My Partner the Ghost (TV Series) When Did You Start to Stop Seeing Things? (1969) User Reviews

I Dream Of Jeannie

[Lejink · 7/10 · 30 March 2023]

Seems to me that screenplay writer Tony Williamson wrote some of the best episodes of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)".

This was another of them.

In it, it seems that Jeff has gone to the dark side, apparently luring a procession of company executives to their deaths at the hands of hitman, future TV veteran Keith Barron, this after he's been hired by the CEO to track down which of them is leaking sensitive financial information to the markets which could damage an upcoming multi-million pound flotation.

More than that, Jeff's acting really strangely. He apparently can't see an ever more agitated Marty and is acting way out of character, never more so than when he makes a pass at Jeanie. The big "Mission Impossible" reveal is delayed until well into the episode, when the penny finally drops for Marty who up until then has been using a host of well-to-do patients of a Harley Street specialist, who uses a spell-binding revolving concentric board to practice hypno-therapy which somehow makes them receptive to Marty's presence. In the end, he springs the real Jeff and together they wrap up the case.

After missing out completely on the previous episode, it was nice to see Anettte Andre's Jeannie play a prominent and active part in this and I always welcome the presence of Ivor Dean as the long-suffering Inspector Large.

A smart, fun episode, well up to standard.

A finely judged mixture of high comedy and straight detective drama.

[jamesraeburn2003 · 19 November 2018]

The ghostly Marty Hopkirk (Kenneth Cope) is disturbed when his friend and partner Jeff Randall (Mike Pratt) can no longer see or hear him. Jeff has been working for the Towler Corporation who employed him to unmask the person who has been leaking confidential information enabling someone to make a killing on the stock exchange by buying large stocks in firms that they were about to invest in. Three of the company's directors are murdered, apparently by Jeff, before Marty discovers that one of the corporation's senior managers, James Laker (Reginald Marsh), is the person behind the leaks and that he had Jeff abducted and replaced by a doppleganger, Hinch (David Dower), who committed the murders for him because they had become suspicious of his activities. However, Laker and this heavies overpower Jeff and Jeannie (Annette Andre) and Marty rouses help through a Harley Street psychiatrist, Sir Oliver Norenton (Clifford Evans), by turning his hypnosis techniques to his advantage, but is it already too late?

When it was first conceived, there was divisions among the series' producers about what direction it should take with some wanting to play it for laughs and others wanting a straightforward detective show in the "Raymond Chandler mould" as its establishing director and creative consultant Cyril Frankel put it. The end result was a 50/50 split with about half of the 26 episodes played for comedy and the rest as more serious down to earth crime dramas. Without a doubt this one is high on the comedy, but it strikes a well judged balance between crime thriller with its plot about industrial espionage and the humour under Jeremy Summers' direction that comes from Kenneth Cope's ghostly Marty and his antics. For instance, in order to try and reach Jeff, or rather the guy masquerading as him only he doesn't know it right away, Marty talks to the psychiatrist's patients under hypnosis asking them to pass on a message to his partner after they have come round. As a result, the psychiatrist Sir Oliver Norenton (played to brilliant comedic effect by the Welsh actor Clifford Evans), starts to think he's going insane when several of his patients leave his sessions early saying they've got an urgent message for Randall. Distressed by it all, Sir Oliver hypnotises himself and keeps saying to himself "Randall is a figment of my imagination" over and over before Marty tells him that Randall is his friend and that he must help him. He gets him to the villains hideout and Marty tells him under hypnosis that he is a secret agent, licenced to kill and in a hilarious sequence the mild mannered psychiatrist kicks down the door and lays out Randall and Jeannie's would be killers. When he is brought out of his trance, he has no idea what he has just done but when he sees the two Randalls together, the double whom is shot dead and the real one he collapses to the floor in despair and disbelief saying "Randall is everywhere! I must see a psychiatrist." Performances from the supporting cast are good all round, but apart from Clifford Evans, no one really stands out. Mike Pratt and Kenneth Cope are very funny on screen together as always while Annette Andre's Jeannie gets a little more to do here that makes a change since her part was often woefully underwritten.