Murder is being done at a medieval monastery and before the Inquisition in the person of the malevolent F. Murray Abraham gets involved in it the order has its own pair of sleuths. A pair of monks who have taken holy orders, Sean Connery and his novice Christian Slater arrive at the monastery and are determined to get to the bottom of why a whole bunch of monks are dying there.

Fans of the Brother Cadfael mysteries of which I am one, will like this film very much. A lot of it rides on the chemistry between Connery and Slater and the two of them play off against each other very well.

You do get the feeling you really are seeing a glimpse of the fourteenth century, helped in large part by the actual location shooting. In fact much of the film is shot at an actual monastery in Germany that is still standing from that time period. In fact one of the things that I really marvel at is the reconstruction of the labyrinth inside the monastery which leads to the library which is where the riddle of these murders is solved.

The medieval Roman Church is certainly shown as having many sides to it. One is represented by the monks who in their cloistered existence, saved, translated, and preserved a lot of the knowledge of the ancient world we have today. Unfortunately there's the other side of it, as represented by F. Murray Abraham and the Inquisition. A force determined to force conformity in Christendom and add to their own power at the same time.

Our monks do engage in some very unmonk like behavior and that includes both of our medieval Holmes and Watson. The scene where a village girl seduces Slater is both amusing and quite erotic. Could never have been done back in the days of the Breen Code.

According to the Citadel Film Series book, The Films of Sean Connery, The Name of the Rose flopped badly here in America, but in Europe was a smashing success. Possibly because the story a lot closer to home there and Americans had little interest in European middle ages.

That's a pity because The Name of the Rose is a worthwhile film that can be appreciated anywhere on this globe.

THE NAME OF THE ROSE, a murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the 14th century, is based on a hugely inspirational Umberto Eco book that inspired 20 years plus of historical detectives (recently, C. J. Sansom's DISSOLUTION provided a reworked version of that tale). The film is well shot, well directed, with a neat script and atmosphere all of its own.

Essentially, this is a film about Sean Connery's monk prying into hidden secrets, lurking in darkened corridors and shining lights into shadowy, cobwebbed corners. My first impression was what an ugly film this is: the monks are invariably repulsive-looking (none more so than the hunchback played by an astonishingly good Ron Perlman) and the whole location filled with mud and grime. It's no wonder that a sex scene between 15-year-old Christian Slater and a beautiful woman is so memorable in the midst of all this drabness.

Connery is Connery, of course - when hasn't he been? - and the mystery is sufficiently dark and brooding to hold the viewer's attention. Later on, the Inquisition show up (in the form of an evil F. Murray Abraham) and things build to a grand old climax. I'll admit that this isn't a perfect movie - it's a little too slow, a little too laboured, and a little overlong - but it's a more than decent one.

Adso of Melk is an old man recalling a pivotal time during his youth. It's late 1327 in the dark north of Italy. Adso (Christian Slater) arrives at a Benedictine abbey with his mentor Franciscan friar William of Baskerville (Sean Connery) to argue the issue of the church's wealth. William is a Sherlock Holmes character with exceptional perception and deduction. The Abbot is trying to keep a recent death from William and wait for Inquisitor Bernardo Gui (F. Murray Abraham). William notices the fresh grave. It's a young manuscript illuminator whose work he admires. He and his young novice investigate the death but then others die. Adso has sex with a local girl. William befriends hunchback Salvatore (Ron Perlman) from a heretical sect. They discover a labyrinthine secret library as William's nemesis Gui arrives.

The first time I watched this, it was a mess of confusing characters and ideas about the medieval world. The resolution is understandable. Solving the murder became secondary to trying to immerse in this world. It gets better the second time around. I'm sure the book is more in depth. The red herring needs more exposition time. Novel adaptation often has this problem. The setting has the foggy muddy part down. The secret library has plenty of stairways. The acting is solid. It takes a couple of times to ingest everything from the movie.