Coronet Blue 

Michael Alden is an amnesiac, who must discover his real identity before the operatives of a mysterious group locate him and kill him. The key to his past might be "Coronet Blue", a meaningless phrase he for some reason remembers.

Creator:

Larry Cohen

Stars:

Frank Converse, Joe Silver, Brian Bedford

Cast

Complete series cast summary:
Frank Converse	...	Michael Alden 13 episodes, 1967
Joe Silver	...	Max Spier 9 episodes, 1967

Storyline

Mike was running from some men when he fell into the harbor. He climbed out remembering only that he was running and the phrase "coronet blue". As the show continued from week to week, Mike tried to piece together clues to his identity as individuals he referred to as "Greybeards" seemed to be intent on killing him.

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Plot Keywords:

russian | spy | sleeper agent | spy unit | enemy agent | 

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Did You Know?

Trivia

Series Creator Larry Cohen, in his autobiography "The Radical Allegories of an Independent Filmmaker", explained the mystery behind the series' title and catchphrase. "When the Brodkin Organization took over the series, they wanted to turn it into an anthology. So they played down the amnesia aspect until there was nothing about it at all in the show. It was just Frank Converse wandering from one story to the next with no connective format at all. Anyway, the show ended after seventeen weeks and nobody found out what 'coronet blue' meant. The actual secret is that Converse was not really an American at all. He was a Russian who had been trained to appear like an American and was sent to the U.S. as a spy. He belonged to a spy unit called 'Coronet Blue'. He decided to defect, so the Russians tried to kill him before he can give away the identities of the other Soviet Agents, and nobody can really identify him because he doesn't exist as an American. Coronet Blue was actually an outgrowth of 'The Traitor' episode of The Defenders (1961)." However, anyone who has seen the show knows that the amnesia aspect was in fact not played down (one episode had Alden declining a golden opportunity to learn the truth about himself, or at least a good part of it, on moral grounds concerning the way the information became available to him). Other facts are that thirteen episodes were all that were filmed, and that from first air date to last is only fourteen weeks, fifteen potential weekly air dates if you include those at both ends, but only eleven of the episodes were aired. In any case, Cohen's "seventeen weeks", made in a book wherein he presumably had plenty of time to check and be certain that he got such fundamental facts correct, is indefensible. All this calls the validity of the entirety of his statement into question.

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Connections

Referenced in The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs: The Stuff (2019)

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Soundtracks

Coronet Blue
(uncredited)
Music by Laurence Rosenthal
Lyrics by Earl Shuman
Sung by Lenny Welch

User Reviews

Title of Show from a Matchbook !!

I have read various accounts of the premise of Coronet Blue and how the pilot episode opens. There are two details I vividly remember differently and was wondering if anyone else noted them as I did. Most interesting is the origin of the series title. Some websites state Frank Converse's character climbs out of the water himself and mumbles only two words: "Coronet Blue" - hence, the title. I watched the pilot episode the night it first aired on television. Specifically, he was pulled from the water by other people, and unconscious at that. The people go through his pockets looking for identification, but the only thing he has on him is a matchbook with a design of a blue coronet (crown) on the outside of it. Doesn't anyone else remember that detail?

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 May 1967 (USA)

Also Known As:

Das Geheimnis der blauen Krone

Filming Locations:

Pathe Studios, New York City, New York, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Plautus Productions, CBS Television Network

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min (13 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1