Sir_Oblong_Fitzoblong Reviews

The Brothers (1972–1976)

Superb drama from an age of better TV

[10/10 · 30 March 2024]

I have just re-watched all 92 episodes (not having seen them since I watched the original broadcast in the 70s) and greatly enjoyed them.

The drama centres on a family-run road haulage firm whose ownership becomes complicated after the death of its founder with business, family, and other personal issues becoming intertwined.

All the acting is of high quality and the balance of personal vs business story strands is largely OK although in series 3 and 4 things get a bit bogged down in one particular marriage and the balance suffers somewhat.

One major quality that distinguishes it from modern drama touching on similar topics is that the financial and business content is written realistically and from an informed perspective. Today's TV (and radio) is written by children who know damn all about business and trot out rubbish plucked out of thin air with no basis in reality.

Series 1-6 are truly excellent. In series 7 things do start to get a bit tired. The characters are still compelling but the plot ideas are becoming thin and it is a blessing that it was stopped before it became a disappointing soapy shell of itself.

All in all after episode 92 one is left with entirely happy memories of an excellent drama.

Dead of Night (1972)

Quality with some weaknesses

[9/10 · 5 January 2024]

I watched this series when first broadcast in 1972 and remember enjoying it at the time so was delighted to see these three episodes again recently.

I only recalled the odd snippet from some episodes but the dramatic Episode 1, the Exorcism, made a vivid impression on me then and was just as dramatic this time.

I enjoyed Episode 2, featuring Peter Barkworth as a pilot, more than some others seem to have done. It doesn't have the drama of Ep 1 but does leave one pondering afterwards.

Episode 3 I found the weakest but still enjoyed the 1970s production values with real actors (all three have stalwarts of 1970s and 80s TV) and the feel of seeing a good play rather than a poor film that I get from most modern drama.

New Scotland Yard (1972–1974)

Excellent series with varied stories

[9/10 · 13 December 2023]

This really is a fine series overall.

The format is standard (Scotland Yard CID called into assist cases that are two difficult or sensitive for the local force) but here is done without screaming car chases and big budgets; more Jack Hawkins than the Sweeney.

The central characters Chief Supt Kingdom and Inspector Ward are well characterized by John Woodvine and John Carlisle. The interplay between them and their fathoming of cases is very subtly done.

Ward's character is perhaps the more interesting but inconsistent. He starts off as stridently anti-authoritarian, but then becomes a mixture of cynical, whimsical, and villain-hater. Each version is well played by Carlilse but there was obviously a struggle in the script editing dept to find quite the right version of the character.

Woodvine as Kingdom is also very good on the detection but weaker when it comes to his home life; attempts to portray angst in his marriage get a bit bogged down and leaden but thankfully there isn't too much of that and the focus is firmly on solving crimes.

Being from the early 70s there is a glorious lack of "background" music so one can enjoy the drama without being aurally assaulted as in most modern stuff.

Apart from the characterisation the main strength is the variety of interesting cases in which the detectives have to ponder a wide range of people and motives.

As others have mentioned, things drop in Series 4 when Carlisle and Woodvine are replaced. The stories are still good but the loss of the two main performances does create a disappointing hole. Presumably Woodvine and Carlisle saw the writing on the wall as series 4 is shorter than the rest and executives at LWT and Thames were no doubt looking for more action-based, bigger budget stuff with the Sweeney in the offing. Still it had a good run - 3.5 series is quite an achievement for a prime-time series.

If you like interesting, cerebral crime-solving, you will enjoy this.

Hine (1971)

Enjoyable drama of corporate and political intrigue

[9/10 · 12 June 2022]

A series about an arms broker with an average 1970s drama budget might not sound promising but this series is enjoyable despite the apparent limitations.

This isn't an action thriller full of shootups; the drama stems from the intrigue of the complex world of international arms dealing where politics, diplomacy, and commerce overlap and intertwine so the limited film budget doesn't really matter very much.

In fact the producers take a refreshingly sensible attitude to settings; they don't make unrealistic attempts to portray the high life but use fairly basic sets to let us know we are in an airport, plane, office, restaurant, etc and then get on with the story which is about the way the main characters try to outwit each other or cooperate as circumstances change the plot twists and turns.

Barrie Ingham is excellent as the determined, shrewd, ex corporal turned entrepreneurial arms dealer pitting his wits against his bigger corporate rivals and officialdom in doing deals to sell arms abroad.

Colin Gordon is equally excellent as the civil servant promoting arms exports who by turns assists, uses, and frustrates Hine's efforts.

Paul Eddington struggles a bit as head of sales for a large arms firm as the character is not as well written as the other two main roles but still adds an interesting element to the character mix.

Pity it only ran to one series.

Maigret: The Reluctant Witnesses (1962) Season 2, Episode 11

Interesting story

[8/10 · 11 May 2022]

This is one of the better episodes with some meat to the investigation for Maigret to get into though it is sometimes hard to follow which of the several related suspects he is considering.

Maigret: A Crime for Christmas (1961) Season 2, Episode 10

It's a Wonderful (Paris) Life

[8/10 · 30 April 2022]

A slightly clichéd Christmas moral tale wrapped up in a crime investigation but a surprisingly enjoyable oddity in the series.

A rare surviving opportunity to see Heather Chasen step (metaphorically) out of her WRNS uniform into a leading screen role and nice subtlety from Helen Shingler.

Maigret: Raise Your Right Hand (1961) Season 2, Episode 8

Moderately interesting

[6/10 · 21 April 2022]

A certain amount of detection and interesting characterization, a bit of courtroom drama, and some tension in the search for the culprit.

The highlight is John Sharp as the owner of a sleezy hotel being every inch Farmer Biggins in a suit.

Maigret: The Golden Fleece (1961) Season 2, Episode 7

A meagre story padded to extremes

[2/10 · 21 April 2022]

What do you do when you have bunged Simenon a hefty wadge of ChFr for the rights to a meagre jumble of ludicrously implausible characters joined by a scrappy pseudo socially aware plot and you have 50 minutes to fill?

You take endless feet of film of barges and locks, bung another wadge to Gabriel de Woolf to do his big looming bad lad act, and hope that the audience is sufficiently embarrassed at the paucity of dramatic fluency, and dearth of plausible characterization to not mention it.

The Jukebox Jury klaxon is feeling a bit overworked on this one.

The Ambassador (1998–1999)

Series 1 rates 9/10 but series 2 rates 3/10

[7/10 · 28 February 2022]

The lovely and able Pauline Collins does an excellent job in series 1 of portraying the ambassador in a set of interesting stories that raise a variety of issues and problems and are scripted very plausibly.

Of course, being modern TV, we can't just enjoy the drama of seeing the ambassador wrestle with the political and diplomatic challenges of each situation; we have to be subjected to the usual tedioius tropes about career woman torn between personal fulfillment as a woman in a man's world and the demands of motherhood as she tries to hold together her family in dealing with their personal tragedy but in series 1 this codswallop is kept in reasonable proportion to the proper drama.

In series 2 the whole thing goes to the dogs with Peter Egan introduced as a completely ludicrous character, the ambassador transformed from a convincingly thinking woman into an overgrown teenager, and plots that are not worthy of the name.

Pauline Collins continues to do her best but it is asking too much of her to rescue things; she deserves better than the rubbish she is saddled with in series 2.

Maigret: The Experts (1961) Season 1, Episode 11

As dire as The Liberty Bar

[1/10 · 28 February 2022]

Cartoon-style gangsters; a plot that is barely worthy of the name and which is impossible to deduce or fathom until recounted at the end; an embarrassingly contrived and inept fight scene; and an all pervading air of "have we filled up the 50 minutes yet?"

No doubt Simenon laughed all the way to the bank after dashing off this rubbish but I don't think many 1961 licence-fee payers did.

Maigret: On Holiday (1961) Season 1, Episode 10

Madame Maigret has more bad luck on holiday

[7/10 · 27 February 2022]

The frequently used starting point of poor Madame Maigret having yet another holiday ruined at least takes a twist here with her being in hospital.

Beyond that it is a fairly undistinguished story given a plodding air by Maigret's refusal to enlighten the local force as to the basis of the enquiries that he sends them on: with Lucas largely absent, we are shut out of Maigret's thought process as well.

Nanette Newman appears in a small but key part.

Maigret: The Judge's House (1963) Season 4, Episode 9

Implausible weak story made worse

[6/10 · 27 February 2022]

Good points: Patricia Hayes being very amusing in a small part; Lucas being his witty self; nice location shots around Honfleur harbour; attempt at Maigret understanding personal tragedy in his usual way.

Bad points: weak plot with implausible motive (made worse by omitting a key fact from the original story that would have given the plot a bit of sense); a pathetic fight scene compounding the plot holes.

Directed by Terrence Dudley. Listen to some of Peter Davison's Dr Who DVD commentaries for his opinion of Dudley - not flattering.

Maigret: The Mistake (1960) Season 1, Episode 9

Excellent example of Maigret psychology

[9/10 · 26 February 2022]

One of the best. Excellent scripting and acting (mostly) in an episode which really plays to the strengths of studio-based drama by being a good play instead of trying and failing to be a TV event.

The episode consists of a simple plot and an examination of character and human nature by Maigret, including his own. This description doesn't make it sound up to much but the way the two are combined with Maigret's detective instincts (excellently played as ever) makes for a gripping story.

The one black mark is an instance of our old friend the am-dram hysterics at a key moment which is more than usually disappointing given the quality of the episode overall. Without this lapse I would have rated the episode a 10.

Maigret: The Crime at Lock 14 (1963) Season 4, Episode 11

Plot messed up in the pursuit of action

[6/10 · 26 February 2022]

Based on a story full of familiar Simenon themes (troubled souls with a murky past and the milieu of the wealthy contrasting with that of the water-based poor) this episode gamely tries to use the location budget to set a scene of canal-side life into which tragedy comes by boat but suffers yet again from its inability to convincingly portray the way in which the different social strata actually differ.

On top of this though, is a worse problem of fiddling with the denouement to get an action-packed ending but then doing nothing to fix the effects that this has on the murderer's motive and the manner in which the murderer responds after the murder, neither of which makes sense.

Many poor episodes in this series could have been saved by some intelligent departures from the original novels and yet when sticking to the original is the best option, the creatives go out of their way to make a mess of it.

Maigret: Peter the Lett (1963) Season 4, Episode 12

Interesting story could have been better handled

[7/10 · 25 February 2022]

Benefits from the location budget of the later series with lots of street scenes to pad out the story but yet again totally fails to make the high-life feel convincingly high.

In an infuriatingly perverse piece of adaptation for a series that could have avoided many of its faults by sometimes departing more than it did from Simenon's story details, it chooses this penultimate episode to make crude and damaging melodramatic changes when the original version of events would have been far more satisfyingly dramatic and plausible.

Maigret: My Friend the Inspector (1960) Season 1, Episode 8

Implausible premise for murder

[6/10 · 25 February 2022]

The story hinges on characters of varying degrees of wealth and aspects of their lives and lifestyle but, as in several other episodes, the wealthy are not portrayed in a sufficiently convincing way to make the relevant key plot elements plausible. This is of course partly due to the limitations of the medium at the time but more imaginative adapting in the script could have improved things enormously.

As too often in series 1, Davies has to carry too much of the weight among too many amateurs (shown up by the professional and underated Toke Townley).

Maigret: A Man of Quality (1960) Season 1, Episode 7

Just about plausible

[7/10 · 24 February 2022]

After the truly appalling flushing-down-the-lavatory-of-the-licence-fee that was The Liberty Bar, any 50 minutes of television meeting the most modest broadcasting standards is a welcome contrast and this episode does qualify.

The plot is Simenon trying to do a bit of a Christie with a technical element to the solution of the murder but he lack's the Queen of Crime's skill in such matters and plausibility is strained somewhat.

There is just about enough light and shade thanks to Ewen Solon's reliable portrayal of the jovial Lucas but there is too much of the amateur comic cuts about some of the minor characters, in some cases due to performance issues, in others because of a lack in the script. Charles Lloyd Pack plainly had the ability to make something wittier of the hotel proprietor, if he had the lines whereas Wilfred Bramble shows himself to be the one-trick pony of Albert Steptoe as a supposedly Jewish newspaper seller who can't make his mind up whether he comes from Poland or Limerick and makes a pretty ham-fisted mess of both acts.

As usual in the early episodes a lot rests on Davies to carry the whole thing but it is not a bad one.

Maigret: Another World (1963) Season 4, Episode 10

Flat portrayal of the high-life

[7/10 · 11 February 2022]

This episode takes on a tricky task in the technical constraints of 1963 TV - a story set in the world of super-rich financiers and socialites. It tries to convey an atmosphere of luxury, excitement, and tragedy but doesn't really succeed.

Of course the budget would make it difficult to portray hedonistic luxury but, given the quite extensive use (for the time) of location filming by series 4, one might expect this to be employed in a more creative way to give a better sense of atmosphere than we are offered.

Shots of airports and jets taking off are deployed to excite the 1963 audience's fantasies about life in the Onassis set but they mainly serve to pad out a thin plot and, as so often, things rest pretty much on Rupert Davies's indisputable innate appeal and Ewen Solon's ever-excellent portrayal of the witty and ebullient Lucas

Unfortunately, in an attempt to make up for the atmospheric deficiency, we are treated, in the case of one of the main characters, to a return of the gruesome am-dram attempts at histrionics of several earlier episodes though the lovely and rather more professional Moira Redmond does offer some compensation.

Maigret: A Man Condemned (1963) Season 4, Episode 5

Another good exercise in detection

[8/10 · 3 February 2022]

A small-scale episode with Maigret trying to save a condemned man by reexamining the case at the last minute.

It manages to avoid slipping too far into cliche or pseudo-psychological padding and does present a good piece of tense detection even if, as so often, the clincher comes about as the result of the murderer making a rather silly howler.

Happy Is the Bride (1958)

A very poor remake

[5/10 · 2 February 2022]

If you like gentle comedies set in an idealised home counties village peopled by well-spoken, elegant, middle-class people played by cinema stalwarts of the 50s and 60s as I do, then this film ought to be a winner. However, it falls unaccountably flat and is decidedly unfunny. When even Cecil Parker fails to raise a laugh, there is something seriously wrong.

I watched it recently for the first time in many many years and, although I knew it was inferior to the 1941 original Quiet Wedding, had convinced myself that it wasn't that bad and benefitted from modern techniques and the likes of Parker, Carmichael, Grenfell, and Barker but they all seem to be on valium while Athene Seyler comes across as just vile.

A major drawback of course is that Miss Scott is simply not in the same league as the beautiful and bewitching Margaret Lockwood but this doesn't explain the other failings.

A classic tale of the almost inevitable failure of remakes and sequels, though even this isn't as horrendous as Quiet Weekend.

I will just have to keep hoping that a copy of the 1941 version re-surfaces ( I don't really undestand why it seems to have disappeared and hasn't even been on Talking Pictures as far as I recall).

Maigret: The Lost Life (1963) Season 4, Episode 3

Back to Paris and back to proper detection

[8/10 · 1 February 2022]

After the low standards of the previous episode (Fontenay Murders) this one is refreshingly interesting.

The good episodes are the ones in which the drama hangs on the momentum of the investigation; things fall apart when we have to rely on atmosphere or ( heaven preserve us) in-depth character portrayal by principal suspects in the hands of those whose creative talents are not up to it.

In this one, Maigret's shadowing of the inferior local district inspector lets us see clearly the workings of the superior detective's approach. This device has been used in many a detective drama and can often lead to a clumsy mess but it is well-handled here and Maigret's famed ability to understand character being nicely integrated into his methodical process adds to the dramatic impetus whereas in some other episodes it becomes a replacement for the latter, with dire consequences for the drama. Because of all this, Maigret's final clinching explanation of the case based on his understanding of the victim rather than detailed hard evidence, feels quite acceptable and reasonable.

An intriguing feature of the series as a whole is the extraordinary amount of alcohol consumed by the police and associated officials during working hours. Such consumption was of course endemic in 60s TV drama, for various reasons, and was often ludicrous in the extreme since if anyone in real life drank the way that TV characters put it away they would be unable to walk, let alone work. But in Maigret it does take on more of an air of authenticity, partly because the consumption, though frequent, is usually in small glasses (rather than near half-pints of whisky as in, for example, The Power Game) but also because such behaviour is believable in a French context (I have myself seen the wine flowing in a French police station). Hence in this episode, serving cognac at the mortuary first thing in the morning does not seem so implausible as would Dr Laura Hobson cracking open an 8am bottle of Talisker at the John Radcliffe.

Maigret: The Fontenay Murders (1963) Season 4, Episode 2

Another ruined holiday for Maigret

[3/10 · 30 January 2022]

Much as I want to like this series (and in the performances of Maigret and Lucas there is much to like) episodes like this one don't make it easy.

Simenon's story is dark, dealing with personal misery, class conflict, family feuds, and ramifications of the war. Or at least that seems to be what he wanted to appear to be doing. Actually he was stringing out a meagre plot by affecting to be a cross between Poe and Dostoevsky.

Putting all that on screen within the technical limitations of 1963 TV was never to going to be a great success and so we have the set designer's attempt at gloomy, unhappy, gothic, aristocratic mansions combining with the lighting designer's need to avoid viewers of the 405-line output ringing the BBC to complain that the picture had gone ( a real and documented fear that underlaid approaches to studio lighting at the time ) resulting in something akin to an Ideal Home Exhibition stand using candles in a power cut while, as usual, the residences of the lower orders come across as a telephone box being used as a store room for a junk shop.

However all of the above does not excuse the lame attempts by director and actors to do angst which pretty much amount just to doing slow. Performances of the low standard on view in this episode hark back to the dire offerings of Series 1 which are much less common in Series 2 and Series 3. Alan Rowe as Alain Vernoux gives us a particularly embarrassing audition-style turn that surely would never have got him into RADA and the non-hidden choreography of the angry mob in the studio scenes suggests that the director fancies doing updated Greek tragedy at the Royal Court.

As the series progresses, one significant improvement is the increased and better use of film for location scenes but here some quite bizarre things go on in film inserts depicting a mob in the town square who manhandle cars from A to (not far away) B to no apparent purpose and courteously let the occupants get out for a chat.

Definitely one for the Jukebox Jury klaxon.

Maigret: The Wedding Guest (1962) Season 3, Episode 4

A story trying to be clever and failing

[3/10 · 27 January 2022]

The main strand of this episode uses a well-worn plot idea: a group of friends meet regularly for weekends of drinking, horse-play, and childish games in an attempt to amuse themselves and escape the dreariness of day-to-day life, but beneath the surface are rivalries, jealousies, animosity, and personal inner tragedy.

Onto this strand is grafted one in which Mairgret tries to investigate a murder without a body, based on tantalizing information from a man convicted of another murder.

The problem is that the group-of-debauchees idea is very difficult to make plausible unless they are either upper-class rebels of the 1920s or teenage tearaways of the lower orders. In either case, they need to be convincingly young. The group in this story don't fit believably into any recognizable social stratum and are patently middle aged. Consequently the potential motives for murder as presented are hard to believe in and the general air of the episode is a curious mixture of silliness, flatness, and pretentiousness.

There is an interesting sequence of film at a race track which was bold for the time and context but goes on too long to sustain interest due to the (necessary) fixed-camera single-shot approach.

Frank Williams, in a very small part, doesn't actually say "Well reeee-ally !" but one expects him to at any moment and in every other respect he was clearly destined to take up the living of St Anselm's, Warmington-on-Sea.

And a spotting opportunity for Dr Who watchers is veteran Dalek John Scott Martin as an extra in arab getup.

Maigret: Seven Little Crosses (1962) Season 3, Episode 11

Maigret lite

[7/10 · 26 January 2022]

A good idea in some ways despite not being based on a Simenon story, set on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with the investigation led by Lucas. The detectives in the office expecting an uneventful shift and then having to track a potentially deadly situation on the deserted streets with little to go on and key facilities closed in the department is an interesting conceit though stretched somewhat to fill 50 mins.

Maigret: The Trap (1962) Season 3, Episode 12

Maigret takes a risk

[8/10 · 26 January 2022]

Based on one of the better of the more psychological of Simenon's stories, this one is well done, benefiting from the series's increasing use of filmed inserts of location scenes. Unusually, some of these have dubbed dialogue which does help with the feeling of momentum even if the synchronization is less than perfect.

As the story was adapted in both the Gambon and Atkinson versions one can make some interesting comparisons, notably in the location sections on the streets of Montmartre . Although Atkinson was truly awful as Maigret and his series pretty poor in most other respects, one would naturally expect his huge budget and modern technology to eclipse something made in 1962 when it came to locations but no; the atmosphere and tension here is the more gripping. Even the Gambon version doesn't quite match the Davies version in this area.

In the the office-based investigation Davies again eclipses Atkinson in dealing with the psychology of the main characters but doesn't do as well as Gambon. With a longer running-time Gambon did have an advantage in developing interaction with the characters, particularly the main suspect's wife, but Davies would still have been helped here by better scripting and a performance of more depth than is on offer from Jacquline Hill.

A walk-on part by Mary Hignett as head of the women detectives section might interest anyone familiar with All Creatures Great and Small as she was Mrs Hall, the housekeeper.

Overall an enjoyable episode, a very long way from the standards of series 1.