Father Brown Mysteries - "The Arrow Of Heaven" (10-12-86)

The Arrow Of Heaven (Aired October 12, 1986)

Bob Camardella Plays Engelbert Humperdinck "A Man Without Love" (1968)

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, and uncanny insight into human evil. He makes his first appearance in the famous story "The Blue Cross" and continues through the five volumes of short stories, often assisted by the reformed criminal Flambeau. Father Brown is characteristically humble, and is usually rather quiet, but when he does talk, he almost always says something profound. Although he tends to handle crimes with a steady, realistic approach, he believes in the supernatural as the greatest reason of all. 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 Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, whose stories Chesterton read and admired. However, the Father Brown series commenced before Chesterton's own conversion to Catholicism.