The Avengers – A Touch of Brimstone

Yes, this is it, the infamous banned episode of The Avengers, A Touch of Brimstone. Or at least it was banned by the network in the US during the initial run of the series there. It was screened in Britain in February 1966, despite censorship difficulties, and became the most-watched episode of the series. The censorship difficulties were caused by Mrs Peel’s notorious appearance as the Queen of Sin, and most of all by the scene in which Mrs Peel is whipped.

It’s also famous for featuring one of the great Peter Wyngarde’s finest performances.

It all starts with a series of pranks. The pranks are the sort of thing that would appeal to teenaged boys except that the victims are public figures, often foreign diplomats, and they’re causing all sorts of international repercussions.

Steed has a strong suspect in mind, the Honourable John Cleverly Cartney (Peter Wyngarde), a clever but dissolute minor aristocrat. Cartney has revived the Hellfire Club. There were in fact several real-life Hellfire Clubs in Britain during the 18th century, the most famous being the one established by Sir Francis Dashwood in 1749. They were places in which young gentlemen could indulge themselves in all manner of debauchery and libertinage.

Cartney’s club has the same aims as the original Hellfire Clubs – debauchery with political overtones.

Steed thinks he can get a lead through the young and foolish Lord Darcy, one of Cartney’s cronies. Mrs Peel’s job is to get close to Cartney. She certainly has no trouble attracting his attention. And no trouble getting invited to a meeting of the Hellfire Club.

Steed of course will have to join the Hellfire Club as well, and go through the initiation.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Cartney is planning something much more ambitious than a club for drinking and wenching.

We get some fine fight scenes, including a sword-fight and including Mrs Peel memorably (and wittily) despatching one of the bad guys while dressed in her bondage costume. And of course there’s the whipping scene, which is more a case of Cartney trying to whip Mrs peel rather than actual whipping her.

There’s as much implied sexuality as you could get away with in Britain in 1966 (and obvious a lot more than you could get away with in the US) but I suspect that it was the all-pervasive atmosphere of sex and decadence that sent the American network into a panic rather than any one particular element.

The eighteenth-century costumes are great and the Hellfire Club set is wonderful (especially with the snake slithering about). The opening scene with the chair moving toward the camera establishes an atmosphere of mystery right from the start and provides Peter Wyngarde with a great entrance.

Diana Rigg is very sexy in her bondage outfit and gives another fine performance. Mrs Peel seems genuinely disturbed by the Hellfire Club which gives the episode a sense that this time she and Steed really are up against not just regular bad guys but something truly evil – a villain who glories in his immorality and cruelty.

Steed gets plenty of heroic stuff to do with both swords and umbrellas.

Look out for Carol Cleveland (a regular on Monty Python’s Flying Circus) as Cartney’s girlfriend Sara.

Naturally it’s Peter Wyngarde who steals the show. Nobody could do decadence the way Peter Wyngarde could. Wyngarde would go on to make another memorable appearance in the series in Epic. He would gain much greater fame in Department S and Jason King but I don\’t think he ever did anything better than A Touch of Brimstone.

James Hill directed. He directed some of the best-known episodes of The Avengers, including The Forget-Me-Knot, Something Nasty in the Nursery and one of my favourite episodes from the Tara King era, Look – (Stop Me If You\’ve Heard This One) But There Were These Two Fellers… There’s a publicity still for A Touch of Brimstone showing Mrs Peel as the Queen of Sin holding Hill on a leash.

A Touch of Brimstone was written by Brian Clemens who needs no introduction to readers of this blog.

Mrs Peel’s fetish-inspired Queen of Sin costume, consisting of a corset, long black boots with stiletto heels and a dog collar with three-inch spikes, was designed by Diana Rigg herself. And I haven’t mentioned her snake.

There’s real villainy here but there’s plenty of humour as well. The Avengers had a knack of striking just the right balance, never taking itself too seriously but never quite descending into mere silliness. It was an outrageous series but it was outrageousness done with wit and style in a manner that modern television simply cannot replicate.

A Touch of Brimstone effortlessly lives up to its reputation. Very highly recommended.

The Professionals season two (1978)

The Professionals, which was screened in Britain on ITV between 1977 and 1983, was another series created by Brian Clemens whose output at the time was prodigious.

At the time the series was somewhat controversial for both the levels of violence and the levels of political incorrectness. The fact that it depicts a fictional intelligence-counter terrorist agency that effectively operates above the law and uses methods of extreme ruthlessness also made some people uneasy.

In fact of course there were plenty of contemporary TV series (in both Britain and the US) that portrayed government agencies acting with a sublime disregard of both national and international law but there was a difference – series like Callan and Special Branch took a rather critical look at agencies such as MI5 and MI6 while The Professionals clearly takes the view that disregarding the laws of the land is a jolly good thing.

But that’s perhaps a bit unfair. As season two progresses we get a couple of episodes which look at the dangers of abuses of power, at both high levels and lower levels. So what seems at first to be a purely action-oriented series starts to develop a bit of nuance.

The Professionals deals with an agency called CI5 and focuses on the agency’s chief, Cowley (Gordon Jackson) and his two top operatives, Bodie (Lewis Collins) and Doyle (Martin Shaw). The take-no-prisoners attitude of Bodie and Doyle quickly made them cult favourites.

The Sweeney (and before that the final two seasons of Special Branch) had changed the face of British television. Shooting in the studio was out, location shooting was in, and the emphasis was on non-stop action heavily laced with (by the standards of the time) fairly extreme violence. The Professionals adopted the same action-oriented approach.

There’s certainly no shortage of action and the action is consistently done well. This is an adrenaline-charged series. By this time British television had broken away completely from the shot-in-the-studio look – The Professionals features lots of great location shooting.

In the 60s American television series like Mannix and Hawaii Five-O has been much more action-driven that their British counterparts but from the mid-70s to the early 80s it was British television that set the pace when it came to action and violence. American series like Police Woman were considered quite violent in the US but they seem ridiculously tame compared to The Sweeney and The Professionals. That would change when Miami Vice exploded onto American TV screens in 1984.

The formula initially appears to be that Bodie and Doyle are the tough guys, the guys who handle assignments that are dirty and dangerous, but it’s the middle-aged Cowley who turns out to be the hardest of the three. He likes nothing better than getting the opportunity to demonstrate his tough guy credentials and psychologically he’s as hard as nails. It was a major change of pace for Gordon Jackson and he does a fine job.

The Professionals was hated by critics at the time and it attracted the ire of moral watchdogs for its celebration of violence. It was attacked for being too macho (even though it had legions of female fans who adored Bodie and Doyle) and too mindlessly action-oriented and nowadays it’s regarded as being almost as politically incorrect as The Sweeney. All the criticisms directed at it are true and that’s why it was so immensely popular and that’s why it still has a loyal following. Clemens knew what audiences wanted. Audiences knew what they wanted. British TV critics for the most part had no idea what audiences wanted and just hated anything that the public liked.

This series is disreputable and glories in its disreputable qualities. It’s outrageous fun.

But, having said all that, while some episodes are mindless escapist entertainment some do have some actual substance as well. The Professionals somehow manages to combine a roller-coaster ride of action and excitement with some surprisingly subtle and cynical scripts.

British spy series of this era (such as Callan) could be very cynical indeed with no real moral difference between the good guys and the bad guys and there’s a certain amount of that in The Professionals. Espionage and counter-espionage are very grubby games and no-one can play these games and have clean hands.

The ten episodes of the second season went to air in late 1978.

Episode Guide

In Hunter/Hunted Bodie and Doyle are testing a new sniper rifle. It has a laser gunsight which in 1978 was cutting edge technology. Unfortunately they manage to have the gun stolen from under their noses. For highly trained professionals their idea of security is pretty laughable. If they want to keep their jobs they’re going to have to get that rifle back. Given the way they conduct the case it might have been better if Cowley had simply fired them on the spot. Anthony Read’s script is as full of holes as a Swiss cheese. Bodie and Doyle are supposed to be the elite of the elite but the script relies on having them act as if they’re rookies straight out of Police College. I wouldn’t trust these two on traffic duty.

On the plus side it looks great, there’s some fine location shooting and there are a few superb action set-pieces. The acting is excellent and the repartee between Bodie and Doyle is consistently sparkling. All it needed to achieve greatness was a complete rewrite of the script.

The Rack is an interesting episode. CI5 conduct a raid on the mansion of the notorious Coogan brothers. Unfortunately the tip-off from an informer was wrong and they don’t find the drugs they expected to find. The complete lack of evidence doesn’t bother Cowley. He has both brothers interrogated and one of them, Paul Coogan, dies in custody. A court of enquiry is set up which, if it goes badly, may mean the disbanding of CI5.

What this episode is really all about is the question of whether outfits like CI5, which effectively operate outside the law, are justified or not. There’s no doubt that in this case they don’t have a leg to stand on. CI5 conducted a raid without a search warrant and interrogated suspects without allowing them legal counsel and in the process they killed one of the suspects.

What it’s all leading up to is Cowley’s passionate closing statement to the court of enquiry in which he argues that as unpleasant as it might be society needs organisations like CI5 and that protecting society cannot be done within the confines of the law. Whether you accept Cowley’s argument or not is up to you. We’re clearly expected to accept it but some viewers might have their doubts. You do have to remember that this was the 1970s when the idea that crime was out of control and that terrorism was a deadly threat made the idea of government agencies breaking the rules to combat such threats rather popular.

Of course the tension between the need for the rule of law and the need to protect society crops up in many police shows (and spy shows) of this era. And movies as well of course.

There’s also a problem for Doyle in this episode – he’s the one who killed Paul Coogan and he doesn’t feel too good about it.

In First Night an Israeli politician is kidnapped but it doesn’t seem to be politically motivated. It seems to be all about money. There’s some good sifting through clues in this story – it’s amazing the information you can get from a single photo. There’s a nice sense of urgency and some fairly good action scenes with the kidnappers using a hovercraft and a helicopter to make their escape. And Bodie makes an entrance worthy of The A-Team. A reasonably good episode.

Man Without a Past starts with a bombing in a London restaurant in which Bodie’s girlfriend is seriously injured. Maybe the bomb was intended for Bodie, or maybe for the couple who were supposed to have that table but cancelled at the last minute. Cowley orders Bodie off the case but of course Bodie ignores the order. The plot is a complicated spider-web of deception with multiple possible motives and three or four different sets of bad guys. A good episode.

In the Public Interest is a bit different from what you usually expect from this series – this time the bad guys are cops. Cowley has been alerted to the fact that the Chief Constable of a certain unnamed city has managed to reduce crime rates to a remarkable degree. Too remarkable. In fact this chief constable has turned his city into a miniature police state. The impressive arrest and conviction rates have been achieved by fabricating evidence and by extraordinary abuses of power. The police are also acting as moral policemen. He sends Doyle and Bodie in to find some hard evidence and they’re lucky to get out alive.

This is one of the rare occasions when the series get into some social commentary, raising interesting questions about whether law and order is worth it if means the loss of freedom and also questions about the potential for abuse of power when the police are given too much power. So it’s actually a lot more relevant today than it was in 1978. A pretty powerful episode.

In Rogue Barry Martin, CI5’s first recruit and the man who trained Bodie and Doyle, goes rogue. They’re going to have to hunt him down which won’t be easy since he’s as good as they are. Unfortunately it’s obvious from the start that Martin is a bad ’un but there’s some decent action. A so-so episode.

In Not a Very Civil Civil Servant CI5 are called in on a case involving corruption in the building industry. It’s not the sort of case they usually deal with and Cowley suspects that the government minister who called them in wants to manipulate him into helping with a cover-up. Which of course makes Cowley very annoyed indeed. So he decides that CI5 will dig a lot deeper than the minister intended. A fairly good episode with Cowley getting to do some action stuff and the script (by Edmund Ward) is pleasingly tight.

A Stirring of Dust is a story of elderly spies. Tom Darby (obviously a fictionalised version of Kim Philby) is an MI6 man who defected to the Soviets many years earlier. He has been living in retirement in Moscow. Now he’s vanished and both Cowley and the KGB think he’s returned to England. Why would he do something so stupid? Cowley doesn’t know but gradually an awful suspicion forms in his mind. The other problem is that England is full of elderly spies who believe that Darby betrayed them. They might be inclined to look for revenge. CI5 have to find Darby before he’s found by the KGB or by a bunch of geriatric British ex-spies.

It’s a solid spy story with the stirring up of ancient scandals and hatreds and some emotional dramas to add interest. It benefits from a great performance by Robert Urquhart as the rather sympathetic Darby, a man who still sincerely believes that his actions were justified. An episode with some psychological and moral complexities and there’s plenty of action as well. Great stuff.

Blind Run starts with Bodie and Doyle being given a mysterious mission. They have to escort a visiting diplomat but they have to do it unofficially. Cowley tells them they’re on their own, they can expect no backup and that officially the mission will never have happened. From that point on it’s a constant succession of car and boat chases, sieges and shoot-outs. And a constant succession of double-crosses and deceptions. This episode combines copious quantities of extremely well-staged action with a lot of cynicism. Excellent stuff.

Fall Girl is very cynical stuff. Somebody is trying to assassinate an East German diplomat and they intend to frame Bodie. Cowley has a fair idea of what’s going on but he’s going to have a tough job getting Bodie out of this. The trouble starts when Bodie runs into an old flame, who happens to be an East German actress who may or may not be a spy. Bodie spends most of the episode on the run. This is an episode in which the British are very much the bad guys. A great season-ender.

Final Thoughts

The second season starts a little bit unevenly but finishes very strongly indeed. Maybe not the best British spy series ever but certainly the most action-packed. On the whole it’s great stuff and highly recommended.

Danger Man, the final season (1967)

By 1967 Danger Man (or Secret Agent as it was retitled in the US) had made Patrick McGoohan the highest paid actor on British television. McGoohan however was anxious to do something more ambitious and after only two episodes of the final season were shot he persuaded Lew Grade to allow him to make The Prisoner. There are many who believe that the character McGoohan played in The Prisoner was in fact John Drake, the hero of Danger Man, and that The Prisoner is a kind of surreal coda to Danger Man.

Those final two episodes, Koroshi and Shinda Shima, were the first to be shot in colour and both were set in Japan (and captured the Japanese flavour quite well with imaginative sets and judicious use of stock footage). I don’t think it was exactly an accident that Japan was chosen as a setting. At the time the final season of Danger Man was in production the fifth Bond movie, You Only Live Twice, was about to be released and of course it was set in Japan.

In fact, to make the most out of this amazing coincidence those final two episodes were spliced together into a feature-length film under the title Koroshi.

It’s important to remember that these two Danger Man episodes were filmed before You Only Live Twice was released so although the Bond movie influence is obvious they cannot really be accused of ripping off You Only Live Twice.

The Bond connection is interesting since John Drake is both very Bondian and is also at the same time a kind of anti-Bond (McGoohan in fact was offered the part of Bond but turned it down because as a conservative Catholic he considered it to be morally dubious). Drake is just as cool as Bond, but MGoohan insisted that the character should only resort to violence when it was absolutely necessary and also insisted that he should not jump into bed with any of the glamorous dangerous women he encountered.

Danger Man is therefore Bond without the gratuitous sex and violence and with a more cerebral feel and a bit more cynicism and moral ambiguity (there are times when Drake is very uncomfortable with the things he had to do). Both the original 1960 half-hour series and the later one-hour series (which lasted from 1964 to 1967) manage to be some of the most intelligent and enthralling spy television ever made. With the violence kept to a minimum the series has to rely on good writing and fortunately the scripts are generally excellent and often quite complex. And of course McGoohan’s considerable acting ability (and undoubted star power) helps a great deal.

Apart from the Japanese setting the 1967 season was clearly intended to be more overtly Bondian. Bringing in Peter Yates (later to establish himself as one of the greatest action movie directors of all time with movies like Robbery and Bullitt) as a director was a pretty strong indication of this.

The fact that McGoohan bailed out after just two episodes of the final season may be an indication that he disapproved of the Bond movie feel that had started to creep in although it’s also likely that he was simply desperately anxious to get started on The Prisoner. Quitting a hit series in this manner is the sort of thing an actor would not normally get away with but Lew Grade, the boss of ITC, had immense faith in McGoohan and when Lew Grade had faith in someone he was prepared to allow them an astonishing amount of leeway. When McGoohan later moved to America he would learn a bitter lesson – US networks were nowhere near as tolerant of such things as Lew Grade.

Obviously ITC had only a fraction of the budget that a Bond movie would have had but by the standards of 1960s television Danger Man was an expensive series and these two episodes boast some very impressive sets (secret underground headquarters and that sort of thing) and very high production values. They look very slick. And of course there are lots of gadgets.

Koroshi begins with a clever murder, of a Japanese girl in Tokyo. Ako Nakamura is (or rather was) an agent with M9, the British intelligence agency for which John Drake works. Her final message was crucially important and Drake is sent to Japan to find out what happened to her. He finds that her apartment is now occupied by an English girl named Rosemary. Maybe Rosemary can help him. Maybe he can trust Rosemary. Maybe.

She does lead him to Sanders (Ronald Howard), an Englishman with a deep knowledge of and love for Japanese culture. Sanders introduces Drake to the world of kabuki. Sanders is particularly fond of the koroshi or murder scene. He loves the poetry of death. Drake will very nearly experience the poetry of death, not once but twice.

The murder (and attempted murder) scenes are imaginatively and the fight among the kabuki costumes is especially good.

Drake has stumbled upon a very ancient Japanese equivalent of Murder Incorporated, suppressed centuries earlier but now apparently revived.

Shinda Shima opens with another Bond movie reference, this time to Thunderball, with an underwater action scene. Koroshi and Shinda Shima do not exactly constitute a two-part episode but they can be considered to be linked episodes although the link is not obvious at first. And Shinda Shima is even more Bondian than Koroshi.

Drake is on the trail of Edwards, a British electronic experiment who has sold out. He hasn’t sold out to the Soviets but to an international criminal organisation. They want Edwards to break a top-secret code for them. Drake poses as Edwards to infiltrate the organisation. This episode has a diabolical criminal mastermind and a beautiful dangerous woman (played by Yôko Tani who played a lot of similar rôles at this time).

There’s plenty of action and (by Danger Man standards) lots of fight scenes. Much of Shinda Shima takes place on the tiny island of that name (it means the Murdered Island). Just the sort of island an international criminal organisation would choose as its secret headquarters.

Watching these two episodes offers us a fascinating glimpse of what Danger Man might have become has McGoohan been prepared to finish the season. It seems likely that it would not have been to McGoohan’s tastes but it might have meant Danger Man breaking through in the US in a much bigger way, possibly even to the same extent that The Avengers broke through in the same year. 1967 might have been the year that British spy series cracked the US market wide open, offering the kinds of stylish thrills that American series such as Mission: Impossible were offering but with a distinctive British flavour. In retrospect maybe Lew Grade should have tried harder to persuade McGoohan to complete the final season of Danger Man. On the other hand the 1965-66 final black-and-white season of Danger Man probably provides a better lead-in to The Prisoner so perhaps McGoohan’s instincts were right. And McGoohan may have been right in not wanting John Drake to turn into James Bond.

So Koroshi and Shinda Shima remain as tantalising glimpses of a television might-have-been. And they’re pretty entertaining as well.

Thriller – Nightmare for a Nightingale, Dial a Deadly Number, Kill Two Birds (1976)

Brian Clemens’ celebrated Thriller anthology series ran from 1973 to 1976. 

The general consensus is that Thriller was starting to run out of steam by the sixth season. I thought the first couple of sixth season episodes, Sleepwalker and The Next Victim (which I reviewed here) were actually not too bad.

Here are three more season six episodes, which went to air in Britain in April and May of 1976.

Nightmare for a Nightingale

Nightmare for a Nightingale concerns opera singer Anna Cartell (Susan Flannery) who has a problem with her husband. He died eleven years earlier but now he’s back and he has blackmail on his mind. Tony Risanti (Keith Baxter) was a failed singer and a failed gambler and also a failed husband and his failure to stay dead is very awkward since Anna is about to remarry. She’s going to marry a fast-rising American politician, Hal Bridie (Stuart Damon from The Champions). The scandal that Tony threatens to cause could destroy Hal’s career.

What’s really annoying about Tony is that killing him never seems to do any good. He keeps dying and he keeps coming back. Anna is starting to go to pieces because she may have been responsible for one of his deaths. Her crackup is a problem for her devoted agent Sam (Sydney Tafler) and her publicist Giles (Ronald Leigh-Hunt), especially because she won’t tell anyone why she is cracking up.

The carnations are the last straw. Tony always sent her carnations. He’s still sending them.

Anna has no idea what is going on and the script does a reasonably good job of keeping the audience guessing as well. There are several plausible possibilities. We’re also not quite sure just how serious Anna’s mental state is.

Susan Flannery is quite adequate as Anna.

Stuart Damon (always an underrated actor) is very good as Hal, who really seems like the sort of guy Anna needs. And maybe he is. Being an American means Damon doesn’t have to bother with a fake American accent or exaggerated American mannerisms. Damon was quite capable of flamboyant acting if that’s what a particular rôle called for but here he goes for an effectively low-key performance. We’re pretty sure Hal is a nice guy but this is Thriller so of course we can’t be sure – we can’t be sure about any of the characters.

Sydney Tafler is excellent. Tafler was another underrated actor who could handle serious or comic rôles with equal facility. He plays Sam as a bit of a protective father figure. Ronald Leigh-Hunt does a good job as the cynical GiIes, a man who sees Anna as nothing more than a source of money.

Keith Baxter tries a bit too hard as Tony. Tony certainly comes across as sleazy and malevolent but a bit too much like a cheap hood from a gangster movie.

There’s plenty of paranoia, there are hints of madness and there’s some genuine menace.

It’s not one of the great Thriller episodes but it’s acceptable entertainment.

Dial a Deadly Number

Dave Adams (Gary Collins) is an out-of-work flat broke American actor who just cannot admit that his career is going nowhere. He is running out of people from whom to borrow money. Then fate intervenes. He gets a telephone call. It’s a wrong number but it could be his lucky break. The caller is a woman who was trying to reach a psychiatrist. Helen Curry (Gemma Jones) is having terrifying dreams and thinks she’s losing her mind.

Dave decides to take a chance. He pretends to be the psychiatrist and he goes to see the woman. She is obviously rich. To Dave it is obvious that she’s just spoilt and a bit neurotic. Posing as the psychiatrist (and telling her that she’s going to need lots of consultations) means he could be on to a goldmine. And since she’s obviously just spoilt and neurotic it’s not like he’s going to be doing any real harm.

And posing as a psychiatrist is kind of fun. It’s like an acting job.

What could possibly go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out.

Initially everything goes smoothly. Dave does some quick reading up on the subject and figures there’s nothing to this psychiatry lark. It’s just so easy. And Helen actually seems to grow a bit calmer. As a bonus there’s Helen’s sister Ann who lives with her and Dave takes the opportunity to do some romancing of Ann.

Then Dave notices the hat. And starts to wonder. But he’s grown over-confident and there’s so much money to be made from fleecing Helen. He can’t just walk away from a goldmine.

The problem with this episode is that what’s really going on is very obvious. Brian Clemens wrote some great TV scripts but he wrote some lazy scripts as well, scripts that are just recyclings of old ideas without any flashes of originality. This is one of his weakest efforts.

On the plus side it’s very well executed. Even though we know what’s coming director Ian Fordyce still builds the suspense quite effectively. The secret to effective suspense is that it doesn’t matter if the audience knows exactly what’s coming next – that can even enhance the suspense if the director knows what he’s doing. Of course it helps if there are a few surprises along the way and sadly that isn’t the case here.

Thriller was made for ITC and Lew Grade was obsessed by the idea that every series had to have American actors. In this case it works satisfactorily since Gary Collins is absolutely perfect as the charming conman Dave. Gemma Jones gives off all the right crazy person vibes.

And there’s plenty of creepiness.

So overall it’s a lame screenplay that is to some extent redeemed by a good director and good acting. It is however a sign that Brian Clemens was starting to run seriously short on ideas.

Kill Two Birds

Charlie Draper has just been released from prison and he’s pretty happy since he has the proceeds of his last robbery safely stashed away. He’s now a rich man. His happiness is however short-lived. A particularly vicious gangster named Gadder wants that money. Gadder has already killed one of Charlie’s old buddies and he doesn’t care how many more people he has to kill to get that money. Gadder likes hurting people and he likes killing people and his goons like hurting people as well.

Charlie is on the run from Gadder and the only place he can think of where he might be safe is with his brother Sammy. Sammy runs a gas station and diner in Dorset. This is where two passing American tourists, Sally and Tracy, get mixed up in the story. Along with Sammy and his wife and a drifter named Farrow they’re held hostage by Gadder and his goons who are waiting for Charlie to show up.

The police have a pretty fair idea that someone is after Charlie and they have a few leads but the question is whether Gadder will get to Charlie before the police can.

The most noteworthy thing about this episode is the cast. There’s a pre-stardom Bob Hoskins as Sammy. There’s Susan Hampshire as Sally. She was a very very big star on British television at the time and while she’s best known for costume dramas she appeared in a number of productions of interest to cult TV fans such as the very good 1962 science fiction series The Andromeda Breakthrough and the science fiction TV movie Baffled (in which she co-starred with Leonard Nimoy). There’s Dudley Sutton as Gadder. Sutton made quite a career at this time playing memorable psychopathic heavies. And there’s Gabrielle Drake from UFO as Tracy. David Daker is very good as Charlie but it’s the performance of Dudley Sutton that really stands out.

As I mentioned earlier it was customary for Thriller episodes to have at least one American star. For this episode there must have been no Americans available so somebody came up with the bright idea of having Susan Hampshire and Gabrielle Drake play Americans! Miss Hampshire keeps her American accent low-key but Miss Drake goes totally over-the-top. There is absolutely zero reason for them to be playing Americans and both actresses would have been a lot more relaxed and a lot more effective just playing Englishwomen from London taking a holiday in the country.

This is a straightforward crime thriller, with some touches of the violence and sadism that was starting to become a feature of British cop shows at this time (this episode went to air in 1976). The tone of this episode is rather reminiscent of The Sweeney, but with slower pacing, less action and a lot more suspense. The twist at the end is clever and it’s also the sort of thing that you’d expect in The Sweeney.

It’s not at all a typical Thriller episode (this is a series that very rarely dealt with professional criminals) but with a very good Brian Clemens script this time and fine direction from Robert Tronson Kill Two Birds surprisingly works very well indeed. It’s hard-edged and very suspenseful and has a nice sting in the tail.

Final Thoughts

Season six is obviously turning out to be wildly uneven. Nightmare for a Nightingale is pretty good, Dial a Deadly Number is a misfire and Kill Two Birds is excellent.

Danger Man: Storm Over Rockall (TV tie-in novel)

One of my more recent enthusiasms has been chasing down the various tie-in novels that were produced to accompany TV series. My latest find has been the third of the six Danger Man tie-in novels, W. Howard Baker’s Storm Over Rockall (published in 1966). Which is pretty exciting given that Danger Man (or Secret Agent as it was known in the US) is in my view one of the best TV spy series of all time.

These TV tie-in novels started to become a big thing in the 60s. One of the things that is interesting about them is that they often have a subtly different flavour compared to the TV series on which they’re based. In a novel of course you could get away with a bit more sex and violence but there are often other differences. The producers of a TV series were subject to a lot of pressure from the networks in the US. Even a British series could be affected by American pressure if you wanted to have a chance of selling it there. Return of the Saint was a good example of a British series that had to be made much less violent than originally intended as a result of such considerations.

The writers of TV tie-in novels had by contrast a greater degree of freedom. The result was that the novels were sometime closer to the tone that the producers originally intended the series to have. A notable example is Michael Avallone’s The Birds of a Feather Affair, the first tie-in novel based on The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., a series that suffered from pressure from the network to make it zanier and more light-hearted. Compared to the series Avallone’s rather good novel is much darker and more hard-edged.

The trick of course was to make use of this greater freedom while still capturing the essential feel of the TV series.

Storm Over Rockall is an original novel but some similar ideas were used in the TV episode Not So Jolly Roger (which happens to be an excellent episode).

Someone is trying to sabotage a British rocket program known as Phase Y. It could the Russians. Interestingly the British intelligence services seriously consider the possibility that it could be the Americans. That’s an interesting difference from the TV version. ITC were keen to sell the series in the US so such a suggestion would have been unthinkable in the TV series.

All that is known is that a pirate radio station is broadcasting coded messages in the form of music. The messages are believed to relate to the acts of sabotage and also to anti-nuclear protests. Those protests may well be organised by the same people carrying out the sabotage. Pirate radio stations, usually broadcasting from ships anchored just outside British territorial waters, were a big thing in Britain in the 60s and were a way of circumventing the BBC’s monopoly. They provide ideal background for spy fiction.

John Drake is sent to find out what exactly is going on and to neutralise the problem, by any means necessary. Including assassination. This is another interesting contrast to the TV series in which Drake is a man who only resorts to violence when there is no alternative. Drake’s reluctance to use violence was something that the star of the series, Patrick McGoohan (a man of very strong moral views) insisted upon. The novel in this case may be closer to the original conception of the character as a “licensed-to-kill” James Bond type of figure.

It’s also intriguing that in this novel Drake is used on missions that officially don’t happen. If something goes wrong the British government has plausible deniability. They will disavow any knowledge of his activities. In the original 1960 TV series Drake’s position was also slightly ambiguous (in fact even his nationality was slightly ambiguous).

Drake has one important lead which takes him to a discotheque called The Deeper Dive. He slowly puts the pieces of the puzzle together. In the process he gets a number of beatings for his trouble and has the requisite number of narrow escapes from certain death. As expected the trail eventually leads him to the pirate radio station and we get some mayhem on the high seas.

The ending is very Bondian indeed. Patrick McGoohan would not have approved.

This is very much second-tier spy fiction. W. Howard Baker is no Len Deighton. It is however a reasonably competent espionage tale. Obviously it’s going to appeal mostly to fans of the TV series who should enjoy its glimpses of a slightly more ruthless John Drake. So if you are a Danger Man fan it’s recommended.

The Human Jungle, season one (1963)

The Human Jungle is an intriguing drama series made by Britain’s ABC Television which ran for two seasons in 1963 and 1964. It follows the case histories of psychiatrist Dr Roger Corder (Herbert Lom). Psychiatry was a popular subject for movies from the 40s to the 60s but those movies almost invariably dealt with crazy and/or evil psychiatrists. Making a TV series about a skilful and dedicated psychiatrist was an ambitious idea and rather risky. It could easily have been dull or preachy or excessively contrived.

Herbert Lom is one of my all-time favourite actors and this was a rare opportunity for him to play a serious rôle as an entirely sympathetic character. Most of his serious rôles were as villains, cads, losers or otherwise sinister creepy characters.

The obvious temptations for such a series would have been to focus on stories related in some way to crime (in other words to make it a series about a psychiatrist crime-solver) and to focus on patients with severe and spectacular mental illnesses. Some of the stories do deal with such matters. Some deal with more everyday problems, but in an interesting way.

There are stories that involve the possibility of crime, either a crime that has been committed or might be about to be committed. Because it’s not actually a crime series you can’t be sure that there really is a crime, which makes things more interesting.The slightly unconventional nature of the series make it intriguingly unpredictable.

A series about a psychiatrist could hardly ignore the subject of sex, and in 1963 that meant having to walk on eggshells. The Human Jungle does confront this subject occasionally, and on the whole does so reasonably well.

It was an expensive and rather ambitious series. It was shot on film with hopes of making some inroads into the U.S. market and it was in fact syndicated in America.

Critics mostly disliked it, finding the stories to be somewhat unlikely and contrived. To some extent this is accurate but then the series was intended as entertainment and some melodrama had to be added. Had Dr Corder just stayed in his consulting rooms talking to patients the results would have been deadly dull so it was necessary to have him out and about getting involved in the lives of his patients. This is a bit unrealistic and melodramatic (and may be one of the reasons actual psychiatrists seemed to dislike the series) but it makes for much better television drama.

To some extent the series was always going to have to be somewhat contrived if they were to have some happy endings. The Human Jungle is not afraid to have some downbeat endings but they didn’t want to do this too often. No-one is going to want to watch a TV program about a psychiatrist if all of his patients end up killing themselves, in prison or on Skid Row.

Whatever critics may have thought of it the series gradually built a strong following with the viewing public over the course of its first season. In commercial terms it was a definite success and a second season was commissioned.

The other regular cast members are Michael Johnson as Corder’s young assistant Dr Jimmy Davis and Sally Smith as Corder’s teenaged daughter Jennifer (Dr Corder is a widower). Jennifer is fiery and she and her father squabble at times but on the whole their relationship is affectionate. She’s just a normal teenager.

Mary Yeomans appears in most episodes as Dr Corder’s secretary and Mary Steele appears in half a dozen episodes as therapist Jane Harris but most of the stories revolve around Dr Corder, Dr Davis and Jennifer Corder.

Network have released the complete series (two seasons) on DVD and it looks great.

Episode Guide

In the opening episode, The Vacant Chair, Dr Corder has been hired by a large industrial conglomerate to help them choose a new managing director for one of their key companies. The two candidates for the job represent wildly different approaches to management. Basil Phillips is a hard-driving autocrat with no apparent scruples. Geoffrey Hunter is a conciliator and a team player. Dr Corder interviews the two men’s families and colleagues and finds himself in a hair-raising world of backstabbing, deceit and all-round chicanery. Dr Corder’s daughter goes on a date with Geoffrey Hunter’s son, and gets rude awakening herself. At the same time Dr Corder is trying to deal with a difficult case involving a withdrawn and possibly suicidal young boy. There’s not much plot to speak of. The focus is entirely on personalities and interpersonal dynamics. Those interpersonal dynamics are rather entertaining. And the reasons for Dr Corder’s recommendation is interesting. Not a bad start to the series.

The Flip Side Man is pop singer Danny Pace (played by real-life pop singer Jess Conrad whose performance is actually pretty good) and his problem is that he’s being followed about by his double. This double of course exists only in his mind, but why? Corder is certainly worried by this case. Apart from seeing his double Danny is nervous and irritable. And he does not want to talk to a psychiatrist. There’s some suspense at the end as matters reach a crisis. A good episode.

In Run with the Devil a man wants Dr Corder’s help because he’s worried that it might be possible for a man to do something wrong without knowing it. Which immediately worries the doctor. The man is deeply religious and appears to have lost the use of his right arm although there’s nothing physically wrong with it. It’s the man’s wife that Dr Corder is worried about. It’s obvious that the man is troubled by guilt but also by issues with sex. This being 1963 the series has to tread carefully when it comes to sex but it makes its point clearly enough. It also manages to avoid being too anxious to leap to judgments. A good episode.

Thin Ice involves rising 14-year-old ice skating star Verity Clarke. After a very minor accident in which she sustained no permanent injury she can no longer skate and Roger Corder has to find out why. He has to find the psychological block that has destroyed her confidence. Perhaps she just can’t handle the pressure but that doesn’t quite seem to fit. There are no crimes in this story, or at least not in the usual sense. Quite a decent story.

The Lost Hours is a kind of detective story. There’s no crime but there is a mystery that has to be solved.  Dr Corder has to do some detecting, even going so far as to shadow a patient. It begins when Julia Gray freaks out at a party and accuses her husband Henry of seeing another woman. She then tries to kill herself. It turns out that she is obsessed by this idea. It’s clear the poor woman is suffering from a delusion. Or is she? It all hinges on those lost hours in her husband’s life. Dr Corder is not sure if she should be treating the wife or the husband. A very clever story.

A Friend of the Sergeant Major is over-the-top melodrama. It takes place in a British army base in Germany. Sergeant Major Bennett (a career soldier with a fine record but with an interesting past) is put on a charge for smashing up a bar. He has only six weeks to go before retirement and now faces the prospect of a dishonourable discharge. Dr Corder is brought in as an expert witness as the defence relies on proving that Bennett’s commanding officer is a paranoiac. Corder starts to suspect that he is being used by the army in a cynical public relations exercise. In fact there’s much more to the story which takes some surprising (and outrageous) twists. It’s an interesting case study of two flawed men. There’s a fine performance by Alfred Burke as the Sergeant Major. 

We also get some of Dr Corder’s backstory. He had been a British Army psychiatrist during the Second World War. When it comes to matters of army discipline and the ethics of the psychiatric profession I’m sure it’s all ludicrously unrealistic but it is original and entertaining.

In 14 Ghosts the wife of a High Court judge is arrested for shoplifting. She obviously doesn’t need to steal a scarf worth a few shillings. Dr Davis happens to be friends with the woman’s son-in-law and suggests that Dr Corder could help. Corder finds it’s a complicated family drama and as in The Lost Hours it’s by no means certain which member of the family has the real problem. A good episode.

Fine Feathers deals with a young couple living way beyond their means. The wife, Penny, has not only landed herself hopelessly in debt but in trouble with the police. Dr Corder has to find out why Penny feels compelled to present a front of genteel high living, and why she is so riddled with guilt and shame. A pretty good story of someone who has constructed a false identity for herself.

The Wall presents Dr Corder with six patients for the price of one. Young Jan Zapotski is arrested for throwing bottles at a window but the police can’t do anything – he was on his own property throwing bottles at his ow window. Dr Corder has to find out why. This means he has to find out what is going on with Jan’s wife Rita and with Jan’s parents and with Rita’s parents, all of whom live in the same house. This is a clash of cultures. The Zapotskis are Polish Jews and they want to live the way they did in the old country while Jan and Rita just want to be an ordinary English married couple. They’re all really nice people and they all want what is best for each other but Rita is going slowly crazy and Jan is going noisily crazy. This story features some actual psychiatric stuff – word association, dream interpretation, group therapy sessions, etc. It’s also a rather light-hearted episode, at times almost farcical. It’s a good change of pace and it’s amusing and entertaining.

A Woman with Scars presents Dr Corder with a patient who is every psychiatrist’s nightmare – a woman who makes a false allegation against him. She’s an MP’s wife and she really is out to get him. Dr Corder’s problem is that obviously he wants to defend himself but he is more worried about her mental state. His unwillingness to take the gloves off in a court case could cost him his career. A tricky story to deal with since it involves sex but a good episode that tries to be nuanced.

Time-Check is wildly far-fetched but it is clever. It involves a burglar who only burgles houses with gables, and is obsessed with clocks. Especially clocks that don’t work. By now we’re discovering that Dr Corder is extraordinarily stubborn when he thinks a matter of professional ethics is involved, even if this means risking trouble with the police. A good episode.

The Two Edged Sword presents us with two different stories. The stories are unconnected but as both stories develop it gradually becomes apparent that there are a couple of very important common themes. There’s a married woman who wants to put her baby up for adoption, and another married woman who is afraid of something but she’s not quite sure what it is. In this episode for the first time we see Dr Corder using hypnosis. A fine episode which deals with differing kinds of anxieties and does so quite sensitively.

Over and Out involves a mystery that has to be solved. An experimental aircraft crashes on a test flight. At this stage there’s no certainty as to whether it was a mechanical failure or pilot error. The pilot survived but is delirious and has no memory of the crash. The aircraft company hires Dr Corder. They very much hope he will prove that the pilot was suffering from some kind of mental problem which caused the accident – If he doesn’t then the company may have to cancel the test program and may lose a huge contract. There’s evidence that might point to the pilot’s having deliberately crashed the aircraft but the evidence is ambiguous to say the least. As Dr Corder discovers new facts the whole affair becomes even murkier. The ending is melodramatic but very tense and the viewer has no idea what the actual solution to the puzzle is going to be. A very goos season finale episode.

Final Thoughts

The Human Jungle sometimes stretches credibility just a little but on the whole it’s fine human drama and very entertaining. It’s melodramatic, but in a good way, and Herbert Lom is terrific. Sally Smith adds a much-needed touch of lightness as his exuberant but devoted daughter Jennifer. Highly recommended.

Return of the Saint (1978-79), part two

Return of the Saint was a bold and surprisingly successful attempt by ITC to revive the Saint TV franchise. It was hated by critics and extremely popular with viewers but alas by this time Lew Grade was obsessed with the idea of making movies and he saw this series as an obstacle to that ambition. It was certainly a costly series to make, with quite a bit of location shooting. It was in fact a good example of the strength of the approach that Grade had adopted right from the beginning – if you want to have a chance of cracking the US market you have to make series that are every bit as polished and visually exciting as the best American series and Return of the Saint was very polished indeed.

But Lew Grade wasn’t interested and the series, despite its success (it was sold to 73 countries), was cancelled after a single season. It became the last in a long line of ITC series with great potential (such as Department S and The Champions) to suffer undeserved premature cancellation. It was a victim of Grade’s ill-advised obsession with the idea of becoming a movie mogul. Return of the Saint was an expensive series and Grade by that time resented spending money on a TV series.

It was always obvious that Return of the Saint was going to have to offer more action and more violence than the original Saint series. British television had changed dramatically in the mid-70s, that change being spearheaded by The Sweeney. It was the same challenge that faced Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens when they revived The Avengers – how to up the ante in action and violence without losing the essential flavour of the original series. Surprisingly both The New Avengers and Return of the Saint managed to do this reasonably successfully. 

It is however always obvious that a precarious balancing act was going on and this was complicated by pressure from the US to keep the violence to a minimum. Compared to other contemporary British series Return of the Saint is just a little tame. On the other hand that may have contributed to its popularity – it may have appealed to viewers nostalgic for a slightly more innocent era of British television. When viewed today it comes across as an intriguing mix of 1960s and 1970s sensibilities.

At the time it seemed like a good idea to mix in a few harder-edged topical stories dealing with subjects like terrorism. Personally I think the more old-fashioned episodes in the style of the original series have aged better, but in commercial terms it undoubtedly was a good idea to try to give the series something of an up-to-date flavour.

With Return of the Saint ITC faced one incredibly daunting problem – finding someone capable of playing the rôle. Simon Templar is no ordinary hero, and he cannot under any circumstances be played that way. He has to have charm and wit, he has to have massive quantities of self-confidence, he has to have boyish enthusiasm. He has to be a man of action, but with a subtle and devious mind. He has to have a sense of fun and a sense of humour. He must be irresistible to the female of the species, but with a genuine affection for, and respect for, women. He has to be reckless. He has to be whimsical. Simon Templar is a man of the world, with the soul of an overgrown schoolboy.

Roger Moore qualified on all counts but where on earth were they going to find a younger actor with all those qualities, and with the necessary charisma? Amazingly enough, in Ian Ogilvy, they found that actor. Not quite as overflowing with charisma, but the first time you see him you have the same reaction that Roger Moore provoked – you think yes, that’s Simon Templar.

If you’re going to bring the Saint to the screen (whether it’s the big screen or the small screen) it has to be done with style. Everything Simon Templar does he does with style and a TV adaptation has to reflect this. This series does pretty well on that count. One slight problem is that this version of the Saint goes perilously close to being a 70s fashion victim. Ian Ogilvy felt, quite correctly, that a more conservative classic look would have worked better. Up-to-date fashions tend to date a series very quickly.

Curiously enough the series was originally planned as The Son of the Saint, with Ogilvy playing Simon Templar Jr.

This series differs from its predecessor in one very obvious way – it features a good deal of location shooting in some of the more glamorous parts of Europe.

Overall Return of the Saint is not quite as perfect as its predecessor. Its biggest fault is that it makes Simon Templar much too law-abiding and much too friendly with the police. This was a flaw with the original series but it’s even more evident in Return of the Saint. The essence of the character is that for all the good deeds he performs he is still a rogue and a thief and quite ruthless and he does not like policemen. If you try to make him too virtuous he becomes just another generic hero. The series also makes him just a bit too much of an Establishment figure. Not enough of an outsider. And Simon Templar should be an outsider. He’s not supposed to be a gentleman, even if he can easily pass as one.

On the plus side there are some very good scripts, including no less than eight by John Kruse. Kruse was a great TV writer, he’d written several episodes of the original Saint series (including the wonderful The Ex-King of Diamonds) and even the notoriously hard-to-please Leslie Charteris liked Kruse’s scripts.

Despite some problems Return of the Saint is still a very entertaining series.

Network’s complete series DVD set includes a number of audio commentaries featuring Ian Ogilvy and others associated with the series.

Episode Guide

The Armageddon Alternative is pretty outrageous. Terrorism was a big deal in the 70s so it was inevitable that this series would deal with the subject. A crazed scientist has built his own atom bomb and he’s going to use it to blow London off the map if his demands are not met. And what are his demands? He wants the government to publicly execute a young lady. Not just any young lady, but a beautiful young sculptress. And he doesn’t just want her executed – he wants her to be publicly guillotined! Like I said, it’s pretty outrageous. Simon Templar has been used by the terrorist to convey his demands to the government. Simon of course has no intention of allowing anyone to be executed, and certainly not someone as gorgeous as Lynn Jackson (played by Anouska Hempel). A good tense race-against-time plot although if you’re paying close attention the ending won’t surprise you. Still lots of fun.

The Imprudent Professor starts in interesting fashion. A maverick scientist is announcing a major scientific breakthrough when Simon Templar leaps up claiming to be one of the professor’s students from whom the professor stole his new theory. Simon is obviously up to something but what on earth is it? Simon has to deal with two formidable women, the professor’s daughter (played by Susan Penhaligon) and the glamorous but clearly dangerous Samantha (Catherine Schell), who runs Genius Inc. Lots of location shooting in France, plus a car chase, a boat chase and a helicopter chase and some decent fight scenes. An extremely good action-packed episode with some decent plot twists.

Signal Stop is a much more characteristically Saintly episode, written by John Kruse. Kruse was an excellent writer who also contributed episodes to the original Saint series so he knew what was required. Simon is on a train when a young woman named Janie pulls the emergency stop cord. From the train she has seen a man killed by being hurled through a window of a building. When the police arrive there is no trace of any crime and no broken window. And Janie has a psychiatric history. It’s clear to the police that it’s just a crazy woman seeing things. It’s not so clear to Simon Templar. He knows that crime has a habit of following him around, and besides that Janie doesn’t seem crazy. So he starts poking about and discovers some interesting things. Some very interesting things, which involve motorcycles, a god of lust and a wrecking yard. Of course the police make it clear that they don’t want Simon’s help but when has Simon ever taken any notice of policemen?

A very good episode that takes the established Saint formula and adds a few edgy touches to make it more suitable for the tastes of the late 70s.

The Roman Touch is another episode with an authentically Saintly flavour. In Rome Simon runs into an old friend, a pop singer who’s just had a string of hit records and is on top of the world. At least she should be, but she isn’t. She’s in debt up to her eyeballs and she’s taking way too many pills. She’s stuck in a contract that is bleeding her dry and there’s no escape. But of course the Saint does not accept this. Finding a way to get people (especially pretty girls) out of impossible predicaments is what he does. Some good location shooting in this one and a guest starring turn by Linda Thorson. Yes, Tara King, but this time she’s not Tara King but a ruthless tough as nails manager. One interesting thing about this episode is that we see the Saint doing actual criminal things, for a good cause naturally, but intending to profit personally as well. Which is the sort of thing that the Saint does in Leslie Charteris’s story but the 1960s series was always careful to obscure such disreputable details. A good episode.

Tower Bridge Is Falling Down is an excellent story of conning a con man, which is the sort of thing the Saint loves to do. And it is a deliciously neat if rather outrageous con. An excellent episode.

The Debt Collectors begins when Simon saves a damsel in distress – her horse has  bolted. This draws Simon into a strange family drama involving two sisters and it turns out to be a spy drama. With some very neat twists. This episode is also interesting in that Simon gets mixed up with MI5 and he doesn’t like them at all – it’s a welcome touch of authentic Saintly dislike of authority. A very good episode.

Collision Course is a two-parter (the first part is The Brave Goose and the second is The Sixth Man) written by John Kruse. Simon is participating in a power boat race. One of the other competitors, Oscar West, is killed. Simon knows it was no accident but he has his reasons for wanting to keep that information to himself. Oscar’s widow Annabelle disliked her husband but at least she will get his money. Except that he apparently had none, despite his lavish lifestyle. All she gets is a yacht that she didn’t even know he owned. And she’s now in a lot of trouble with some very unpleasant people who have reasons of their own for not believing that Oscar died penniless. The Saint is very interested in all of this and wants to help her, and perhaps help himself.

Some interesting guest stars in this one – Stratford Johns as a too-friendly French gentleman farmer and a disturbingly stout Derren Nesbitt as a French policeman, both doing outrageous French accents.

There’s murder on the ski slopes in Hot Run. Simon is always interested in the subject of murder and he’s especially interested when the victim has a very cute sister. When he discovers that there’s a heist involved and it’s being organised by another glamorous female his interest is even more intense. Tony Williamson was one of the best TV writers of that era and he provides a fairly clever plot. The heist includes some quite ingenious elements. Peter Sasdy directed and there’s some very good stunt work. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable episode.

Murder Cartel deals, as the title suggests, with an international organisation specialising in assassinations. The CIA needs Simon’s help since they have a massive security leak within the agency so Simon goes undercover as a cold-blooded hitman. Some interesting guest stars in this one – Helmut Berger (a very very big star in Europe at the time) and the rather underrated Britt Ekland. These types of episodes were hampered a little by the American insistence on minimising the violence levels so it doesn’t have quite the impact it should but it’s a pretty good story and the location shooting (in Rome) is a bonus.

In The Obono Affair Simon, very reluctantly, agrees to help an African dictator named Obono. Obono as been the target of many assassination attempts and now his son has been kidnapped. This is one of the episodes shot entirely in Britain. It’s also one of the episodes that might have benefited from being given a slightly harder edge, and would certainly have been improved had Simon been allowed to be less of a Boy Scout. Still, there are some decent plot twists.

Vicious Circle begins with the murder of Simon’s old friend Roberto Lucci, an ex-racing car driver. Roberto’s widow Renata (Elsa Martinelli) is a rich fashion designer and a possible suspect. This is a classic murder mystery plot with some genuine surprises and some good misdirection plus nice location shooting in Italy and it has a nice atmosphere of glamour with a touch of decadence. A very good episode.

Simon’s bad luck with friends continues in Dragonseed, another instalment filmed in Italy. This time it’s Leo, the son and heir of billionaire industrialist Domenico Cavalcanti. Leo is in a helicopter which gets blown up. There’s some doubt as to whether Domenico or Leo was the intended target. Domenico is a pretty shady businessman so there are plenty of people who might want him dead. The plot of this one isn’t too difficult to figure out but it has plenty of action, it looks great and it’s executed with style.

In Appointment in Florence Simon loses yet another friend. I’m surprised anyone wants to be Simon’s friend – it’s pretty much a death sentence. This is another terrorism story and I have mixed feelings about these episodes. They’re a bit too serious to feel like authentic Saint adventures. This one does however boast a script by Philip Broadley who was a pretty decent writer. Simon is hunting a a Red Brigades splinter group and the trail takes him from a ski resort to Florence. A decent enough episode.

You’ll be amazed to hear that The Diplomat’s Daughter begins with Simon meeting a beautiful woman. She’s Marie de la Garde and she’s the daughter of an ambassador. And of course someone is trying to kill her. It seems her irresponsible brother has landed himself in very deep trouble and that could put her in real danger. Michael Pertwee’s well-constructed script makes good use of Simon’s reputation (you’ll find out what I mean when you watch it). A very good episode to close out the series.

Final Thoughts

This was the end of the line for ITC’s action-adventure series (and in fact the end of the line for the classic British action-adventure series. British television had decided that the public no longer wanted such programs. They were probably wrong about this. Return of the Saint did pretty well and there was really no valid reason for cancelling it. At least it allowed that wonderful genre to go out on a fairly high note. This is a lightweight fun series with glamour and class. It doesn’t try to do anything else, but what it does try to do it does very well. Highly recommended.

I covered the earlier episodes in a review a few years ago – here’s the link.

The Plane Makers season 3 (1964-65)

The third season of ATV’s The Plane Makers went to air in late 1964. The opening credit sequence immediately alerts us to the fact that something has changed. Instead of seeing  a Sovereign airliner being prepared for flight testing we see what is very obviously a military aircraft undergoing the same process. But Scott-Furlong, the mythical aircraft manufacturer that is the subject of the series, only makes civil aircraft. What has John Wilder been up to?

John Wilder (played by Patrick Wymark) is the hard-driving charismatic managing director of Scott-Furlong. There are a number of things that make The Plane Makers one of the best British TV series of the 1960s but the chief among them is John Wilder. Wilder could easily have been a mere caricature of the ambitious ruthless businessman who crushes anyone who gets in his way. Wilder is however much more than a caricature. His ambition and his ruthlessness are certainly monstrous but he is a man of vision and he has courage. He has made Scott-Furlong a success by taking risks. Carefully calculated risks. It’s all very well being ethical and honourable but those things don’t do you much good if your company goes broke. John Wilder does not intend for any company he controls to go broke. He believes in winning. He believes in winning for himself but he has made his company a winner as well. The people who work for Scott-Furlong are very much aware that the reason they have their jobs is that Wilder has made the company a success in a difficult and competitive field. Wilder’s methods are not always pleasant but they work.

All of which suggests that this is a series with a bit of subtlety, rather than being merely about the evils of capitalism. It certainly takes a jaundiced view of the world of big business, and the unsavoury links between big business and politics, but there is some nuance. John Wilder takes the world as he finds it. He did not invent the game but he knows how it’s played. If he didn’t take the opportunities that were offered somebody else would. And although Wilder is entirely selfish and consumed by the desire for power but it’s not as if he’s ever pretended otherwise. He can be accused of many things but hypocrisy is not one of them.

Ann Firbank plays Wilder’s wife Pamela (a rôle played in earlier seasons by Barbara Murray). Their marriage is not exactly a close one but it’s useful to both of them. Being married goes him respectability, and it gives her a very comfortable lifestyle. They both take it for granted that the other has affairs which are of no great concern as long as they’re kept discreet, although human nature being what it is there are tensions and there are jealousies.

The first two seasons concentrated on intrigues within the business world. Now that Wilder is involved in the production of military aircraft the focus has shifted. Military aircraft production is all about politics. It makes no difference how good your aircraft is, success depends on political decisions. If you are to have a chance it is useful to own a few politicians. Fortunately politicians are not all that expensive to buy (they cost a good deal less than a VTOL fighter). The problem is that since politicians are available on the open market one’s rivals may own some of their own. And politicians require delicate handling since they’re of little use if they’re openly corrupt. One has to own a politician who can be relied upon to be discreetly corrupt.

While the business world as depicted as being characterised by back-stabbing and dubious ethics the series is especially scathing when it comes to bureaucrats and even more scathing when it comes to politicians. Even John Wilder, who is almost unshockable, is at times shocked by the cravenness and lack of ethics of the politicians. 

When politics comes into the picture journalism inevitably follows. Journalists of course are cheaper to buy than politicians, but are even trickier to handle. When the journalist is young, female and beautiful the difficulties are increased. Especially if there’s some personal involvement, which has been known to happen between rich powerful men and ambitious beautiful women.

This was the final season of The Plane Makers but it was not the end. The story continues in the equally acclaimed follow-up series The Power Game which began airing at the end of 1965.

Episode Guide

Empires Have to Start Somewhere explains the new opening credits. Some of the production of Scott-Furlong’s successful Sovereign airliner is sub-contracted to the Ryan aircraft company but Ryan’s has been falling behind in deliveries. Since both Scott-Furlong and Ryan belong to the same group of companies it is of course unthinkable that the penalty clause in the sub-contract could be invoke but that’s exactly what John Wilder intends to do. He has his reasons. Ryan Airframes has been developing a new VTOL fighter for the R.A.F., the company’s managing director is old and ailing and the joint managing director, David Corbett, is a whizz-kid aircraft designer who knows nothing about business. It’s obvious to Wilder that the Ryan company needs to be run by someone who understands the business side of aviation. Someone like John Wilder. And that government contract for the VTOL fighter could be worth a lot of money.

Wilder has his plans to take control of Ryan Airframes and he puts them into operation with his usual shrewdness and ruthlessness.

John Wilder already has power within the aviation industry but he has larger ambitions, including political ambitions. Absorbing Ryan Airframes is the first step in the creation of a business empire.

Other People Own Our Jungles Now introduces Wilder to James Cameron-Grant MP (Peter Jeffrey), a man who actually has fewer ethics than Wilder himself. Wilder wants to put the government in a position which will force them to give him that government contract for the VTOL fighter. But could Cameron-Grant be a man who can out-manoeuvre Wilder in both the political and sexual spheres? Both men have an interest in a certain Laura Challis, a journalist now employed by the bank that controls both Scott-Furlong and Ryan. Laura is young and pretty and she has a taste for powerful men.

A Lesson for Corbett sees David Corbett trying to flex his muscles. He’s still managing director of Ryan Airframes but John Wilder is now overall managing director of both companies. Corbett wants to assert his independence. Corbett wants another year of testing before the VTOL fighter goes into production and he doesn’t want Wilder to get the glory of obtaining a production contract. Corbett is trying to play the sort of political power game that Wilder plays so well but does he have the ability to play in John Wilder’s league?

Both national and international politics start to intrude more openly in The Golden Silence. The French have obtained, from perhaps slightly irregular sources, some interesting information on the British VTOL fighter. And they have come up with a startling proposal, which has been leaked to the Press. The difficulty for the British politicians is that they now have to be seen to be acting in the national interest while of course their only concerns are party politics and their own personal interests. Sir Gordon Revidge, chairman of the bank which controls both Scott-Furlong and Ryan, is playing a political game as well but his objective, as always, is to destroy John Wilder (Wilder being from his point of view a most dangerous rival). And Laura Challis, ostensibly working for Sir Gordon, is playing her own games as well.

In The Island Game the feud between John Wilder and David Corbett is hotting up. There’s a problem with the VTOL fighter which may be trivial but that won’t stop Corbett from using it. By now Corbett seems more obsessed with his power struggle with Wilder than with anything else. Chief test pilot Henry Forbes (Robert Urquhart), works manager Arthur Sugden (Reginald Marsh) and sales manager Don Henderson (Jack Watling) are having to learn to play the political game as well.

Laura Challis doesn’t need any lessons in such games and she’s in her element.

In It’s a Free Country: Isn’t It? Wilder comes up against the Security services and discovers that as soon as they are involved it is definitely not a free country. Even more disheartening, he discovers that when the secret police become involved almost everybody becomes a coward. An exceptionally good episode.

In A Question of Supply there are problems with the VTOL’s radar. And David Corbett comes face to face with the cowardice of civil servants and the moral corruption of politicians. Even John Wilder is easier to deal with than these people. In fact the cheerfully and shamelessly amoral Wilder is a paragon of moral virtue by comparison. Another good episode.

In The Flying Frigates it seems that John Wilder has finally gone too far. His enemies are closing in on him and they now have the means of destroying him. Or at least that’s what his enemies think. Perhaps they should be worried by the fact that he isn’t the least bit concerned. An excellent episode.

Cost overruns are causing problems in Only a Few Millions. Scott-Furlong will have to find a great deal of money very quickly but what matters is who finds the money. If Wilder finds it it strengthens his position, if Corbett and Sir Gordon Revidge find it it weakens Wilder’s position. The money matters, but prestige matters more since prestige means power. Another good episode.

In The Salesmen bureaucratic and political manoeuvring is pushing John Wilder into a corner, but that’s when he’s most dangerous. His attempt to sell the VTOL to the Australians is ruffling feathers and hose feathers are likely to be even more ruffled when Wilder is through. A good episode.

Appointment in Brussels is an odd episode, at times almost whimsical. Wilder plans to take his wife to Brussels where he has a meeting arranged. He never ever takes his wife on business trips. Sir Gordon Revidge insists that Laura Challis should go along, and Wilder thereupon decides not to take his wife after all. It sounds like a setup for a dirty weekend but although there’s plenty of sexual and even romantic tension what transpires is rather different. Laura certainly sees a different side of John Wilder, one she’d never suspected. While Laura is enjoying herself flirting she’s also trying to find out what that meeting in Brussels is all about, and that’s another of this episode’s surprises. A very untypical but very good episode.

A Hoopla of Haloes sees Corbett once again plotting while Wilder is away. The crucial question is where Wilder is and why he has suddenly dropped out of sight. Corbett has his theories and senses an opportunity. Another episode that reveals hitherto unsuspected sides of John Wilder’s personality, and another fine episode.

The Firing Line provides an unexpected but fitting ending to the series and one that neatly sets up the successor series The Power Game. John Wilder really is full of surprises, as we will see when he and Corbett have their final showdown.

Final Thoughts

The Plane Makers tackles political, sociological and psychological themes with a high degree of subtlety. The characters are complex are fascinating. The obvious comparison is to another of the great British TV series of the 60s, The Troubleshooters (which started life in 1965 as Mogul).

The Plane Makers is intelligent television and it’s also very entertaining. The third season is highly recommended (and if this series sounds like your thing then grab the complete series boxed set). 

Public Eye (season 7, 1975)

Public Eye was an unlikely television success story with an even more unlikely star. This series chronicling the career of downmarket private eye Frank Marker was made initially by Britain’s ABC Television and later by Thames Television. Seven seasons were made over a period of ten years from 1965 to 1975.

A few months before the seventh season went to air The Sweeney arrived on British television screens and things were never the same again. The Sweeney was shot on film, mostly on location, and with non-stop action and violence. Public Eye, shot on videotape and possibly the most low-key crime series ever made and with virtually zero action and violence, must have seemed like an anachronism by comparison. Despite this Public Eye continued to be immensely popular. There were plans to make an eighth season, shot on film, but star Alfred Burke felt (almost certainly correctly) that the change to film would destroy the series’ distinctive flavour.

Public Eye in fact had looked even better in its earlier seasons shot in black-and-white. It looked seedy, grimy, claustrophobic and down-at-heel but that’s exactly what Frank Marker’s life is like. He’s a private enquiry agent (the British name for a private detective) and he’s the least glamorous screen private eye in history. He doesn’t handle murders and jewel robberies. His cases are the kinds of routine cases that keep private enquiry agents a step ahead of starvation. He dislikes divorce cases but he does them anyway when he has to. Having served a prison sentence (he was set up as the fall guy) the world is not exactly his oyster. It’s the only job he knows how to do and it’s the only job he can get, and he likes working for himself.

Alfred Burke was in his late forties when the series began. He was the kind of character actor who will never starve, being one of those actors producers like because they can be relied upon to give solid performances, but he was never ever going to be a star. And then along came Public Eye and he found himself the star of a long-running hit series. It was a case of a perfect match between an actor and a series. Ubli Eye is almost aggressively unglamorous. It needed a star who looked very ordinary, a bit homely and decidedly battered. But what it really needed was a star with a unique kind of charismatic anti-charisma. Alfred Burke was the man for the job.

There are two other regular character in the later seasons. The first is Frank’s friend Inspector Percy Firbank (played delightfully by Ray Smith), a cynical but honest and pretty decent copper. The odd friendship between the two men is one of the joys of these later episodes. The second recurring character is ex-cop and private enquiry agent Ron Gash, for whom Marker works for a while. Gash is in some ways a lot more upmarket than Frank and in other ways a lot sleazier, or at least a lot more flexible when it comes to ethics.

Public Eye had already experimented with ongoing story arcs in the Brighton-based fourth season. That experiment is repeated in this final season. It’s almost unique for a private eye series of this vintage for events in one episode to have consequences in later episodes but Public Eye was no conventional private eye series.

This is subtle drama and very character-driven. Some of the plots are extremely clever but it’s the effect that events have on people that is always the main focus. There’s very little action. Frank Marker is not a man of action. From time to time he gets beaten up but that’s just an occupational hazard. He doesn’t believe in fighting back, for the very good reason that he would just get a worse beating. He does however, on occasions, find ways to get his revenge. It can be handy to have friends in the police.

Frank is no crusader for justice. Not that he has anything against justice, but ensuring that justice is done is not part of his job description. He’s been in the game long enough to be content to do what he’s paid to do.

Episode Guide

In Nobody Wants to Know Frank is hired to find a missing witness. Joe Martins is a small-time villain facing a fifteen-year stretch unless his upmarket girlfriend Janet Harper can be found to provide him wth an alibi. Janet has disappeared. It sounds like a routine case so Frank is a bit surprised when some goon tries to warn him off. He’s also curious about the horse doping which has nothing to do with Janet or Joe Martins, or does it? He’s also curious as to why nobody wants to talk or co-operate. Even Frank’s friend Inspector Percy Firbank doesn’t want to know either, and then suddenly he gets interested.

That last case left Frank battered and bruised and suffering from a very uncharacteristic case of self-pity in the next story, How About a Cup of Tea? Percy Firbank tries to help him. Mrs Mortimer, the lady with whom he had a not-quite-but-almost romance in season four (the Brighton season), tries to help him. Maybe she’s still sort of in love with him but she doesn’t know. Frank kicks them both in the teeth. Percy finds a case for him but that makes things worse. He has to persuade a tenant to vacate a house and the woman’s self-pity, ironically, irritates him. A good episode focused mainly on Marker himself rather than the case.

How About It, Frank? brings Marker some aggravation with an ambitious Detective Chief Inspector and it brings him a possible opportunity. And of course a case. It’s a background check for a computer company on prospective new recruit Brian Hart. Hart is a pretty good guy with a marriage that seems destined for trouble. 

That case from the first episode keeps coming back to haunt Frank. His first instinct was to just forget all about it and maybe he should have gone with that first instinct. The opportunity is a partnership with Ron Gash, an ex-copper who is now doing pretty good business as a private investigator. It’s tempting but Frank is not exactly a team player. A very good episode.

They All Sound Simple at First brings Frank a case that he almost enjoys. He’s now working for Ron Gash and the case is very simple – a Polish cabinet-maker is owed seven hundred quid by his brother-in-law for an antique clock. In fact it’s a complicated family drama and nobody actually cares about the clock. It’s the kind of Public Eye story that could be very downbeat but it’s given a slightly light-hearted and rather amusing treatment. Rather enjoyable.

The Fall Guy presents Frank with a routine divorce case but there are odd things about this case right from the beginning. And things get odder. Nothing is what it seems to be. Is Frank being used? Maybe, but maybe he isn’t the only one. A very good episode.

What’s to Become of Us? brings Frank a client who appears to be a wealthy man who wants his wife found. She walked out on him and he just wants to know that she’s OK. The trouble is that everything the client tells him is a lie and when he’s confronted he tells even more lies. Frank could be annoyed but actually he’s amused although also a bit saddened. It’s the combination of slightly whimsical humour with an undercurrent of despair that this series does so well. Frank is also starting to wonder if it was a good idea working for Ron Gash. Frank actually likes Ron but their methods just seem to be incompatible. Another good episode.

In Hard Times Frank has just opened his new office and his first clients are a couple of hoodlums. They want him to find a friend of theirs, although perhaps friend is the wrong word. It’s a case that doesn’t appeal to Frank but he needs the money. He also gets to know the local police and they don’t appeal to him either. It’s all a bit sleazy but that’s the job. A very good episode.

No Orchids for Marker is the name of the episode and by the end of it it’s safe to say that Frank Marker is very very sick of orchids. His job is to babysit some rare and valuable orchids, for an eccentric old lady. He finds it hard to imagine that anyone would seriously wish to steal orchids, or do harm to orchids. He thinks that perhaps there’s something more going on here? Which of course there is. A nice mix of cleverness and whimsicality in this one with a neat twist. A very good episode.

In The Fatted Calf Frank is employed by a wealthy businessman whose spoilt son, currently studying sociology at university, has decided to drop out to join the workers’ struggle against capitalism. He’s become involved with a professional agitator but he may be more involved than he realises. An OK episode.

There’s some real suspense in Lifer. Frank is hired by a middle-aged man, a Mr Biddle. Mr Biddle wants Frank to find his wife who has run off with another man. In fact it’s not his wife Mr Biddle wants to find, it’s the other man, and it has nothing to do with his wife. There’s a score to be settled, a very old score. But some things can never be set right. Some lives can never be put together again. It’s a story that manages to be emotionally powerful without being manipulative or sentimentalised. A very very good episode.

Take No for an Answer brings a young woman to Frank’s office. She’s worried about her Dad. He’s the chief clerk in an engineering firm. She thinks he’s in trouble. And of course she’s right. It’s all to do with those boxes of carbon paper in his sheds. Lots and lots and lots of carbon paper, and how they got there is a sad and embarrassing story. Frank also comes up against a very smooth con-man who likes to fight dirty, but Frank can play dirty too. A reasonably good typically low-key episode.

Fit of Conscience opens with the collapse of a tower block, killing four people. A man employed by the council convinces himself that he is partly responsible and he hires Frank. But what is it he wants Frank to find out, and (more importantly) exactly why does he want to find out such things? Frank is certainly puzzled. This is another fascinating human drama, with people not even sure of their own motivations.

Unlucky for Some presents Marker with a case that is as routine as could imagined. Mrs Waterfield runs a respectable family hotel. She suspects that her daughter-in-law Paula is fooling around behind her son’s back, but she never did like Paula so she realises she may be biased. She wants Marker to find out exactly what, if anything, Paula is up to. What she actually is up to comes as a surprise and that could be good luck or bad luck depending on one’s point of view. A very good episode to close the season.

Final Thoughts

It’s a pity the eighth season didn’t happen but in British television there was a prevalent attitude that it’s better to quit while you’re ahead. In 1975 Public Eye was still extremely popular with both viewers and critics and the seventh season allowed it to go out on a high note, with no signs at all of a falling off in quality. This is truly one of the all-time great private eye series. Very highly recommended.

My reviews of the sixth season can be found here, and my thoughts on the surviving black-and-white episodes can be found here.

The Sweeney season 3 (1976)

The Sweeney returned for a third season in late 1976. The series has revolutionised the British cop show and was now at the peak of its popularity and about to spawn two feature films. It blended action, toughness and humour in a way that has never since been quite equalled. It can be brutal and it can be dark but it never quite crosses the line into nihilism. Things go wrong, cases go unsolved, people get hurt, but there’s no point in wallowing in self-pity over it. When things do go wrong Regan and Carter get drunk and then the next day they’re back on the job because life goes on and the job still has to be done. And there’s still plenty of booze to be drunk and plenty of skirt to chase so why complain?

The Sweeney’s brutally realistic approach to the police shocked many people the time but audiences found it to be invigorating. Detective Inspector Jack Regan and Detective Sergeant George Carter were cops who seemed believable. They weren’t wholly admirable people but then if you’re a Boy Scout you’re not going to last very long in the Flying Squad, a squad tasked with investigating serious robberies (which generally meant violent robberies) and other crimes of violence. The criminals they deal with are usually pretty vicious.

The Flying Squad was at this time being rocked by corruption scandals and police corruption is a recurring theme. If you want to catch big-time criminals you have to spend a lot of time with those same criminals. You have to drink with them. You have to get to know them. You have to get to know which ones are prepared to act as informers. The people you have to use as informers can be serious low-lifes and thugs. It’s the only way to get the job done but the possibility of being corrupted is ever-present. This kind of honesty was also pretty startling at the time, but again audiences liked it because the series was honest about it.

In the world of The Sweeney there are good cops and bad cops. The bad cops are worse than the criminals, but fortunately there are good cops as well. Regan and Carter are good cops. They bend the rules, sometimes they bend them a great deal, sometimes their methods are questionable, but fundamentally they’re honest. And they get the job done. If they have to bend a few rules and break a few heads, well that’s the way it is.

The Sweeney steadfastly refuses to idealise the police but it certainly isn’t anti-police. It just accepts reality. As Graham Greene once put it, human nature isn’t black and white, it’s black and grey.

The Sweeney also manages to be incredibly stylish without being glamorous. The world of The Sweeney is seedy and sometimes sleazy, and often grimy. The people that Regan and Carter deal with can be heroic, they can be cowardly, they can be petty and vindictive, they can be kind and generous, they can be winners and they can be losers. But they all have an intensity and an immediacy to them. They feel like real people. The fact that this series is not afraid to make characters larger-than-life or absurd or eccentric makes those characters seem more believable. People really can be pretty strange. The situations can be bizarre but real life can be bizarre. This is life on the streets, for good or bad.

The fact that the series was shot almost entirely on location gives it a vibrancy that is a million miles away from the artificial world of the traditional shot-in-the-studio shot-on-video feel of previous British TV cop shows. The pursuit of realism can be a dead end if it’s done the wrong way, but The Sweeney does it the right way.

Episode Guide

Selected Target starts the season in style. Colly Kibber, a big time villain just released from prison, is believed to be planning a big job. A very big job. First he has some some business to attend to with his former cell-mate, Titus Oates. He thinks Oates informed on him. Kibber then gives his wife her marching orders. He has a replacement for her already lined up. Or rather, two replacements, both call girls. Scotland Yard has a mammoth surveillance operation in place to foil Kibber’s plans and this is what worries Regan. He doesn’t like such mammoth operations. He’s not exactly a team player. Which story has all the trademarks of this series – plenty of violence, a bit of sleaze, crisp dialogue and a script that combines deviousness with cynicism. Excellent episode.

In from the Cold involves not just cold-blooded criminals, but very cold criminals (you’ll have to watch this one to know what I mean). Regan spots a villain named Billy Medhurst in a fish and chip shop. Medhurst was involved in a robbery a couple of years earlier in which a policeman was shot and crippled. Now he’s got Medhurst in custody but can he keep him under lock and key? And what is Medhurst’s shady lawyer up to? Not to mention Billy’s wife. It all hinges on steaks. A lot of them. A typical episode but a very good one with the usual mix of humour and violence.

Visiting Fireman throws pretty much everything at Jack Regan. It starts with a known villain being arrested for a robbery but the villain has an alibi and it’s Regan who supplies the alibi. Which causes Jack all sorts of problems, with maybe even his career being on the line. Then Turkish policeman Captain Shebbeq arrives and wants Regan’s help on an investigation he’s conducting into long-distance lorry hijackings in Turkey. Regan and Shebbeq are old mates so you won’t be surprised to hear that Shebbeq’s main interests in life are football, booze and birds. There’s a lot more to the truck hijackings than meets the eye, things that ordinary policeman shouldn’t get mixed up in. They could get killed or they could see their career go down the gurgler. This episode really does have everything. It even has Regan and Carter doing a song-and-dance routine. There’s also Helga, the very cute German barmaid at the Turkish Club. This episode is totally over-the-top but enjoyably so.

Tomorrow Man deals with cyber-crime, 1976-style. The Flying Squad think computer whizz-kid Tony Gray (John Hurt), just out of prison after serving a sentence for manslaughter after killing a woman in a traffic accident, is up to something big. They have no idea what it is since they don’t know anything about computers. Regan however finds a charming young lady named Dr Smart (yes really) from the Home Office who does understand such things. Gray’s plan is a good one and he always seems to be a step ahead of Regan and Carter who are meanwhile busily engaged in trying to figure out how to get Dr Smart into bed.

In Taste of Fear a couple of army deserters commit a particularly violent robbery. Catching them should be easy but it isn’t and DI Regan has another problem – a new sergeant on the Flying Squad, named Hargreaves. Regan has serious doubts that the man can be relied on, but he can’t be quite certain whether he’s going to have to get rid of him or not. If he does it will be the end of Hargreaves’ career. Sometimes Jack Regan hates his job.

Bad Apple presents the Squad with an unpleasant case, investigating possible corruption in a divisional CID. Regan goes undercover at the Blue Parrot club which disbelieved top be making payoffs. Haskins and Carter sift through the paperwork, looking for anomalies in prosecutions that could be pointers to the culprits. A good episode.

May helped Regan keep his sanity when his wife left him so he owes her and now May’s son has got himself into a spot of bother with the law. An elderly moneylender has been badly beaten and a witness puts young Davey at the spot and the police find five hundred quid hidden beneath the seat of his motorcycle. And then Davey does a runner so now he’s really in trouble and May wants Jack to get him out of it. It turns out that Davey has managed to get himself into some truly spectacular trouble and not just with the law. A very good episode.

In Sweet Smell of Succession when gang boss Joe Castle goes to his eternal reward there’s a fine collection of villains ready to take over his firm, but they’re all too greedy to coöperate and the wild card is Castle’s son Steven (Hywel Bennett). Steven seems too soft to survive in such a world but what he lacks in muscle he makes up for in low cunning. Joe Castle’s mistress Arleen (Sue Lloyd) is another wild card. She has what could be the key to Steven’s scheme. Another very good episode.

In Down to You, Brother a middle-aged retired villain has a message for Regan, but what exactly is the message? It appears to be related to a big job that was pulled six years earlier but Regan starts to suspect that the message was something quite different. One thing coppers and villains have in common is that their careers play havoc with their personal lives. Especially when a daughter is involved. A clever little story.

In Pay Off George Carter gets involved with a woman named Shirley. Shirley’s feller Eddie disappeared a year earlier and she thinks he’s dead. She persuades George to look into it.  Eddie was a very small-time villain but he may have been involved in an armed robbery which turned into an embarrassing fiasco for the Flying Squad. George’s emotional involvement causes a lot of problems for both himself and the Squad. You really don’t have much chance of having a personal life when you’re on the Squad, a lesson George is about to learn. Another very good episode.

Cowboys are riding the range in Loving Arms. Well, not cowboys, but cowboy guns. Six-shooters, just like in the Old West. They’re not real, but they can shoot and they’re more dangerous than real guns. Regan stumbles across the case when a shopkeeper, an old soldier, swears blind that the Colt .45 he was held up with was real. And sooner or later someone is likely to get killed. It’s the sort of slightly offbeat story that made this series so appealing. Good stuff.

Lady Luck is the name of the episode and Jack thinks that that fickle lady has decided to smile on him. He gets some very good information from an unexpected source – an attractive middle-class housewife. Marcia Edmunds in her forties but well preserved and rather attractive which is just as well since she doesn’t want to be paid in money for the information. She wants to be paid in sex. There are two problems however. Had Jack known who she was he would have declined her kind offer. And the information hinges on an unbreakable alibi that Jack will have to break. The alibi angle is handled very well as is the very awkward situation that Jack is faced with. Much of it depends on how long it would take for Marcia’s souffle to rise. An excellent episode.

On the Run is a manhunt story which really ramps up the violence level. And the politically incorrectness level as well. A violent psychopath named Cook is sprung from custody by  his former cell-mate Pindar. Pindar is shacked up with his Rich ageing boyfriend who is besotted with him. As the net closes on Cook he becomes increasingly murderous. A violent story that keeps getting more violent but still a fine episode with which to close the third season.

Final Thoughts

This series was riding high in 1976 and it’s easy to see why. The third season has all the ingredients that made The Sweeney the most memorable cop show of its era (and possibly the best British cop show ever). The series then took a break while the two spin-off movies, the not-so-great Sweeney! and the much better Sweeney 2) were shot before returning for the fourth and final season in 1978.

The third season of The Sweeney is highly recommended.