown, the character, may believe this, but Father Brown the series does not. I can remember one episode where the villain changes his way of thinking and turns himself in. The rest are caught red-handed (usually seconds after a spiritual conversation with Father Brown) by the local constable, Valentine. Valentine and Father Brown come from G. K. Chesterton's stories, but the rest of the cast seems to be invented from whole cloth, and the choice of characters is baffling.

There's Lady Felicia, openly adulterous and flighty, who discovers so many of the series' bodies it seems like it will be a running gag, but like so much in Father Brown even this mediocre idea cannot be sustained. There's the church secretary Mrs. McCarthy, who exists seemingly to seem stupid and bigoted, and doesn't do much else. The primary target of her unkindness is the Polish cleaning lady Susie, who seems to be in the show primarily to be pretty (does it well, too) and, in one particularly stupid episode, to join a cult of sun worshippers. Which points to the enormous problem with the show's stories. It seems to exist in the '50s just so the writers can focus on "issues" of the day, in order to show how our priest was forward thinking, and how everybody else (besides victims, women and minorities) in every possible way was horrible in the '50s. An early episode features the persecution of a communist lover, a later one has a live-in mistress and a Thalidomide baby. The stupidest might be the episode "The Devil's Dust", where the town nuclear committee (headed by a practically villainous Mrs.

McCarthy) tries to get a girl kicked out of town because her father works at a nuclear plant, and she has some kind of illness that can't be identified. The illness turns out to be some (very poorly explained) kind of skin mark caused by a cancer that her parent's black handyman had, because the child (very white) was actually his and he held her as a baby. As stupid and incoherent as this precis sounds, the episode is worse. Dumber. In every one of these "issues", it is up to Father Brown to sniff out the '50s prejudice that is the real crime, and he does so in the most ecumenical, least interesting (and never particularly Catholic) way. He's constantly butting heads with Inspector Valentine, who deeply resents the Father's intrusions despite the fact he's always right. This is one of the most tedious, thankless recurring roles I've ever seen in a TV show. Hugo Speer plays Valentine, and he does an able job, but he's just given one note to play, again and again and again. He's there to yell at Father Brown and be wrong.

The tedium of that relationship is emblematic of the tedium of the entire series. It's hard to see just who this show is for. Fans of G.K. Chesterton won't recognize their priest. Fans of village mysteries will probably be irritated by the way the stories develop, and how nebulous and unformed the setting is. Fans of murder mysteries will be bored by these stories. The spirit of Chesterton has been fully exorcised from this adaptation, and with it went his sincere faith, his intelligence, and his sense of fun. This Father Brown is a pale imitation of the real thing. Categories: The Most Famous Mystery Detectives The Most Famous Mystery Detectives Hercule Poirot author: AgathaChristie One of the most famous detective in the mystery fiction. The Belgian detective Hercule Poirot first appeared in 1920 in Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles.Poirot has many characteristics which have made him a legend all over the world - the odd moustache, the egg-shaped face and his high opinion of himself. He will though most likely be best remembered for his ability to solve complicated mysteries with the help of his little grey cells.

Sherlock Holmes author: Arthur ConanDoyle Sherlock Holmes is the fictional creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote about the detective in a series of 60 stories published between 1887 and 1927. Holmes was famous for his extra-keen powers of observation, which he used to solve perplexing crimes and mysteries. He operated from his flat at 221b Baker Street in London, assisted by his friend Dr. Watson. Holmes was an immediate hit and remains so popular that he is sometimes mistaken for a real historical figure. Among the most famous Holmes stories are The Hound of the Baskervilles and A Study in Scarlet. Ellery Queen author: ElleryQueen Ellery Queen, who appeared for the first time in "The Roman Hat Mystery," [1929] was invented by two cousins, Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee. Ellery Queen serves as much as investigator as author. He can entertain his reader by relating his own adventures or those of his father, retired Inspector Richard Queen, of the New York Police Department. Like a bloodhound, Queen is a private investigator who works from his apartment on West 87th Street in New York.

His stories are famous for their realistic approach to deduction, and the full dialogues of the colorful and amusing personages who abound in them. Father Brown author: G. K.Chesterton A short story collection "The Innocence of Father Brown" (1911) began the career of one of most unlikely fictional detectives. The stories reveal a drab and seemingly unexceptional Roman Catholic priest -- an Englishman -- "formerly of Cobhole in Essex, and now working in London." He is amusing and companionable, and, when you get to know him, uncommonly witty and bright. He is also a hard-working and dedicated priest and, in addition to that, he has an uncommon gift for solving crimes. Philip marlowe author: RaymondChandler Marlowe is perhaps the leading icon of the "hard-boiled" school of mystery writing. The fictional creation of author Raymond Chandler, Marlowe is a private detective, a smart and tough lone wolf with a sense of honor. He works mainly in Los Angeles (where Chandler himself had lived).

In all Marlowe appears in seven complete novels by Chandler, beginning with The Big Sleep (published 1939) and ending with Playback Perry Mason author: Erle StanleyGardner The world most famous literary lawer.Gardner's first Perry Mason stories THE CASE OF THE VELVET CLAWS and THE CASE OF THE SULKY GIRL appeared in 1933. "The character I am trying to create for him is that of a fighter who is possessed of infinite patience," he explained to his publisher. Perry comes off as a particularly hardboiled lawyer/detective, throwing his weight around, duking it out with suspects, breaking and entering, and other private eye shenanigans.Readers were enthusiastic and he gave up law and wrote eighty more Masons. Nero Wolfe author: RexStout Nero Wolfe is the detective in a long-running series of mystery novels by Rex Stout. He lives in an old four-story brownstone in New York City, on West Thirty-fifth Street. Living with him are his assistant, Archie Goodwin, his cook, Fritz Brenner, and his orchid nurse, Theodore Horstmann. He engages in detection to support his two loves, food and orchids.

He says of orchids that they are "his concubines: insipid, expensive, parasitic and temperamental." Wolfe spends the hours of 9-11am and 4-6pm in the greenhouse on the roof, with Theodore and the orchids; the rest of the day is spent in his office. Lord Peter Wimsley author: DorothySayers Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is a fictional character in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers. Among Lord Peter's hobbies, apart from criminology, is collecting incunabula, and he is an expert on matters of food (especially wine) and male fashion, as well as on classical music.One of Lord Peter's cars is a 12-cylinder ("double-six"), 4-seated 1927 Daimler named "Mrs. Merdle" after a character in Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. Lew Archer author: DashiellHammett LEW ARCHER stands with the Continental Op, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe as one of the few P.I's who actually define the genre.

What makes Archer unique among this group is not just the fact that the books are a sustained narrative spanning three decades, but that they also made the genre relevant to a changing society. The formula, where Archer reveals past crimes reflecting Greek tragedies or have Biblical allusions, become Macdonald's trade mark. Sam Spade gadetection / Chesterton, GK Source: Wikipedia Gilbert Keith Chesterton (May 29, 1874 – June 14, 1936) was a prolific English writer of the early 20th century. He was both a popular and an influential writer during this period, inspiring many historic figures with his works. He was notably concerned in what he wrote with religious matters, and was received into the Catholic Church in 1922. Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox". He wrote in an off-hand, whimsical prose studded with startling formulations. For example: "Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it." Born in Campden Hill, Kensington, London, Chesterton was educated at St Paul's School, and later went to the Slade School of Art in order to become an illustrator.

In 1900, Chesterton was asked to write a few magazine articles on art criticism, which sparked his interest in writing. He went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. Chesterton was a large man, standing 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) and weighing around 21 stone (134 kg or 294 lb). His girth gave rise to one of his famous anecdotes. During World War I a lady in London asked why he wasn't 'out at the Front'; he replied 'if you go round to the side, you will see that I am'. He usually wore a cape and a crumpled hat, with a swordstick in hand, and had a cigar hanging out of his mouth. Chesterton rarely remembered where he was supposed to be going and would even miss the train that was supposed to take him there. It was not uncommon for him to send a telegram to his wife, Frances Blogg, whom he married in 1901, from some distant (and incorrect) location writing such things as, "Am at Market Harborough.

Where ought I to be?" to which she would reply, "Home." Chesterton loved to debate, often publicly debating with friends such as George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, and Clarence Darrow. Chesterton was usually considered the winner. According to his autobiography, he and George Bernard Shaw played cowboys in a silent movie that was never released. The homily at Chesterton's Requiem Mass in Westminster Cathedral, London, was delivered by Ronald Knox . Chesterton is buried in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, in the Catholic Cemetery. On October 1, 1936, Chesterton's estate was probated at 28,389 pounds sterling. Writing Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, 200 short stories, 4000 essays and a few plays. He was a columnist for the Daily News, Illustrated London News, and his own paper, G. K.'s Weekly. In the United States, his writings on distributism were popularized through The American Review, published by Seward Collins in New York. Chesterton's writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour.

He deployed paradox, while making serious comments on the world, government, politics, economics, philosophy, theology and many other topics. In this he was a follower of Oscar Wilde, and George Bernard Shaw whom he knew well; but Chesterton's style and thinking were all his own. He was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, Catholic Christian theologian and apologist, debater, and mystery writer. His most well-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared only in short stories, while The Man Who Was Thursday is arguably his best-known novel. He converted to Catholicism in 1922. Christian themes and symbolism appear in much of his writing, and he often presented himself in the role of the Church's champion.' Chesterton is often associated with Hilaire Belloc, a close friend from the Edwardian period; Shaw coined the name Chesterbelloc for their partnership, and this stuck. Though they were very different men, they had in common many beliefs, including the Catholic faith (in the end) and critical attitudes to capitalism and socialism (see distributism). G.

K.'s Weekly, which occupied much of Chesterton's energy in the last 15 years of his life, was the successor to Belloc's New Witness, taken over from Cecil Chesterton, Gilbert's brother who died in World War I. Both, however, have been accused of anti-Semitism in their work; in Chesterton's case this can amount to guilt by association. (For Belloc's case see discussion in that article.) Bernard Levin, a leading British columnist who frequently quoted Chesterton, (The Case for Chesterton, 26 May 1974 in The Observer) brought up some of his light verse, and said "The best one can say of Chesterton's anti-semitism is that it was less vile than Belloc's; let us leave it at that." Chesterton's hatred of capitalism and his dread of the monolithic state were the generous responses of a man who saw the sickness of his society far more clearly than the ordinary Liberal and felt it far more deeply than the self-confident Fabian social engineers. Unfortunately, though, a sense of outrage often proved as bad a counsellor in his case as it had done in Carlyle's.

His diatribes against usury and corruption were those of a man on the edge of hysteria; his anti-semitism was an illness. Despite this, his fundamental decency is never obscured for long. He hated oppression; he belonged to the world before totalitarianism. But the positive side of his politics — Distributism, peasant smallholdings, Merrie Englandism — led him into a hopeless cul-de-sac. Chesterton's novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill was a favorite of Michael Collins who would later go on to lead the movement for Irish independence. His physical appearance and apparently some of his mannerisms were a direct inspiration for the character of Dr. Gideon Fell, a well-known fictional detective created in the early 1930s by the Anglo-American mystery writer John Dickson Carr. Chesterton's detective stories are laid out in a classic mould: a crime - usually a murder or a theft - is committed and solved by deduction. Within this simple form, however, Chesterton indulges in a surrealistic game of tricks and paradoxes, teasing us with apparent impossibilities which turn out to be obvious - if one only looks at them the right way.

Chesterton's detectives tend to be men (all are male) with the power to perceive everyday things in new ways; they take nothing for granted but work always from first principles. Chesterton takes risks: sometimes they don't come off and the reader is left feeling flat and disappointed, But the vast majority of Chesterton's detective stories are brilliant successes. Father Brown Father Brown stars in 48 short stories, later compiled in five books. He was based on Father John O'Connor (1870 - 1952), whom Chesterton knew in the days when he was a parish priest in Bradford, Yorkshire, and who was involved in his conversion to Catholicism in 1922. The relationship was recorded by O'Connor (by then Monsignor) in his 1937 book Father Brown on Chesterton. Father Brown is a short, stumpy Catholic priest, "formerly of Cobhole in Essex, and now working in London," with shapeless clothes and a large umbrella, but an uncanny insight into human evil. He made his first appearance in the famous story "The Blue Cross" and continued through the five volumes of short stories, often assisted by the reformed criminal Flambeau.

Unlike his more famous near-contemporary Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown's methods tended to be intuitive rather than deductive: indeed, he explained his method in The Secret of Father Brown thus: "You see, I had murdered them all myself... I had planned out each of the crimes very carefully. I had thought out exactly how a thing like that could be done, and in what style or state of mind a man could really do it. And when I was quite sure that I felt exactly like the murderer myself, of course I knew who he was." In "The Blue Cross", when asked by Flambeau, who had been masquerading as a priest, how he knew of all sorts of criminal "horrors", he responded: "Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?". He also stated a reason why he knew Flambeau was not a priest: "You attacked reason. It's bad theology." And indeed, the stories normally contain a rational explanation of who the murderer was and how Brown worked it out.

Despite his devoutness, Father Brown always emphasises rationality: some stories such as "The Miracle of Moon Crescent" and "The Blast of the Book" poke fun at initially skeptical characters who become convinced of a supernatural explanation for some strange occurrence, while Father Brown, despite his religiousness and his belief in God and miracles, easily sees the perfectly ordinary, natural explanation. In fact, he seems to represent an ideal of a devout, yet considerably educated and "civilised" clergyman, due to his familiarity with contemporary and secularist thought. Father Brown was the perfect vehicle for conveying Chesterton's view of the world, and of all of his characters, is perhaps closest to Chesterton's own point of view, or at least the effect of his point of view. Father Brown solves his crimes through a strict reasoning process more concerned with spiritual and philosophic truths rather than scientific details, making him an almost equal counterbalance with Sherlock Holmes, which Chesterton read and admired, the stories of which had been discontinued just a couple years before. While the earlier stories enjoyed great popularity and acclaim due to their conciseness, philosophical issues and wit, the response to the later Father Brown stories is somewhat mixed.

After Chesterton converted to Catholicism, the tone of the stories seemed to change in the eyes of some. Many readers saw the new stories as less punchy and more dogmatic, Father Brown being turned into a vehicle for espousing Chesterton's Catholic views. Certainly of the five volumes, the best known ( The Innocence of Father Brown and The Wisdom of Father Brown ) are the earlier works. Others consider the canon of Father Brown stories to be marred by elements of alleged racism and bigotry in some of the stories. In particular "The God of the Gongs" and some stories featuring Hindu fakirs are seen by some to perpetuate stereotypes of cultures and belief systems foreign to Chesterton's orthodoxy and the times he lived in. Most of Chesterton's mysteries are available as free downloads from Gutenberg Australia and Project Gutenberg . Mike Grost on GK Chesterton G.K Chesterton wrote five story collections about Father Brown. The best are the first, The Innocence of Father Brown , which contains Chesterton's most ingenious paradoxes serving as detective concepts, and the third, The Incredulity of Father Brown , which offers his best put together impossible crimes.

Chesterton's impossible crimes in Incredulity all involve action - they focus on some ingenious way of committing murder, often involving moving both the killer and/or the victim's body from place to place. Chesterton's vision is architectural, as well, involving the layout of buildings and rooms. As in John Dickson Carr, Chesterton's solutions are even more imaginative than the impossible problems themselves. These books are among the high points of the puzzle plot mystery story. Chesterton's fiction seems to be the main model for the great works of the Big Three puzzle plot detective novelists, Christie, Queen and Carr. The influence of Chesterton's impossible crime tales on Carr is well understood, but their similar impact on Agatha Christie is less often cited. Some of Agatha Christie's works are straight out impossible crime stories. For example, take "The Million Dollar Bond Robbery" from Poirot Investigates . In this work, some stolen bonds are smuggled of a ship in a manner that seems impossible. Unlike Chesterton and Carr, Christie does not try to bring in any supernatural atmosphere. The general tone of the inquiry is, "Gee, this is really puzzling!" - there is never an eerie suggestion of supernatural menace.

But it is a very Chestertonian tale, all the same. Many of Agatha Christie's other tales are what one might call disguised impossible crime tales. In these stories, one of the characters has an alibi, because it looks like it is impossible for him or her to have committed the crime. Eventually it is revealed that this person is the real killer, who used an ingenious method to pull off what seemed impossible. Chesterton would probably have used this impossible crime method to construct a tale in which it would have looked impossible for anyone to have committed the crime. Christie took a different approach, but her underlying basic technique is identical. Some of Christie's tales are even closer to the impossible crime proper. Take "The Regatta Mystery". In that tale, a diamond mysteriously disappears from a room, and only one man had any apparent way of smuggling it from the chamber. He is the natural suspect, but Parker Pyne wonders... Christie could have not included this one suspect's "obvious" smuggling method, and then she would have had an impossible crime tale. This is the approach that would have been taken by Chesterton or Carr. Instead she has a tale where it looks as if only one person could be guilty.

This is a very common pattern in her work, and it is very closely aligned with the impossible crime tale. Chesterton's superb literary style has some obvious ancestors. His prose style, with its rich descriptions of atmosphere and light, comes from Robert Louis Stevenson. So does his sense of adventure lurking in every corner of London. Chesterton's love of paradox, and his ability to sustain a philosophical argument with wit and invention, is modeled after the plays of George Bernard Shaw. Chesterton's "The Vampire of the Village" shows one of his techniques in pure form. First we see the character as the conventions of society have it, such as the Rebellious Son, or the Society Widow. Then we have Chesterton and Father Brown commenting on what the character is really like, morally and socially. This allows for a great deal of paradoxical reversal of conventional ideas, and much social commentary and even satire. It also allows for a hidden plot to be built up, with the characters and their relationships being Not What They Seem. This sort of technique was heavily used at an early date by Fergus Hume.

It shows up in many impossible crime writers, and the intuitionist tradition in general: Hume, Orczy, Chesterton, Christie, Leslie Ford. To solve such stories, you have to look at the relationships in The Right Way. The world has to be looked at upside down. You have to change your point of view 180 degrees, and 100 percent. When you get ahold of the idea and the hidden relationships, then you can understand the mystery. Chesterton wrote many books about other detectives than Father Brown. Most of these works contain some gems, as well as a lot of more ordinary material. I have read all of these, and was going to offer some detailed suggestions for further reading, but there is now no need. Marie Smith has edited two anthologies that contain nearly all the best tales from these collections, Thirteen Detectives and Seven Suspects . (I haven't felt in such detailed agreement with a critic's judgment on an author's work since I read Francis M. Nevins' Ellery Queen study, Royal Bloodline .) She has also included some really good rare works, that I had never read.

Chesterton's Father Brown stories largely stick closely to the paradigms of the detective story, while his non-Father Brown stories often go beyond them. Many of these latter tales have to be described as extravaganzas, not conventional fiction at all, with unusual themes, strange situations and events. Some are not conventional murder mysteries, but instead focus on some other kind of puzzle: one story's mystery centers on locating an elusive address. Chesterton's novels are nowhere as good as his short fiction. Ideas are stretched out to their breaking point, and a great deal of uninspired philosophical and religious matter is introduced. The Man Who Was Thursday is particularly overrated, although it contains an interesting central gimmick. Manalive (1910), which has never had much of a reputation, is a mildly interesting novel, barely on the borderlines of mystery fiction - today's authors are not the only ones publishing works that weirdly stretch the boundaries of the genre. By contrast, Chesterton is certainly a major author in the realm of the short story.

The Detective [Father Brown] (1954) - Decent Films Decent Films The Detective [Father Brown] (1954) C SDG In his popular Father Brown detective stories, celebrated Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton brought characteristic wit and an apologetical slant to the conventions of classic British detective fiction. Among the distinguished heirs of Sherlock Holmes (Hercule Poirot, Lord Peter Whimsey, etc.), Father Brown seems at first an unlikely detective hero, with his innocent, bespectacled face, diminutive stature, and fuddled manner: Columbo without a badge. How could this sheltered cleric have any special insight into the hardened criminal mind? Directed by Robert Hamer. Alec Guinness, Peter Finch, Joan Greenwood. Columbia. Artistic/Entertainment Value About These Ratings But Chesterton’s central conceit in these stories is that no one is better qualified to understand what evil lurks in the hearts of men than the confessor to whom men bare their hearts. In his first adventure, "The Blue Cross," Fr.

Brown stuns a famous thief named Flambeau and a skeptical policeman named Valentin — both of whom initially take the priest for a "celibate simpleton" — by foiling the thief and maneuvering the policeman into being at the right place and time to make the arrest. When the astonished Flambeau asks Fr. Brown how he came to be so familiar with the ways of evil, the priest replies with a trace of a smile, "Oh, by being a celibate simpleton, I suppose." Time and again throughout these stories, modern expectations and assumptions about religion and its ministers are overturned in grandly Chestertonian style. One entire collection of stories (The Incredulity of Father Brown) is devoted to the priest’s complete lack of gullibility in the face of inexplicable phenomena that seem supernatural to other, supposedly more skeptical individuals. Over the course of forty-nine short stories, Fr. Brown puts a good-hearted but tough-minded face on the priesthood and Catholic faith. Interestingly, Chesterton began writing Father Brown stories more than ten years before his reception into the Catholic Church. Perhaps this clerical character expressed some secret, early movement of Chesterton’s heart; or perhaps Fr.

Brown actually helped convert his own creator, as he converted the thief Flambeau, and as he has edified generations of readers. Fr. Brown even helped convert Alec Guinness, who played the fictional priest-sleuth in the 1954 British film Father Brown (known in America as The Detective) years before the actor’s own conversion to Catholicism. A small event while Guinness was shooting on location in a French village, costumed in a cassock and a clerical hat, helped him to see the role of the priest in a new light. Here is Guinness’ own account of the event from his autobiographical 1986 book Blessings in Disguise (currently out of print): I hadn’t gone far when I heard scampering footsteps and a piping voice calling, ‘mon pere!’. My hand was seized by a boy of seven or eight, who clutched it tightly, swung it and kept up a non-stop prattle. He was full of excitement, hops, skips and jumps, but never let go of me. I didn’t dare speak in case my excruciating French should scare him. Although I was a total stranger he obviously took me for a priest and so to be trusted.

Suddenly with a ‘Bonsoir, mon pere’, and a hurried sideways sort of bow, he disappeared through a hole in a hedge. Continuing my walk I reflected that a church which could inspire such confidence in a child, making its priests, even when unknown, so easily approachable could not be as scheming and creepy as so often made out. I began to shake off my long-taught, long-absorbed prejudices. Guinness makes a delightfully enjoyable Father Brown, and the film’s dialogue sparkles with flashes of Chestertonian wit. The first act is loosely adapted from that first Father Brown story, "The Blue Cross," and Father Brown here makes the same point to the thief, Flambeau, that he does in the short story: "Even though I wear funny clothes, and have taken certain vows, I live much more in the world than you do." Alas, this well-intentioned and otherwise enjoyable film is marred by several serious missteps. Chief among these is the fact that Fr. Brown is shown making a number of highly questionable decisions that fly in the face of Chesterton’s stories. For example, whereas in "The Blue Cross" Fr.

Brown deliberately leads Flambeau into a trap where he will be arrested by the detective Valentin, in The Detective Fr. Brown repeatedly acts to prevent Valentin (Bernard Lee) from catching and arresting Flambeau (Peter Finch), whose soul he wishes to save. "I want to help a man," Fr. Brown tells Valentin in the film, "by curing a sickness of his soul. You want to put him in prison because of that same sickness. How can I possibly help you?" Chesterton’s Fr. Brown also was concerned about Flambeau’s soul, but had no scruples about seeing him arrested. Far more seriously, whereas Chesterton’s Fr. Brown in a later story upbraids Flambeau for contriving to cast suspicion on an innocent man, in the film Fr. Brown actually himself contrives to have an innocent man arrested: He deliberately deceives Valentin into thinking that a bystander is Flambeau, so that the detective will let Fr. Brown himself go (Fr. Brown is of course in trouble for his interference in the pursuit of Flambeau).

This false-arrest scene is perhaps intended to be comic, and presumably the assumption is that the confusion will soon be cleared up, and the inconvenience to the false Flambeau will be minimal. Still, it remains problematic and off-putting, along with other plot points including Fr. Brown’s direct disobedience to the decision of a religious superior, his willingness to tell direct lies, and even his casual littering. Not unsurprisingly, this Fr. Brown proves something of an embarrassment and a thorn to his ecclesiastical superiors — a theme that is quite foreign to the spirit of Chesterton’s stories, which are meant to evoke something larger about the Faith and the Church as a whole, not to give us a mere maverick as much at odds with the Church as he is with the world. Almost as strange (and irritating) is the way the film robs Fr. Brown of his victories over Flambeau. "The Blue Cross" is about Flambeau trying to steal a valuable relic from Fr. Brown; there’s some business about packages that are switched and then switched again, and in the end it turns out that the priest has outsmarted the thief.

Yet in the film the opposite happens: The final switch is Flambeau’s, and it’s the priest who is outsmarted. Later in the film, Fr. Brown sets a "trap" for Flambeau that turns out to be all bait and no hook. The net effect is that the film’s Fr. Brown has the verbal wit of Chesterton’s hero, but shows no special detective flair (until the last act, in which he locates Flambeau’s secret estate in a way that is not especially memorable). What’s the point of underselling the protagonist this way? Perhaps these are the caveats of a Chesterton fan, and those who come to the movie cold will not be similarly bothered. But shouldn’t the story as told at least make sense? As the first act gets underway, we see Fr. Brown with three plain brown packages, one of which presumably contains the cross Flambeau is after. Later, he is inexplicably reduced to two packages. So far, that may only be a minor continuity gap, but what happens next is really inexplicable. First we get a scene in a café in which packages are switched, and one package is left behind on a café chair.

Then, when Flambeau later demands the remaining package, Fr. Brown tells him that the cross isn’t in this package, that he "switched packages" at the café. Despite this, the priest is taken aback to discover that the cross really is there — Flambeau "switched them back." Yet what took me even more aback was the fact that Fr. Brown apparently intended to leave a priceless artifact unattended on a café chair. (There’s actually a scene something like this in the short story: but there, in the first place, Fr. Brown ensures that the package will be attended to; and in the second place, the cross in the story is valuable but not the priceless relic of St. Augustine that we get in the film.) The movie doesn’t get everything wrong. Fr. Brown’s overall method remains the same; he even explains what he does in words drawn from one of Chesterton’s stories: "I try to get so far inside the [criminal] that I can move his arms and legs… think his thoughts… wrestle with his passions… till in fact I become the criminal except only for the final consent to the crime." Fr.

Brown’s method anticipates the later criminologist’s technique of "profiling" popularized in Manhunter and other books and movies; he solves crimes from within. The confessional has taught him how to do this: "The more you learn about other people, the more you understand yourself; and the more you understand yourself, the more you understand other people." These lines, and others like them, are vintage Father Brown, evoking the humanistic spirit of the Chesterton stories, if not always the actual words. Yet, like so much else, this spirit too is finally betrayed by the film. (Spoilers ahead.) In the climactic scene, when Fr. Brown finally confronts Flambeau at his estate, the priest’s tack suddenly shifts: No longer does he offer Flambeau unwavering human understanding and Christian charity; now there is only disappointment and dismissive contempt. "I thought you were a great sinner," the priest says disparagingly. "You’re only a small one. I came expecting to find a desperate secret… I’m afraid I must go now. I have work to do." What’s become here of Fr. Brown’s self-effacing humanism?

Is his "work" limited to saving great sinners, not small ones? Or has the confessional not taught him to recognize in his own heart the seeds of petty sins as well as great ones? Playing Father Brown had an edifying effect on Guinness, as perhaps writing him had on Chesterton. Those looking for similar edification will be well advised to turn to Chesterton’s stories rather than this flawed film. P.S. Fans of Chesterton and Father Brown may also be interested in the 1974 “Father Brown” TV series starring Kenneth More, the first seven episodes of which are now available on DVD. Tags: BBC’s amiable, nostalgic ‘Father Brown’ doesn’t keep faith with Chesterton - Decent Films Decent Films BBC’s amiable, nostalgic ‘Father Brown’ doesn’t keep faith with Chesterton SDG Crux “I like detective stories,” G. K.

Chesterton once wrote; “I read them, I write them; but I do not believe them.” Chesterton put into his beloved Father Brown stories a great deal that he did not believe — exotic crimes, improbable methods, wiredrawn detective work — but also a great deal that he did believe, much of it on the lips of his moon-faced clerical sleuth. The twist in one Father Brown story after another is that a seemingly unworldly priest is the most worldly-wise of all; the believer in miracles is the most rational, least gullible in the room; the supposedly sheltered religious celibate has the most intimate knowledge and empathic understanding of the ways of human depravity.

“Trust me,” Mark Williams’ Father Brown tells a woman tongue-tied by shame in the pilot episode of the BBC hit series, “there’s not much in my line of work I haven’t heard.” (Season 1 of “Father Brown” is available on North American home video.) That line, for fans of the source material, is an all-too-rare rare flash of Chestertonian sensibility in a cozy, nostalgic British crime series that, while not without merit, has little in common with either the letter or the spirit of Chesterton’s yarns. The series is said to be “based on characters” created by Chesterton. The original stories, written over the last quarter century of Chesterton’s life (he died in 1936), were contemporary tales about a London-based country priest who traveled all over the UK and visited Europe and America. Reasonably settling on the early 1950s as a compromise between Chesterton’s time and our own, the BBC series finds Father Brown engaged in parish work in a sleepy Cotswolds village with a regular cast of quirky characters, giving the series a “Miss Marple” or “Midsomer Murders” vibe.

The English anti-Catholicism regularly satirized in Chesterton’s stories is essentially moot here. Rather than a good-will ambassador of Romanism to Anglican and modernist readers, this Father Brown is a genial representative of enlightened faith to secular postmodern viewers — no bad thing in itself. At the same time, the show is very much of its cultural moment, with themes of feminist and gay consciousness and the failings of the Church and Christian society woven into the stories. None of this is inherently objectionable, but where Chesterton sought to challenge as well as entertain his audience, the show wants only to be loved. “I won’t try to convert you,” Father Brown assures a troubled gay atheist in the first episode. The wry reply: “Likewise.” Ironically, Father Brown might almost be said to have helped convert Chesterton himself, who created and initially wrote the character as an Anglican, modeling him after a Catholic priest friend, Rev. John O’Connor. Father Brown also helped to convert the first British actor to portray him, Alec Guinness in the 1954 film Father Brown (also known as The Detective).

Guinness ideally conveyed Father Brown’s nondescript anonymity and air of abstraction, though he wasn’t physically suited to the role — nor was Kenneth More, who played the priest in 1974 in a 13-episode ITV series that remains the adaptation most likely to please purists (and probably only purists, given its modest production values). Amiable Williams, readily recognizable as Chesterton’s doughy but sharp-minded cleric, is the new show’s best asset. Tags: Father Brown (Literature) - TV Tropes Father Brown You need to login to do this. Get Known if you don't have an account Share WMG "The little priest was so much the essence of those Eastern flats; he had a face as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling; he had eyes as empty as the North Sea; he had several brown paper parcels, which he was quite incapable of collecting." Father Brown is a detective series created by G. K. Chesterton . The protagonist is actually called Father J. Brown, though we are never told what the initial stands for, and is originally presented as the parish priest of Cobhole in Essex , though he is found in parishes as far afield as Italy and South America.

In appearance he is undistinguished, small and dumpy, short-sighted and not particularly intelligent; dressed in shabby clerical black, and carrying an umbrella as dumpy and shabby as himself. The Father Brown mysteries generally appeared first as independent short stories in various magazines; (most of) the stories were eventually collected in a series of five books: The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914) The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926) The Secret of Father Brown (1927), and The Scandal of Father Brown (1935). Three stories, "The Donnington Affair" (1914) (GKC writing the solution of a mystery set up by Max Pemberton), "The Vampire of the Village" (1936), and "The Mask of Midas" (1936), were published separately, though the second of these was later included in editions of Scandal. In 1934 a film version of Chesterton's priest based on "The Blue Cross"' appeared with the title Father Brown, Detective, with Walter Connelly in the title rôle.

In 1954 Father Brown (U.S. title, The Detective) appeared with Alec Guinness as the eponymous priest. Heinz Rühmann played Father Brown in two German adaptations of Chesterton's stories, Das schwarze Schaf ("The Black Sheep") (1960) and Er kann's nicht lassen ("He Can't Stop Doing It") (1962). (The score to these, by Martin Böttcher, became very popular in Germany.) In 1970 an Italian television series entitled I racconti di padre Brown ("The Tales of Father Brown") starred the well-known Italian comedian Renato Rascel. In 1974, Kenneth More starred in a 13-episode Father Brown TV series, each episode adapted from one of Chesterton's short stories. In 1979, the TV move Sanctuary of Fear featured an American Father Brown (Barnard Hughes) sleuthing in contemporary New York City.. but the protagonist's only resemblances to Chesterton's character are his name and occupation.

A German television series, Pfarrer Braun ("Pastor Brown"), loosely based on the Chesterton character, is in production since 2003; its title theme by Martin Böttcher is a Shout-Out to the one of the Heinz Rühmann films. A 2013 TV series produced by the BBC cast Mark Williams of The Fast Show and Harry Potter fame in the title role. The trope page for that show can be found here . Tropes featured in this series include: (Note that the following examples are heavy on spoilers!) Actually, That's My Assistant : Invoked in "The Scandal of Father Brown" All-Loving Hero : Father Brown, appropriately for a priest, has a deep sense of agape, spiritual love for all people. He recognizes human monsters when he sees them, but even more so, he recognizes people's capacity for goodness and redemption. Amateur Sleuth : Father Brown. Technically all of his training is in theology; he just happens to have a keen insight into the criminal mind thanks to his experience listening to Confession.

Attending Your Own Funeral : In "The Resurrection of Father Brown" Babies Ever After : Flambeau and his Spanish Lady produced a large and very domestic brood of children. Belief Makes You Stupid : Taken down with extreme prejudice in Father Brown's very first story, "The Blue Cross" "...But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me sure you weren't a priest." "What?" asked the thief, almost gaping. "You attacked reason," said Father Brown. "It's bad theology." From the same story: "Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?" On a couple of occasions, Father Brown essentially states that he knows a certain mysterious occurrence was not Black Magic because he knows what Black Magic looks like and [whatever mysterious occurrence they're discussing] does not fit the signs. Be My Valentine : Aristide Valentin in "The Blue Cross" and "The Secret Garden." Beneath Notice : In "The Invisible Man," a man is murdered and witnesses say they saw nobody. Father Brown figures out that the murderer was a postman, and the witnesses didn't pay any attention to him.

In "The Queer Feet", which Flambeau infiltrates a high-class party in black tie. When he's at the table, he behaves like a waiter (causing the guests to pay no attention to him), but when he's away from the table, he instead behaves like a guest (so the waiters, who are familiar with each other, don't find him out). Blue Blood : Despite GKC's very commonly expressed dislike of aristocratic systems of government, his work abounds in noblemen, both sympathetic and unsympathetic, e.g., in "The Purple Wig." Some of them are even of real aristocratic lineage, too. Bookcase Passage : The old manor house in "The Doom of the Darnaways" has one, which Father Brown discovers after noticing that the fake books on that shelf all refer to myths and hoaxes. Lampshaded, with him feeling obliged to apologize for the fact that his solution to the mystery features such a cliché. Brown Note : "The Blast Of The Book" revolves around a book that is reported to drive anyone who reads even a few words of it to self-destruction.

Church of Saint Genericus : Subverted in "The Vampire of the Village", in which Father Brown realises that a purported clergyman is a fake because he shows characteristics of multiple incompatible Christian denominations. Colour-Coded for Your Convenience : A character with red hair is almost always Good in Chesterton. Less frequently, blond hair is evil — especially if the blondness looks somehow artificial ("gilded"). Confessional : Is very often Father Brown's goal for the criminals he detects. He also claims that it is the source of his uncanny insight into the criminal mind: ï¿½Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear menï¿½s real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?" Exact Words : Father Brown suffers from this constantly, as in "The Quick One": "...I never said he was a murderer. I said he was the man we wanted." In "The Chief Mourner of Marne", Father Brown asks General Outram if he knows more about the history of the Marquis of Marne than he's already said. The General replies "I cannot tell you any more".

Father Brown notes that this isn't the same thing, and points out the General would have no patience with a priest who equivocated like that. Fairy Tale : As in "The Fairy Tale of Father Brown." The Fair Folk : Invoked in "The Sins of Prince Saradine" Fake Brit : In-universe, Kalon in "The Eye of Apollo". Genteel Interbellum Setting : Reasonably enough, as all of the stories were written between 1910 and 1936. Gentleman Thief : Flambeau is an example. Deconstructed in "The Flying Stars", in which Father Brown points out that he has left an innocent person to be blamed for the crime he committed, and persuades him that it's impossible to remain a honourable outlaw without Slowly Slipping Into Evil . Glass-Shattering Sound : Suggested as a solution to the mystery in "The Flying Fish".

Hidden in Plain Sight : Used in several stories, notably "The Invisible Man." Hypocrite : As, for instance, in "The Ghost of Gideon Wise." Identical Grandson : In "The Doom of the Darnaways", the newly-discovered Darnaway heir bears such a striking resemblance to an old portrait that another character suspects he's deliberately modeled his appearance on it. Father Brown suspects a much simpler explanation — it's the portrait that has been made to resemble the man. If Jesus, Then Aliens : Defied. Father Brown is quite devout, but doesn't believe in anything supernatural at first sight, and is very quick to correct those who attempt to use this logic themselves. Multiple mysteries are mistaken for miracles, curses or what have you, and Brown is usually there to prove that they are quite mundane and staged to look supernatural. ï¿½Yes,ï¿½ answered Father Brown, ï¿½I believe in miracles. I believe in man-eating tigers, but I donï¿½t see them running about everywhere.

If I want any miracles, I know where to get them.ï¿½ Impoverished Patrician : In "The Doom of the Darnaways", the Darnaways are an aristocratic family of ancient lineage reduced to living in the still-habitable portions of a half-ruined house. In Medias Res : "The Eye of Apollo," which begins with Father Brown confronting Kalon before the reader even knows a murder has happened. Interdisciplinary Sleuth : Father Brown is, as the name would imply, a priest. Intrepid Reporter : Not a positive example. He observed Father Brown helping a woman run from an ugly man with a handsome one and, assuming it's a typical Ugly Guy, Hot Wife scenario, immediately sent a story about how a priest broke a sacred marriage, ruining his reputation. The ugly one was the lover. Last Request : In the second story, it's because Father Brown got one at a deathbed that he's in the place where he deduces the crime. Literal-Minded : The probably-autistic title character in "The Honour of Israel Gow".

The various bizarre and apparently sinister events of the story turn out to be because of Gow's literal and scrupulously honest interpretation of his equally-eccentric dead employer's dying wish for Gow to inherit all his gold - which Gow interpreted as "every scrap of gold in the house and nothing else". Malicious Slander : he was a victim of this in "Scandal" Mistaken for Servant : Used in at least two of the stories, "The Queer Feet" and "The Strange Crime of John Boulnois." Mondegreen : In "The Absence of Mr. Glass", Mr. Glass does not exist. What Todhunter, a stage magician in training, really said (while practicing juggling) was, "...Two, three—Missed a glass." Moral Event Horizon : Discussed in-universe in "The Sign of the Broken Sword". Being a greedy and corrupted traitor? Not okay. Killing the one who found out about that? Real bad. Leading the whole regiment in a pointlessly suicidal attack so that the deceased would be lost in a field of corpses? There we go.

Deconstructed in "The Chief Mourner of Marne:" while the other characters are insisting that a character's crime - Playing Possum in a duel in order to murder his own brother - is absolutely unforgivable, Father Brown reminds them that from a Christian point of view there is no such thing as an unforgivable crime. Also the explanation for why the assailant sneezed when shot at. The pepper pot in his pocket stopped the bullet . Police Are Useless : A police detective complains about this trope in one story. He points out that while the police may not be as intuitively brilliant as the average fictional detective, they are not even shown as having the virtues they do have such as storing and sharing information. Pre-emptive Declaration : Used by Father Brown, of all people, in "The Blue Cross." Waiter: 'The parson at the door he says all serene, 'Sorry to confuse your accounts, but it'll pay for the window.' 'What window?' I says. 'The one I'm going to break,' he says, and smashed that blessed pane with his umbrella.

The Roaring '20s : The stories in Incredulity covering Father Brown's visit to the United States tend this way (with, for instance, several mentions of Prohibition, all of them in the context of it being flouted). Royal Blood : In "The Sins of Prince Saradine." Ruritania : In "The Fairy Tale of Father Brown" there is the Teutonic "city and state of Heiligwaldenstein." Sarcastic Confession : As in "The Worst Crime in the World." Satchel Switcheroo : Used twice in The Blue Cross. Scooby-Doo Hoax : Almost all the stories seems to invoke supernatural elements, only for Father Brown to discover that they have perfectly mundane solutions, see Belief Makes You Stupid and If Jesus, Then Aliens . Seen It All : The vast (even shocking) experience of GKC's friend Father John O'Connor so impressed him that he fictionalized the priest in the form of Father Brown, whose first story, "The Blue Cross," is based upon this trope.

Serial Killings, Specific Target : One of the earliest examples (though the disguise is an intentionally provoked military battle rather than a serial killing) is "The Sign of the Broken Sword" (1911). In Father Brown's own words: Father Brown: Where would a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. If there were no forest, he would make a forest. And if he wished to hide a dead leaf, he would make a dead forest. And if a man had to hide a dead body, he would make a field of dead bodies to hide it in. Sherlock Scan : Subverted in "The Absence of Mr Glass," in which some characters involve a brilliant criminologist in a domestic case, where he concludes with a sinister and dramatic interpretation of some facts. Dramatic and totally false. The apparent killer is only a stage magician, so that the cards, the knives, the swords and the mysteriously large top hat have a very simple explanation. At the end of the tale, everyone (including the criminologist) is laughing.

In "The Honour of Israel Gow", the Father is asked to perform a scan on a odd set of trinkets left behind on the scene and produces six equally plausible but all mutually contradictory stories explaining their presence — none of which turns out to be correct. The Reveal : One of the bases of Mystery Fiction , of course. The Unfair Sex : Provides a blind in "The Oracle of the Dog." The Uriah Gambit : In "The Sign of the Broken Sword." Also a more unconventional version in "The Fairy Tale Of Father Brown". The greedy and paranoid Evil Overlord sneaks away in the dead of night to visit a local monk whom he suspects knows the location of a gold mine. The monk, who is the last of three brothers who led a successful resistance for some time, jumps the Evil Overlord and gags him with his own military sash, causing said Overlord to be shot by his own troops when he can't answer the challenge.

They Call Me Mister Tibbs : Alluded to in "The Oracle of the Dog" — "With your Citizen Riquetti you have puzzled Europe for ten days." To Know Him, I Must Become Him : Father Brown explains that this is his method for crime-solving in The Secret of Father Brown. (See also That's What I Would Do .) Ugly Guy, Hot Wife : Deconstructed in one story. Father Brown points out that a rich, beautiful girl who has always gotten whatever she wanted is not likely to have married an ugly old man: she'd have no reason to. Unfriendly Fire : The story "The Sign of the Broken Sword" The Vicar : Invoked in-story by an impostor in "The Vampire of the Village". Only the Catholic Father Brown sees through him, since "the English know nothing about the Church of England." The Watson : Subverted with Valentin, who bows to Father Brown's intellect in The Blue Cross, but then goes full-on Well-Intentioned Extremist and then takes his own life in The Secret Garden. Played straight with Flambeau in many later stories. Wham Line : In the third story, "Queer Feet".

"I'm a priest, Monsieur Flambeau, and I'm ready to hear your confession." Also in The Blue Cross when Valentine believes he has gone on a wild goose chase after two harmless, theology-debating clerics and is ready to creep away: "On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of pearl, you would still find a notice-board, Thou shalt not steal." And again in The Chief Mourner of Marne: "It isn't Jim at all. It's Maurice!" White Magic : Invoked, and debunked, in "The Dagger with Wings" — and re-invoked. Whodunnit to Me? ?: In "The Resurrection of Father Brown." Writer on Board : Father Brown is a fairly accurate mouthpiece for Chesterton's views. :: Indexes ::

Question: Who created the character of the detective priest known as Father Brown?
Answer: G K Chesterton