Shirley's World - "The Berkley Club Caper"

Shirley's World was a bit of a strange ITC show. It originally premièred in the US in 1971 before appearing in the UK at the beginning of 1972. It only ran for 17 episodes and was co-produced by ITC and the American producer, Sheldon Leonard. Leonard had produced famous US comedy series like The Andy Griffith Show (US: 1960), the brilliant The Dick Van Dyke Show (US: 1961), and the very cool spy series I Spy (US: 1965).

The show starred Shirley McLaine in her first major television series, and is essentially a "fish-out-of-water" story. McLaine is Shirley Logan a reporter for a glossy international magazine, World Illustrated, who is relocated to London where she frequently clashes with the editor, the stuffy, by-the-book, Dennis Croft (played by John Gregson). Gregson's appearance is a further example of how ITC shows would utilise many of the same actors from other ITC series - Gregson played the starring role of Commander George Gideon in Gideon's Way (UK: 1974), a programme I will write about in future blog entries. The result is a mixture of comedy\drama and a will-they\won't they romance between McLaine's character and Croft.

For her first assignment, Croft sends Shirley to interview Sir Harold Willbright-Manners. Unknown to Shirley the Berkley Club, where Willbright-Manners spends the majority of his time, is a Men Only club, and after failing several times to gain entrance to the club, Shirley hatches a plan.

Although some of the comedy falls a bit flat, and the budding romance between Shirley and Croft feels a bit unlikely, McLaine was 37 and Gregson was 52 at the time, McLaine's charismatic performance makes up for the shows shortcomings. Gregson is good, but his trendy long hair and sideburns actually make him look older.

What I particular enjoy about this episode is the way Shirley devises a way to get into the club, and what this also tells us about London in the early 1970s. Shirley decides to hire a group of Soho strippers. This leads to the incredible (but wonderful) spectacle of Shirley McLaine visiting several Soho strip clubs, gathering a troupe of very scantily clad women, and marching into the Berkley Club to confront the elderly club members. Shirley then proceeds to take a series of photographs of the strippers as they casually drape, grope and flaunt themselves in front of the old men (her intention is to blackmail the club members unless she gets her interview).

How Soho has changed, I remember as a child buying comics from a shop called "Dark They Were And Golden Eyed" (the forerunner to "Forbidden Planet"), in Berwick St., the heart of Soho, and walking past numerous strip clubs, peep shows, and book shops with strange coloured plastic stripes covering the entrance. Thank you Shirley's World for bringing back some childhood memories!

Next: My favourite episode of The Prisoner, the very psychedelic "A.B.C."

Man in a Suitcase - "Day of Execution"

"Day of Execution" is a very strange episode on Man in a Suitcase. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Man in a Suitcase is about a disgraced ex-CIA agent known only as McGill who operates as a sort of trouble-shooter/private detective based in London. McGill was played by the method actor Richard Bradford, and boy does it show. I first came across Bradford in Arthur Penn's slice of Southern Gothic, The Chase with Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, and Robert Duvall. I'm a huge fan of the film, and thought Bradford's performance was great.

Bradford as McGill is probably one of the most unsympathetic heroes of the time. When compared to similar ITC shows like The Saint, Gideon's Way, or The Baron, McGill stands out like a sore thumb, and he does his best to be as sullen, uncooperative, rude and surly.

"Day of Execution" is fascinating for several reasons. The screenplay was written by Dennis Spooner, who is an unsung hero of British fantasy television. Spooner's writing credits appear on numerous, and popular, drama series, including The Avengers, Doctor Who, Stingray, Thunderbirds, and co-created Man in a Suitcase, Department S, The Champions, and Jason King (Spooner was nothing if not prolific). What I also like about this episode, and many other ITC series, is the appearances of actors from other shows. For example, McGill's girlfriend in this episode is played by Rosemary Nichols who played Annabelle Hurst the computer genius from Department S. Donald Sutherland also turns up as McGill's duplicitous best friend (in McGill's murky world you can't trust anyone). A great deal of Sutherland's early career was spent appearing on British films and TV, often playing psychotic gangsters, and he pops up many times in ITC shows of the time. Sally Geeson also makes a quick appearance as the "Girl at Cleaners" - two years later, she would appear topless in the odd sex comedy What's Good for Goose (Golan, UK., 1968), Norman Wisdom's cinematic swan-song.

"Day of Execution" never really gets going, and a lot of time is spent in a hotel room with McGill receiving mysterious telephone calls, and getting more frustrated and angry, while at the same time being nasty towards his girlfriend, as well as his best friend from college. It is only in the final few minutes that the audience actually starts to see some action. McGill is trapped in his hotel room by a trio of gunmen seeking revenge for an assassination that he was involved in during his time as a spy in Beirut. McGill escapes by throwing several molotov cocktails through the hotel door and setting the gunmen alight, and then (incredibly) the episode ends. As an action story, it fails miserably, but as a showcase of how the American method acting works (as represented by Bradford and Sutherland) in contrast to the stiffer, formal performances of the British actors, the episode is not only a masterclass, but also a bit of an oddity.

Man in a Suitcase is a patchy series, but I'll try to find some more highlights during later discussions.

Next: Shirley's World (an even stranger choice of actor and subject matter made by ITC)

Strange Report - "Report 1553: Racist, 'A Most Dangerous Proposal'"

There is no two ways about this, I adore Strange Report. I've watched this series a few times, and I'm trying to work out what I like so much about this show. It certainly isn't a childhood memory because I only discovered the series when it was shown on ITV4 about 7-8 years ago.

What I love about the show is not only the setting, 'Swinging Sixties' London (my favourite period of history), but also the brilliant chemistry between the three stars, as well as the way the series often didn't shy away from some of the topical issues of the day, not to mention the great theme tune (like so many other memorable ITC shows). You can listen to it here: Strange Report Opening Theme (The title sequence gives you all the information about the show that you might want to know!)

The show stars Anthony Quayle as Adam Strange, a retired Home Office criminologist with friends in high places, Kaz Garas as an American postdoctoral science researcher Hamlyn (Ham) Gynt, who works at the British Museum, and Anneke Wills as Evelyn McClean, model, artist, secretary, cook, kooky girl-about-town, etc. Strange is often asked to take on cases from his ex-colleagues at the Home Office, and with the help of Ham and Evelyn, Strange travels around London in a black taxi-cab getting involved in student demonstrations, dodgy surgeons, epidemics, and fraud.

Quayle is probably best known for playing the German spy in Ice Cold in Alex (1958), and the unfortunate Major Roy Franklin in The Guns of Navarone (1961). Quayle was a big star in the '60s and seeing him appear in an adventure series likes this adds something special to the show. Quayle is such an understated actor, and I love his performance here. He carries a remarkable air of authority, you just know that when he asks you to do something you feel as if you couldn't refuse - a kindly, no-nonsense patriarchal figure - his bemused take on Evelyn's new abstract painting of their landlord's cat in this episode is priceless.

I don't know much about the early career of Kaz Garas, but I do know he is still acting. I last saw him in an execrable 1996 TV remake of Roger Corman's Humanoids from the Deep. After his role in Strange Report, Garas' IMDB entry reads like a roll call of my favourite American TV shows from the 1970s, including parts in The Virginian, The Mod Squad, High Chapparal, The F.B.I., Marcus Welby M.D. (man I loved that show), The Snoop Sisters, Barnaby Jones. etc. Garas as Ham is a mixture of action-man and scientist, and Strange often calls on him to carry out different types of forensic research. For example, in this episode Ham has to find out whether the blood type of a racist politician suspected of murdering a priest matches the blood found at the scene of the crime (spoiler alert: it doesn't, it's all part of a dastardly plot)

Finally Anneke Wills, Doctor Who fans will know Anneke as Polly one of William Hartnell's Tardis companions. I really am too young to remember her in that (I come in during the Troughton\Pertwee era). After Strange Report Wills retired to run a craft shop in Norfolk, but I know she continues to give newspaper and television interviews about her acting career. Evelyn is Strange's next door neighbour, and she is often used by Strange as a "go-to" girl. For example, if Strange needs information on an organisation he will go to Evelyn and ask her to find out anything she can. In other episodes she is often asked to infiltrate offices under suspicion by Strange - but I'll get to that in later blogs.

I selected "Racist" as the first Strange Report episode for this blog because it was made after Tory MP Enoch Powell's notorious "Rivers of Blood" speech, in which he warned the British public about the dangers of immigration into the UK. His speech was so controversial, Edward Heath the leader of the Conservative Party at the time asked him to resign from the cabinet. "Racist" features the MP Glyn Crowley (played by Guy Doleman who turned up as the first No. 2 in last week's blog The Prisoner). Crowley, and his associates in the Pure British League (the National Front were unfortunately lurking in the background of UK politics at this time), is arguing for the repatriation of black migrants. Strange is called in by a contact at the Home Office after Crowley (Strange refers to him as "bigot-on-Thames") is accused of murder.

There are several things I really like about this episode. I like the small amounts of cultural references, something that is not often associated with adventure series like this. For example, Strange convinces Ham to help him by referring to the Notting Hill riots of the late 1950s, "We've had riots before Ham. Never again!" I also like the point where Rick, a West Indian who had earlier been the target of thugs from the Pure British League, points out to a crowd of protestors that their problem is not black people but, "Problem with jobs! Problem with representation! Problem with housing!" This episode is a reminder that no matter how much some things change, unfortunately there are things that stay very much the same.

One last word. This episode also features one of my favourite actors from the 1960s - Jane Merrow as Crowley's pro-immigration daughter. She pops up in loads of ITC shows during this period, but her most memorable appearance, as far as I'm concerned, is her role as the sultry, pouting, outrageously flirtatious secretary Angela Roberts in the fantastic Night of the Big Heat (1967) directed by Hammer Studios Terence Fisher.

Next Week: An episode from Man in the Suitcase.

The Prisoner - "Arrival"

I thought I would start with a classic. The first episode of The Prisoner starring Patrick McGoohan first transmitted in the UK September 1967, and what most have British viewers thought? McGoohan had achieved enormous international success with another ITC series, Danger Man, and was well known to TV viewers at the time, so what really surprised me is how The Prisoner is so uncompromising - its just doesn't play safe.

For example, the show begins with an extended version of what will later become the main title sequence; McGoohan driving his sports car (a Stan Lee No-prize for anyone who can give me the registration no.), bursting into an underground complex, banging his fist on a table and storming out. He drives back to his flat and begins to pack a suitcase. Two undertakers put a gas pipe through his front-door, McGoohan's character collapes, and he wakes up in the mysterious village. There is no dialogue until 4 minutes into the show, no explanation to tell the viewer what is happening, and we still don't know the name of McGoohan's character (we never get to know his name).

What I love about this first episode is all the incidental detail, from the costumes (blazers, straw hats, undertakers, deck shoes) to the whimsical, jazzy version of the nursery-rhyme, "Pop Goes the Weasel". The village is some-sort of Orwellian nightmare where everything is clearly and unambiguously named, e.g. "hospital", "shop", there is even a "Labour Exchange".

The production design is gorgeous, and the first appearance of "rover" is outrageous. How do you make a white weather balloon menacing? Accompany it's appearance with a howling, growling noise, and most importantly, don't explain how it works, just leave it up to the imagination of the viewers.

McGoohan is brilliant in this, the script is witty, clever, and everything is marvelously, unmistakeably British. And when was the last time you saw a character wearing leather slippers.

A few things to note, and to watch out for in future episodes. The two women characters in this episode are both spies, and I've a feeling, from my memories of the show, that the sexual politics of the series are not that progressive. I know that no one is to be trusted, but I can't remember there being a sympathetic female character in the series - I hope I'm wrong.

Great moments: McGoohan's character smashes a radio in his room, and over the tannoy we hear a call for "Electrics" to come and repair the fault :) ; the sign on the wall "A Still Tongue Makes a Happy Life", and finally "Be Seeing You", how can a simple comment become so menacing? I'm really looking forward to watching the rest of this series.

Next Time: an episode from one of my favourite ITC series, Strange Report.

Introducing Stand By For Action

Welcome to Stand By For Action, a Blog dedicated to the many programmes produced by the British Production Company I.T.C. (now defunct) :(

This blog is intended as light-hearted take on my personal thoughts and views, and occasionally some background information and stuff on a variety of I.T.C. programmes like The Prisoner, The Champions, Department S, and other, less well known, shows.

Each week I will watch one episode, and then post comments which I hope will be entertaining, mildly informative, and (hopefully) introduce you to the delights of these programmes.

Although at times my tongue might be firmly in my cheek, please don't take any of my comments too seriously.  I genuinely love these shows, and would rather sit down with a boxed set of The Strange Report, or The Prisoner, than watch much of what passes for popular drama today.

I welcome any comments, thoughts, discussion threads, or suggestions, etc.