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The Saint: The Queen's Ransom (5.1, ITC, 1966)

"You realise that a few years ago I could have had your head chopped off for that?"

"A few years back, I wouldn't have said it."

#the saint #the queen's ransom #1966 #leslie charteris #leigh vance #roy ward baker #roger moore #dawn addams #george pastell #nora nicholson #stanley meadows #catherine feller #gary hope #patrick westwood #peter madden #neville becker #john woodvine #larry taylor #john forbes robertson #john serret #andre charisse #what's that? you thought I'd given up on the saint? that I'd thrown in the towel‚ that I'm a coward and a liar? hah! well mud in your eye #bc here i am baby‚ back on my bullshit. i took a 'brief' break at the end of s4 before starting the color eps which ended up being 7 months #but actually the real gap between seasons 4 and 5 was more than a year. so what's new in Saintland? not much; immediately upon grabbing #this second boxset of colour eps and checking with my online transmission record i can see that network have liberally shuffled these eps #this first ep is on disc 2 while disc 1 features episodes from season 6 (!). as well as the shift to colour we also get a rearranged theme #(slightly more up tempo)‚ new titles and for the first time an entirely original script that doesn't even pretend to be adapted from a #Charteris story (true adaptations would be pretty rare from this point on). but it's a fun if familiar tale; Simon meets a deposed king and #his spoiled wife‚ and sets about teaching her some humility in true chauvinist fashion (as well as some stuff with jewels)#it isn't by any means a groundbreaking ep but if anything a degree of continuity between seasons 4 and 5 is somewhat welcome

Performance | Donald Cammell / Nicolas Roeg | 1970

James Fox, John Sterland, Stanley Meadows, John Bindon

#James Fox #John Sterland #Stanley Meadows #John Bindon #Donald Cammell #Nicolas Roeg #Performance #1970

The Saint: The High Fence (2.23, ITC, 1964)

"Why should I co-operate? Give me one good reason."

"Withholding information is a serious offence!"

"Then arrest me. Go ahead. Put me in jail, hound me the way you did Johnny! Six arrests..."

"Johnny was a confirmed criminal -"

"He was sick and he was frightened, he needed help! All he got was persecution."

#the saint #the high fence #1964 #leslie charteris #itc #harry w. junkin #james hill #roger moore #james villiers #suzanne lloyd #ivor dean #reginald beckwith #stanley meadows #harry towb #dyson lovell #clare kelly #peter jeffrey #hazel hughes #richard poore #one of the episodes i most clearly remember from previous viewings‚ probably because of a twist that for once i didn't see coming #(i was young and naive!). Teal is back‚ peppermints in tow‚ and facing off against an unusually uptight James Villiers as one of the most #antagonistic policemen the series has seen so far. actually this whole episode is surprisingly critical of the police; where they're often #depicted as less able than Simon‚ here they're downright negligent and display a complete lack of grace or tact when talking to the #innocents (or at least only mildly guilty) caught up in the case. Harry Towb's nervous safecracker is notably shown in a more sympathetic #light than the officers who arrest him. this one also benefits from a great cast of perhaps lesser known Brit tv royalty; Jeffreys would go #on to bigger and better‚ as would Meadows‚ but actors like Towb and Lovell were great character players who never seemed to hit the big #time in the way they deserved. Suzanne Lloyd was a repeat guest star for the series (6 eps in all!) but this is one of her best outings #as she actually gets quite a bit to do‚ including some undercover work‚ and has one of the more developed characterisations of Simon's many #lady friends. Clare Kelly was often in comic work but here she gives a wonderful performance as a grieving widow full of rage

Bat Out of Hell: Part 2 (1.2, BBC, 1966)

"Are you suggesting that the dead man isn't Mr. Stewart?"

"What do you think?"

"But Mrs. Stewart identified the body!"

"Yes, she did. So did you too, if it comes to that."

"It must have been Mr. Stewart."

"Why? His face was disfigured, badly disfigured; you certainly didn't recognise him by his face."

"Well no, but he was dressed the same, he had Mr. Stewart's clothes on. He was wearing his signet ring."

"On the wrong finger."

#bat out of hell #francis durbridge #francis durbridge presents #1966 #classic tv #bbc #alan bromly #sylvia syms #john thaw #dudley foster #june ellis #emrys jones #stanley meadows #patsy smart #clive graham #david quilter #ann windsor #june bland #margaret frost #things are really kicking into gear (tho to be fair this is pretty breakneck from the opening ep); a classic Durbridge feint as he presents #us with a plausible impossibility: we have seen a man murdered and yet the body has disappeared and now the dead man is making #phone calls... investigating we have the wonderful Dudley Foster‚ who even against Thaw (already something of a pin up by this point) and #Syms (a first lady of brit cinema) manages to steal his every scene as the perfect Durbridgean detective; he's softly spoken and quiet #moves slowly and appears utterly undisturbed by every strange turn in the case and yet you can quite see the gears turning and his mind #ticking away like clockwork. it's a wonderful little performance and almost makes me wish this could have spun off into a recurring series #for his diligent sleuth...

Bat Out of Hell: Part 1 (1.1, BBC, 1966)

"Diana, if we fall out we've had it. Whatever happens now, we've got to stick together - we've got to stick together and play it cool. Now for god's sake let's remember that."

#bat out of hell #francis durbridge #francis durbridge presents #classic tv #bbc #1966 #alan bromly #sylvia syms #john thaw #dudley foster #noel johnson #june ellis #stanley meadows #clive graham #ann windsor #june bland #david quilter #oh Francis; easily one of the most crime writers of all time. this is classic Durbridge with all the familiar tropes he was so fond of #inc. marital strife‚ murder and blackmail (also telephones; I'm not sure what it is but Francis loves using telephones to deliver crucial #information or plot twists). i watched this a few years ago and something made me want to revisit; this is an undeniably good looking piece #of tv‚ with heavy use of location work on good quality film stock. it also has quite the cast; John Thaw had just finished starring in #Redcap and probably seized the chance to swap the upright‚ fiercely moral Sgt Mann for philandering‚ murderous Mark Paxton here #one particularly jarring moment has the discovery of a corpse set to (presumably) a random piece of library music; quite by chance that #piece is This Man Alone (aka Girl in the Dark) which‚ about a year from broadcast‚ would find immortality as the Callan theme tune.. it's #quite a weird moment and strangely unsettling.

Bat Out of Hell: Part 5 (1.5, BBC, 1966)

"Look, I probably oughtn't to ask you this, but did you know about Mrs. Stewart and Mark Paxton?"

"Well, I suspected they were more than just friends if that's what you mean, sir."

"Do you know, it never even crossed my mind, not for a minute. Yet now you come to think about it, he was a good looking chap and they were always together. I'm beginning to think I'm a bit of a dimwit!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, sir, you just haven't got a suspicious nature."

"But that's just it, I have - as a rule, I'd suspect my own grandmother."

#bat out of hell #francis durbridge #francis durbridge presents #classic tv #bbc #1966 #alan bromly #sylvia syms #john thaw #dudley foster #june ellis #emrys jones #stanley meadows #paddy glynn #clive graham #june bland #patrick ellis #john caesar #terence donovan #ali hassan #annnnd i ran out of pictures. thus these two screen grabs from the (rather stylish) opening titles #events come to a head unexpectedly early in this episode‚ with one major strand of the plot over and done with well before the finale #that final revelation is teased out almost beyond the point of sanity; it's a clever writer i suppose that can keep you guessing well #beyond all reasonable time to have sorted the mess out. but finish we do and so bid farewell to Dudley Foster's strangely loveable #taciturn policeman (and his very welsh sergeant; quite unusual to hear so blatant a welsh accent in 60s tv). by the by all previous #mentions of June Bland and her role in this series should have read June Ellis (the perils of two Junes in one series); happily Ellis even #gets to be a sort of hero in the end. a delightful little murder mystery well worth the time of any old tv fan

Performance | Donald Cammell / Nicolas Roeg | 1970

Stanley Meadows

#Stanley Meadows #Donald Cammell #Nicolas Roeg #Performance #1970

Out of the Unknown: The Last Lonely Man (3.3, BBC, 1969)

"Look, I've had my fair share of troubles, but I'm not such a bad bloke. In any case, I look upon this as a kind of experiment."

"Experiment?"

"Two personalities, diametrically opposed - you and me - coming together under the same dome. We're pioneers, you and I, offering ourselves as guinea pigs; researching the frontiers of Contact for the benefit of mankind!"

"That's how you see it?"

"That's how it is!"

#Out of the Unknown #The last lonely man #john brunner #Jeremy Paul #Douglas Camfield #1969 #BBC #George Cole #Peter Halliday #June Barry #Lillias Walker #Stanley Meadows #Peter Welch #Bryan Mosley #Eve Ross #Gerald Young #Anthony Woodruff #Richard Wardale #Gillian Shed #Albert Lampert #Annabella Johnston #Series 3 babeys! And we're in glorious colour! Those glossy film inserts really pop now! The move from bw to colour will always have a #Slight change on the feel of a series; here in a way it feels like it's opened the show out a bit and made it more.. Real? Slightly less #Artful a little more naturalistic. Or perhaps that's just the plot of this week's ep which is very kitchen sink Sci fi full of dull office #Types and regular world drunks. The Sci fi idea (Contact: a sort of mind transference at the point of death into a willing partner) is both #Believable and an interesting subject for unexpected side issues (conflicting personalities for eg; also this new kind of near immortality #Brings with it a sort of disregard for one's current life and body). A good conceit and a strong cast but this suffers that age old problem #Of a single entry in an anthology series: the joltingly abrubt ending (presumably to fit within a secure time slot). Here it leaves a lot #Of frustrating questions about how this plot will continue to play out and the ultimate fate of our characters. Perhaps the source story is #More complete in nature. And so there we go; alas this is the sole extant s3 episode. But we have some reconstructions to look at...

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