Public Eye 

Cynical, dour and world-weary, private eye Frank Marker is frequently the unwitting stooge in bigger criminal wheels in his attempts to make a tenuous living on the outskirts of London.

Creators:

Anthony Marriott, Roger Marshall

Stars:

Alfred Burke, Ray Smith, Pauline Delaney

1 nomination.

Cast

Series cast summary:
Alfred Burke	...	Frank Marker 87 episodes, 1965-1975

Storyline

Cynical, dour and world-weary, private eye Frank Marker is frequently the unwitting stooge in bigger criminal wheels in his attempts to make a tenuous living on the outskirts of London.

---

Plot Keywords:

partially lost tv series | private investigator | 

---

Genres:

Crime | Drama

---

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 January 1965 (UK)

Also Known As:

Detective público

Company Credits

Production Co:

ABC Weekend Television, Thames Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min (87 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

To keep the series fresh, the producers regularly moved Frank Marker (Alfred Burke) around the U.K. The show was originally based in London's Clapham district, moving to Handsworth in Birmingham, Brighton, Windsor, Walton-on-Thames, and finally Chertsey.

---

Goofs

At the start of the second season, Marker moves into new premises in Birmingham which overlook Kane's Timber Yard. Despite the busy sound effects added by the production team to convey the atmosphere of a hectic workplace, the view from his office window regularly depicts the same selection of long-untouched wooden planks, since the scene is a stationary backdrop. By the following series Kane's have been taken over and presumably demolished, as a view of tower blocks has replaced the yard.

---

Connections

Referenced in Remembering Douglas Camfield (2013)

---

Soundtracks

Public Eye
(uncredited)
Composed by Robert Sharples (as Robert Earley)
[series theme tune]

User Reviews

Vanished from the Public Eye

It's been over 30 years since I last saw Public Eye on UK ITV, but having just watched some of the 1969 episodes released on DVD it's as I remembered it: grimy and gritty. There was a marvellously downbeat downtrodden atmosphere to all the series (I'm too young to remember the first from the mid-sixties, all wiped), partly thanks to the fact neither ABC nor Thames wanted to spend much money on it, and not just the acting or the stories. Those who remember the series have no chance in forgetting the lugubrious theme music, oft repeated per episode at the commercial break bumpers.

Welcome to Brighton? broadcast 30.07.69: Framed ex convict Frank Marker indelibly played by angular and craggy Alfred Burke leaves HMP Ford for a new start in Brighton. A few ordinary adventures later his cynical outlook is seemingly proved justified by our glimpse into a dull grainy world of varying but usually seedy human emotions. Being an "Enquiry Agent" was in his blood, as performing a simple favour to an acquaintance in prison brings out the bloodhound in him.

I don't go overboard for "realism" in films or TV - give me Abbott & Costello any day! But I do recommend Public Eye for something refreshingly different to today's type of TV drama, a realism at once hard but at the same time humdrum and fantastic too, and also basically portraying a non-colour, non-violent and non-CGI world too.