Mar 21, 2023
Man in a Suitcase: The Revolutionaries (1.26, ITC, 1968)
"Well... all your clients cause this much trouble?"
"No, do yours?"
"Yeah. Usually."
#man in a suitcase#the revolutionaries#1968#classic tv#peter duffell#jan read#kevin laffan#richard bradford#hugh burden#ferdy mayne#sonia fox#david sumner#barry shawzin#marga roche#bruce boa#louis negin#david cargill#nik zaran#hal hamilton#mark peterson#the final episode to go into production‚ and even as the series was drawing to a close there were behind the scenes issues causing#problems; this episode was delivered by Laffan‚ who had got on well with previous script editor Stanley Greenberg‚ and who produced a#script inspired by the exile and assassination of Leon Trotsky. producer Sidney Cole was in fact very pro Soviet in his politics and#objected to the script‚ demanding rewrites to instead establish the characters as belonging to a fictional country. Laffan refused to work#on this with Greenberg's replacement Read‚ so Read and director Duffell did the rewrites themselves. despite all that this ends up being a#very solid action entry in the series; a tough‚ violent adventure but with an intelligent script. McGill is notably bad at the job he's#hired for and spends the episode trying to put it right (presumably for free?). he also gets some great threats in against some heavy#handed henchmen. guest Burden‚ playing the Trotsky figure‚ plays piano throughout: Burden was a trained musician and studied at the Royal#College of Music before he was an actor. Duffell had to fight to get Shawzin (at this point ill with cancer) cast in the episode; sadly#this was one of his final roles and he died just two weeks after broadcast
