A Man Called Harry Brent (1965)

Francis Durbridge (1912-1998) was an English writer of crime thriller novels, radio plays and television plays. He wrote an enormous number of TV crime serials for the BBC between 1952 and 1980, unfortunately only about half of which survive. The later serials were broadcast under the umbrella title Francis Durbridge Presents.

A Man Called Harry Brent, which survives in its entirety (six half-hour episodes), originally went to air in 1965.

When businessman Tom Fielding is murdered it should be a really easy case for Detective Inspector Alan Milton (Gerald Harper). He has the murderer in custody and there’s not the slightest doubt that she did it. Unfortunately it’s not simple at all. He has no idea of the killer’s identity and no idea at all why she killed Fielding. And what is the connection to Harry Brent?

Harry Brent (Edward Brayshaw) is engaged to be married, to Milton’s ex-girlfriend Carol. Harry and Carol were witnesses to the murder, in a manner of speaking. So Milton is to some extent already personally involved. If Harry is involved in a deeper way, and there is evidence that could point in that direction, it could be an uncomfortable situation for the Inspector.

Inspector Milton can’t complain that he doesn’t have any clues to work with. There are clues in abundance. There’s the fountain pen, the cigarette pack, the sports coat, the theatre tickets, there are all sorts of snippets of conversations reported by witnesses. His problem is that he doesn’t have the remotest idea what any of these clues mean. And soon he has three corpses and they don’t help him much either.

Inspector Milton is not at all sure about Harry Brent. Lots of things about him seem suspicious, but of course it’s possible that he may have been set up. It’[s also possible that personal feelings are clouding Milton’s judgment - it’s obvious he’s still carrying a torch for Carol. Their break-up was apparently just a little messy.

Milton also thinks that this case may be a lot more complicated than it seems to be. He’s right about that, and it’s also more dangerous than it seems to be. There are people with guns involved (which in England in 1965 was a pretty big deal). Milton himself is threatened by a man with a gun. There’s also a glamorous actress and they’re always trouble.

Gerald Harper plays cops in more than one of the Francis Durbridge Presents serials. Playing harassed but vaguely sympathetic cops was something he was very good at. Inspector Milton is inclined to be a little sharp-tempered at times but on the whole he’s a decent fellow faced with a very frustrating and personally difficult case.

This serial dates from the era of shot-in-the-studio shot-on-videotape British television but there’s quite a lot of location shooting as well. As a result it doesn’t have the very cheap very claustrophobic feel that so many mid-60s British TV series have. It’s still a bit static at times but that was par for the course for British TV in 1965.

All the surviving Francis Durbridge Presents serials are available on DVD in Region 4, in two excellent-value boxed sets from Madman. Most are available in Region 2 as well. Madman’s transfer is surprisingly good for a British TV series of this vintage, especially given that apparently only a single copy survives.

A Man Called Harry Brent suffers from some of the problems that afflicted some British television at that time, being a little static, very dialogue-heavy and with a certain stiffness. It also has many of the strengths of the best of 1960s British television with some fine writing.

Some of the other Francis Durbridge serials are better but this one’s quite enjoyable. Recommended.

Francis Durbridge Presents - The Passenger (1971)

The Passenger is a British crime/mystery thriller serial written by Francis Durbridge and originally screened in 1971. It was one of the many serials that were broadcast by the BBC under the umbrella title Francis Durbridge Presents.

David Walker (David Knight) is a partner in a toy company about to be taken over by a larger competitor. David is not terribly happy about this but he soon has other much more urgent matters to worry about. He discovers his wife Evelyn (Melissa Stribling) has been having an affair with smooth-talking driving instructor Roy Norton (James Kerry). David decides to spend some time in the country to think things through and while en route to his uncle’s house in Cumberland he picks up hitch-hiker Judy Clayton (Beth Morris). Judy is young and pretty but gives the impression of being perhaps a little flighty. Not that it matters since it all amounts to nothing anyway. David’s car runs out of petrol, he sets off on foot to get some petrol from a garage a couple of miles away and when he returns to the car Judy has gone. A very trivial incident and soon forgotten.

The incident doesn’t seem quite so trivial to Detective Inspector Martin Denson (Peter Barkworth) when he is assigned to investigate the murder of Judy Clayton. Her body was found not far from the point at which David’s car ran out of petrol. She had been strangled. David Walker now seems like an obvious suspect but Inspector Denson soon finds himself with several more suspects who seem every bit as promising. Oddly enough they all seem to be connected with each other.

There are several women mixed up in the case as well and they’re all part of the same interconnected web. Even Inspector Denson’s estranged wife Sue (Joanna Dunham) seems to be linked to this strange assortment of people.

One thing that seems clear to Inspector Denson is that most if not all of these people are lying to him. Unfortunately that’s the only thing that is clear. They could be lying because they were involved in Judy Clayton’s murder but they seem to have other equally plausible reasons for being less than frank with the police.

The physical evidence is just as puzzling. There’s a note that is important but the authorship of this missive is uncertain. There’s a camera and some photos but they don’t help much as there is no way of knowing who was in possession of the camera at the time the snapshots were taken.

The more Denson investigates the more evidence he finds and it all points in one direction, but he has a strong feeling it’s the wrong direction. Meanwhile the web of unlikely people who were all involved in each other’s lives just keeps getting more complex and more difficult to make sense of.

This is a BBC production and it has that characteristic BBC made-on-the-cheap look to it.

Peter Barkworth was a fine actor and gives a nicely understated performance as a man who likes to keep his feelings to himself but finds it increasingly difficult to keep those feelings under control. Joanna Dunham is quite adequate as Sue Denson. Some of the supporting players are very good but some are not quite so good and are just a little stiff. This is pretty unusual for British television of that era which always seemed to have a limitless pool of acting talent on which to draw.

Michael Ferguson is perhaps not the world’s most inspired director. It does have to be remembered that 1971 was still the era of British television shot on videotape in the studio with very limited location work and with the BBC not being known for being over-generous with budgets he was working under definite constraints. And he handles the action climax quite competently (it’s quite possible that most of the budget was actually spent on this climax).

What this serial does have that really matters is a script by Francis Durbridge and that’s more than enough to compensate for a few minor weaknesses in other areas. This time Durbridge has come up with a gloriously elaborate plot that throws so many clues at us that we remain as mystified as poor Inspector Denson.

I think it’s fair to say that Durbridge plays fair with us. There’s one clue that is the absolute clincher but with so many clues to keep track of Durbridge could feel fairly confident that its significance would not be noticed.

There's also a romance sub-plot as Martin Denson tries desperately to resurrect his failed marriage.

The Passenger is included in the excellent Region 4 Francis Durbridge Presents Volume 2 DVD boxed set released in Australia by Madman. The set contains no less than five complete Francis Durbridge serials, including Bat Out of Hell and The Doll (which are both definitely worth watching). The only extra is an episode of the (extremely good) Paul Temple TV series. The transfers are very good and the set represents outstanding value.

The Passenger is a delightfully convoluted murder mystery. Very entertaining and highly recommended.

Francis Durbridge Presents - Melissa (1964)

Melissa is a six-episode mini-series first broadcast by the BBC in 1964 as part of the Francis Durbridge Presents series. It was remade in colour in 1974, again as part of the Francis Durbridge Presents series.

Melissa opens in typically Francis Durbridge fashion. Guy Foster (Tony Britton) is a rather inoffensive journalist now trying to make a living as a novelist. He’s not the sort of man you would expect to be a murder suspect. But that is what has happened to Guy. His problem is that the story he has told to the police has been contradicted, in fairly spectacular fashion, by the evidence of other people. Are these people lying? Is there some kind of conspiracy? Has Guy gone insane? None of it makes sense but the upshot is that to the police he’s looking more and more like a guilty man.

Guy is now in a nightmare world. The police don’t seem to believe anything he says. Nobody seems to believe him. People he has never met claim to know him. A very respectable doctor tells the police that Guy is one of his patients, although Guy has never even heard of the doctor. Any evidence that might support Guy’s story seems to disappear,  or (even more worryingly) appears to have never existed although Guy distinctly remembers seeing these pieces of evidence.

It’s obvious that if Guy wants to clear his name, and avoid being arrested, he’ll have to solve the case himself but he doesn’t know if he can trust anybody since nobody seems to be the person that Guy thought they were. In fact his whole life may not have been what he thought it was, and certainly the reality of his marriage differed from Guy’s perception of it. Did he even know his wife Melissa at all?

Guy also thought he knew his friends pretty well. Friends like glamorous racing car driver Don Page (Brian McDermott) and Paula and Felix Hepburn (an amiable if slightly dotty middle-aged couple). Now Guy is wondering if he could have been wrong about them as well.

And it’s not just one murder. And the circumstances of the second murder tend to point towards Guy as well. It’s also by no means certain that this second murder will be the last.

Durbridge’s script twists and turns in very satisfying fashion. By the end of the fourth episode I must confess that I still had no inkling whatever of the solution to this mystery. There are six half-hour episodes and Durbridge knows how to make the most of this format, giving us some kind of surprise (or enigmatic) ending for each episode. 

The solution to the mystery is quite typical of Durbridge’s work but I won’t say any more for fear of revealing spoilers.

Tony Britton gives a fine performance. It’s mostly understated and even when Guy’s whole world is collapsing around him Britton doesn’t overdo the gradually increasing hysteria because Guy is the sort of man who, if he were going to go mad, would go mad quietly and unobtrusively.

Brian Wilde plays Chief Inspector Carter, who seems rather gentle and quietly spoken for a policeman but perhaps that’s just the impression he likes to give. He finds it difficult to believe Guy’s story but what exactly does the inspector believe? He doesn’t give much away.

This is early 60s BBC television so don’t expect too much in the way of production values. There are a few outdoors scenes but mostly it’s shot in the studio and it is a bit dialogue-heavy at times. 

Melissa is one of the four Durbridge serials in Madman’s Australian Region 4 Francis Durbridge Presents Volume 1 DVD boxed set. The set also includes The Desperate People and A Game of Murder (both of which are excellent) and A Man Called Harry Brent (which I haven’t yet watched). The transfers are good (considering that this is early 60s shot-on-videotape British television) and the set is great value.

Melissa is an unassuming but entertaining mystery. Durbridge fans won't want to miss it. If you're not yet a Durbridge fan it's probably as good a place as any to start. His television serials are all pretty consistent and all are enjoyable.

Francis Durbridge Presents The Desperate People (1963)

The Desperate People is the earliest of the many serials written by Francis Durbridge for the BBC to have survived (although a couple of episodes of one earlier serial, The World of Tim Fraser, also survive. It was made in 1963 and was one of the serials screened under the umbrella title Francis Durbridge Presents.

The Desperate People has a typical Durbridge beginning. A perfectly ordinary chap suddenly encounters an unexpected event that propels him into a world of mystery and murder. In this case the ordinary chap is photographer Larry Martin (Denis Quilley). His brother Phil, serving in the British Army in Germany, arrives to spend his leave in London. Firstly though Phil  has to dash off briefly to Dublin in connection with a car accident that claimed the life of a fellow soldier.

Phil never does go to Ireland. Instead he goes off to a hotel somewhere in England and then sudden death intervenes. It is a clear case of suicide, but Larry refuses to accept the verdict of the coroner’s court. This again is a typical Durbridge device - a man is sure that murder has taken place but he can’t prove it and the police don’t believe him and he ends up doing some investigating on his own.

Larry soon discovers some very curious things. Everything that seemed clear-cut about the case now turns out to have been a series of deceptions. There are photographs that suddenly turn up and just as suddenly vanish, there’s the mystery of a book of poetry read incessantly by a man who has never in his whole life been known to read poetry, there’s a mysterious key that everyone wants, there are accidents that are almost certainly no accidents, and there are more murders. 

Detective Inspector Hyde is investigating the case and he also has his suspicions that there’s more here than meets the eye. Larry co-operates with him, up to a point, although it’s obvious he’d like to solve the case and it’s also obvious that Inspector Hyde has mixed feelings about amateurs trying to play detective. Larry also gets assistance from his faithful secretary Ruth (Renny Lister). 

As the story progresses Larry finds that there are even more things that he didn’t know about his brother.

Durbridge was never much interested in ingenious murder methods. What matters is not the how, but the who and the why. And it is the why that is most important. In The Desperate People there aren’t many suspects to choose from but we can’t guess the murderer’s identity until we figure out exactly what kind of crime (and what kind of criminal) is actually behind it all. The murder (or murders) is incidental to the real crime. 

Denis Quilley is a pretty good hero, full of steely determination if not always showing the soundest judgment. Hugh Cross makes a fine police inspector, businesslike and a man who gives very little away.

Plus you get Nigel Hawthorne (Sir Humphrey Appleby from Yes Minister) as a heavy!

Francis Durbridge was a great television mystery writer whose scripts were enjoyably tangled and yet perfectly plausible.

It’s typical early 60s British television, mostly shot on videotape with a bit of location shooting. Production values are reasonable by BBC standards (in other words they're really rather basic). 

Considering that it dates from 1963 this serial is still in reasonably good condition. Picture quality is variable but generally quite acceptable (no 1963 British television show shot on videotape is going to look spectacular). 

The slightly later A Game of Murder (from 1966) and the much later (1975) The Doll are other Francis Durbridge Presents serials that are well worth catching. 

The Desperate People is one of four Durbridge serials included in Madman’s Australian Region 4 Francis Durbridge Presents Volume 1 DVD boxed set. A set well worth getting.

The Desperate People is fine entertainment. HIghly recommended.

Francis Durbridge Presents - Bat Out of Hell (1966)

Francis Durbridge was a novelist but is better known as one of the great mystery writers for radio and television. He wrote eight serials broadcast between 1952 and 1959 under the umbrella title The Francis Durbridge Serial but unfortunately all are now lost. Happily all but one of the eleven serials screened between 1960 and 1980 under the title Francis Durbridge Presents do survive in their entirety. These survivors include Bat Out of Hell which first went to air in 1966.

Bat Out of Hell comprises five half-hour episodes.

Geoffrey Stewart (Noel Johnson) is a wealthy real estate agent. He has a luxurious home and an Aston Martin and a beautiful but much younger wife, Diana (Sylvia Syms). The marriage does not seem to be a great success. Geoffrey thinks his wife is foolish and extravagant; Diana thinks her husband is tight-fisted and bad-tempered. Mark Paxton (played by a 24-year-old John Thaw) works for Stewart. Given that the Stewarts’ marriage is shaky you might think there’s the potential there for a romantic triangle to develop, and you’d be right.

You might also think that such a situation could lead to murder. Again you’d be right. This is however a rather puzzling murder. No-one is quite sure who has murdered whom. Even the murderer doesn’t know!

Things get steadily more puzzling, with dead people making telephone calls and people telling obvious lies for no obvious purpose. Fortunately Inspector Clay (Dudley Foster) is an unflappable sort of fellow and he’s a more formidable policeman than you might take him for at first.

Despite his youthfulness John Thaw was already a fairly experienced television actor. He doesn’t yet have the intensity that one associates with him but he handles his role quite adeptly.

Sylvia Syms does well as the young wife who has landed herself in a nightmare of her own making. She’s certainly scheming but mostly she really just doesn’t seem to appreciate the consequences of her actions.

For my money Dudley Foster steals the show as the quietly relentless detective who patiently assembles the pieces of the puzzle.

Emrys Jones is a lot of fun as the downtrodden but cheerful husband of Diana Stewart’s friend Thelma Bowen. Walter Bowen is one of those people who has never managed to be quite a important or significant as he feels he ought to have been but he’s still sure that if he keeps trying people will take him seriously. It’s not exactly a comic relief role but it does provide a few moments of gentle humour in an otherwise rather grim tale.

Francis Durbridge’s script is what you expect from such a distinguished television writer. It has the necessary twists and turns and he provides a decent cliffhanger ending for each episode. 

Alan Bromly directed all five episodes of Bat Out of Hell and in fact he directed a very large proportion of the various Francis Durbridge television serials.

There’s just a touch of the creakiness you sometimes get in these mostly studio-bound shot-on-videotape productions. By 1966 BBC standards (which are admittedly rather low) the production values aren’t really too bad and there is at least some location shooting.

The semi-rural setting (apparently about an hour-and-a-half from London) and the lack of anything in the way of graphic violence gives this production something of the feel of a “cosy” mystery although without the cutesiness often associated with that sub-genre.

Pay attention to the music in the first episode - at one point you’ll hear the famous theme music for Callan (which began its run a year later).

An outfit called Danann in the UK have released Bat Out of Hell on an all-region DVD. It’s also available in the very good value Region 4 Francis Durbridge Presents Volume 2 boxed set from Madman in Australia. The set also includes no less than four other Francis Durbridge serials. I have the Madman set and while there are no extras the transfers are pretty good.

Bat Out of Hell is a fine old-fashioned and rather unassuming murder mystery that provides harmless enjoyment. Highly recommended.

A Game of Murder (1966)

Francis Durbridge wrote some very successful mystery novels (such as Send for Paul Temple) but his fame rested to a much greater extent on his prolific output of radio and television scripts. As a writer for these media he had few peers. 

He wrote no less than seventeen mystery serials for the BBC. The eight serials broadcast between 1952 and 1959 under the umbrella title The Francis Durbridge Serial are all lost. Fortunately ten of the eleven serials that went to air between 1960 and 1980 the title Francis Durbridge Presents survive in their entirety. Happily most are now available on DVD. The surviving episodes of the BBC's excellent 1969-71 Paul Temple TV series are also available on DVD.

A Game of Murder was screened in 1966 and stars Gerald Harper (who was also being seen in the BBC’s delightful adventure series Adam Adamant Lives! at about the same time).

A Game of Murder gets off to an excellent start with the first of its six 30-minute episodes. Bob Kerry, a once famous golfer who now runs a sporting goods store, is killed in a tragic accident on the golf course. His son, Detective Inspector Jack Kerry (Gerald Harper), cannot bring himself to accept the verdict of accidental death. He has no evidence to the contrary, just a feeling that something is not quite right. 

The first indication that his suspicions may be justified comes from his father’s housekeeper’s dog. The dog had been missing for a week. Finally someone answers the advertisement that Jack Kerry had placed in the newspaper. Jack goes to collect the dog and that’s when things begin to get puzzling. 

And this is when Durbridge’s plot really starts to throw some delightfully odd twists and turns at the viewer. A freak golfing accident, a blonde in a car, a collection of photographs, a missing dog, a missing dog collar, a man in a wheelchair and a small donation to a charity - how on earth can so many odd little details possibly be connected? Nonetheless Inspector Jack Kerry is convinced they are connected. And all this is just in the first half-hour episode!

With his experience writing for radio Durbridge understood the serial format very well. Each episode has to have a cliffhanger ending and he does a fine job in providing them.

I was pretty confident I knew the identity of the chief bad guy very early on but I turned out to be totally wrong. Beware of red herrings! 

Jack Kerry is actually on leave at the time of his father’s death so the investigating officer is Detective Inspector Ed Royce (David Burke). Jack is draw into the case anyway and his relationship with Ed Royce becomes slightly uneasy as he starts to feel that Ed doesn’t believe him. Jack’s relationship with his boss, Chief Superintendent Bromford (Conrad Phillips), is even more uneasy since some of Jack’s actions could be, and are, misinterpreted.

Jack is going to need some help from the blonde in the car mentioned earlier, Kathy White (June Barry), but the difficulty is that he can’t be sure how far he can trust her and she can’t be sure how much she trusts him. The man in the wheelchair is a problem too, as is his wife, as is the pet shop owner who sold the mysterious vanishing dog collar, and then there’s the man who accidently killed Jack’s father in that golfing accident. Not to mention his housekeeper and her very smooth nephew, and even the mild-mannered manager of Jack’s father’s sporting goods store. Any one of these people could be mixed up in the conspiracy and Jack doesn’t even know the nature of the conspiracy.

It’s 1966 so naturally it’s all very studio-bound but it’s a story that relies on good writing and acting rather than spectacle so that’s not a problem.

The late 60s was a period of transition for British television crime dramas, with a move away from the dedicated and loveable bobbies of Dixon of Dock Green towards a harder-edged more self-consciously realistic style that in the 70s would eventually lead to The Sweeney. A Game of Murder marks an early stage in this transition. There are hints of the seamy underside of life but it’s still relatively genteel (very genteel indeed compared to The Sweeney) and there’s no graphic violence whatsoever. 

There’s also just about no action. Durbridge was still content to rely on the classic techniques of the mystery/suspense story and he happened to be very adept at those techniques.

Gerald Harper gives a very fine performance as Jack Kerry, certainly much more restrained than his delightfully bravura turn in Adam Adamant Lives! but he’s sympathetic and convincing. David Burke and Conrad Phillips are equally impressive.

Danann have released A Game of Murder on an all-region DVD in the UK but it’s rather pricey. Much much better value is the Australian Region 4 release from Madman - their Francis Durbridge Presents Volume 1 boxed set is substantially cheaper and includes A Game of Murder and three other serials. The transfer is also slightly better on Madman’s Region 4 release. 

A Game of Murder is a fine old-fashioned mystery tale and it’s thoroughly enjoyable. Highly recommended.

You might also be interested in my review of the 1975 Francis Durbridge Presents serial The Doll.

Francis Durbridge Presents - The Doll (1975)

Francis Durbridge (1912-1998) had a very successful career as a novelist and playwright but achieved his greatest fame as a writer of mysteries for radio and television. His best-known creation was amateur sleuth Paul Temple who featured in several novels, four movies, numerous radio plays and the very successful 1969-71 BBC television series Paul Temple.

Between 1952 and 1980 Durbridge wrote no less than seventeen television serials for the BBC. These were aired under the umbrella title A Francis Durbridge Serial until 1959 and thereafter under the title Francis Durbridge Presents. The early serials from the 1950s are now lost but happily those produced between 1963 and 1980 survive. Their availability on DVD is patchy to say the least. One of the later serials, The Doll, is however available on a German DVD and the good news is that this release includes the original English soundtrack version.

Francis Durbridge was one of those English mystery writers, like Edgar Wallace, who was at least as popular in Europe as he was in his own country. 

The Doll, comprising three one-hour episodes, was originally broadcast in 1975.

Publisher Peter Matty (John Fraser) has had a series of rather disturbing experiences. On a flight from Geneva to London he met a rather charming woman, Phyllis Du Salle (Anouska Hempel). Her husband had died six months earlier in slightly mysterious circumstances. Peter is pretty thoroughly smitten with Phyllis and he has reason to think she is somewhat interested in him. He is understandably upset when she disappears. Then she telephones him, and then she vanishes again.

Helped by his brother Claude (Geoffrey Whitehead) he sets out to discover what exactly is going on. And the whole situation just becomes more and more puzzling. He finds a photograph of her, only to be told that it is a photograph of a dead woman, the daughter of Sir Arnold Wyatt (Cyril Luckham). Phyllis had claimed to be acquainted with Sir Arnold but Sir Arnold assures Peter he has never heard of her. Phyllis’s behaviour before her disappearance was certainly odd. 

Peter is becoming so confused he almost feels he is going mad. Obviously one or more people involved in this saga are lying and covering something up but there seems to be no way of knowing who is telling the truth and who is lying.

The plot has an abundance of twists and turns and every time Peter thinks he’s finally figured things out something else happens to make him realise he’s been on entirely the wrong track. What really happened to Phyllis’s husband? Why did the photographer switch the photos? What is his journalist friend Max (Derek Fowlds) up to and why is he so jumpy? Why did Claude fly to Rome when he was supposed to be heading for Scotland? What is the message that Sir Arnold’s housekeeper has for him? Who is the mysterious Osborne (William Russell) and where does he fit into the picture? What is the significance of the doll floating face down in Peter’s bathtub? Can Peter trust any of these people? Can he trust his own mind?

There’s a considerable use of flashbacks which is probably unavoidable given the number of times that events turn out not to have been what they seemed to be.

Peter Matty is a sympathetic if sometimes hapless hero. John Fraser gives a fine performance, without ever overdoing things, as a man on the edge. Anouska Hempel’s career was not terribly distinguished but she was actually quite a competent actress (as she proved in the underrated and very quirky 1974 crime series Zodiac). She does a pretty reasonable job as the glamorous but enigmatic Phyllis.

Derek Fowlds is excellent as the likeable but slippery Max. William Russell, despite a rather outrageous hairstyle, is able to make Osborne suitably mysterious.

David Askey was a reliable television director and while there’s nothing spectacularly inspired about his work here he gets the job done and maintains the tension quite effectively.

It’s Francis Durbridge’s writing that is the main attraction here and he delivers the goods. With all the plot twists the story remains plausible and intriguing.

The German DVD (under the title Die Puppe) offers a reasonably good transfer with both German and English soundtracks. Although the menus are in German selecting the English-language version presents no real difficulties.

The Doll is quality television, a thoroughly enjoyable and well-crafted mystery thriller. Highly recommended.

Paul Temple (1969-71)

Paul Temple had originally been created by Francis Durbridge for a BBC radio series in 1938. The character later featured in novels, a comic strip and four late 1940s movies (including Calling Paul Temple and Send for Paul Temple which are both great fun). In 1969 it became a BBC TV series. The second and subsequent series were co-productions with a German company, Taurus Films.

The Paul Temple TV series was intended to offer a mix of action and adventure with some lighthearted fun and it proved to be extremely popular, all of which horrified the BBC. Despite its popularity they axed the series and promptly destroyed most of the episodes. Only sixteen of the fifty-two episodes survive, although it is believed that Taurus Films preserved other episodes in German-dubbed versions. 

It’s particularly unfortunate that five of the sixteen surviving episodes exist only in relatively poor quality black-and-white versions, since this is a series that really made the most of the possibilities of colour filming. 

Paul Temple is a bestselling crime novelist who solve real crimes in his spare time, a formula that has been used in various novels and TV series, most notably ITC’s Jason King a couple of years later. Jason King in fact is basically a much more extravagant version of Paul Temple. As portrayed in the TV series by Francis Matthews Paul Temple also has a taste for fashionable clothing, fine wines and food, and exotic places. Unlike Jason King he has a wife, Steve (Ros Drinkwater), so his tastes don’t include chasing women. Matthews gets to wear some truly outrageous clothing (which apparently he chose personally) - this was the great age of cravats for men. Ros Drinkwater’s wardrobe is pretty impressive also in a late Swinging 60s sort of way.

The entire first season is lost. The earliest surviver is the third episode of season two, Games People Play. On a Mediterranean holiday Paul and Steve encounter movie star Mark Hill (played with considerable flair by George Baker). British television in the 60s displays both a fascination and an anxiety for what was then called the Permissive Society  and the rising tide of violence and anti-social behaviour. Mark Hill represents all of this. He is a wealthy and dangerous degenerate. Mark though goes beyond casual sex, booze  and drugs. His dangerous passion is for playing games. Playing games with people. Mark’s games are the kind that require a victim. Picking Paul Temple’s wife as as victim proves to be a little unwise. Paul Temple can play games as well, and he plays to win. It could have been a fine episode. The problem is that it’s a bit rushed - 50 minutes wasn’t quite enough time to explore the idea fully - and the ending is contrived and unsatisfying.

Corrida is interesting, dealing with gangsters and bullfighting in the Camargue in the south of France.

The Specialists is quite a good story of business plotting and assassination. It’s highlighted by some wonderful interplay between Sammy Carson (George Sewell) and Lewis (Garfield Morgan), both gangsters who might be on the side of the angels, well partly at least. In fact George Sewell became a semi-regular cast member, appearing in a total of eleven episodes. We never really find out to what extent Sammy Carson was, or perhaps still is, a  crook. He certainly has far too many underworld connections to be a respectable citizen but he is a loyal and exceptionally useful friend to both Paul and Steve Temple, and Sewell was always an actor worth watching.

Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly? was written by Dennis Spooner, always a promising sign. It’s a delightfully complicated espionage story about a feckless Irish artist named Kelly who seems to be caught in the middle of a international conspiracy and also finds himself accused of murder. He happens to be an old friend of Steve’s so Paul finds himself somewhat reluctantly trying to help out although he doesn’t realise just how complex a situation he’s stumbled into. A guest starring performance by the always delightful Richard Vernon is a highlight.

Motel is a terrific little episode. A strange variety of people turn up at a remoter Scottish hotel during a blizzard. And they keep turning up. Each guest seems to be slightly more eccentric than the previous one. And among these guests are Paul and Steve Temple. Also among the guests is a bank robber. In fact any or all of the guests may be accomplices of said bank robber. Or they may be police officers, or amateurs after the reward money, or even genuine guests there for the fishing. The situation becomes more and more farcical but underneath the farce there is a serious side - there is a great deal of money at stake, enough money to kill for. The whole situation is treated with a wonderfully light touch. Superb television.

Cue Murder! is even better. The entire episode takes place in a television studio where Paul is participating in a panel show that attempts to solve previously unsolved crimes. This setting works very well, the plot is nicely convoluted and fine supporting performances add to the fun. Philip Madoc is typically and delightfully over-the-top as the host of the TV series.

Death of Fasching was one of Francis Matthews’ favourite episodes and it’s easy to see why. This is a somewhat surreal and slightly experimental episode in which nothing is as it appears to be. The surreal touches invite comparison to The Avengers but in some ways this story is even more daring and ambiguous in narrative terms than anything attempted by The Avengers. Paul and Steve are in Munich for Fasching, a sort of Carnival month in which the normally staid inhabitants of the city let themselves go. Perhaps some of them go just a little bit overboard. There is something very strange going on but the more Paul and Steve find out the more puzzling the whole situation becomes.

Catch Your Death employs a favoured idea of 1960s thrillers - the theft of a virus from a research establishment. The puzzling thing though is that the would-be thieves seem to have been after a virus that does nothing more dangerous than cause the common cold.

Ricochet is a so-so story although it is amusing to see an action adventure story involving coffee smuggling and toboggan racing - both of which are apparently very very serious matters in Switzerland!

The Guilty Must Die is a delightfully twisted tale of double crosses and triple crosses and dangerous romantic entanglements. An old friend of Steve’s is engaged to be married to be married to smooth-talking but sleazy used car salesman Peter Blane (Patrick Mower in a gloriously over-the-top performance). Steve finds herself trying to warn her friend that Peter is not merely sleazy but also has a very shady past but it seems that love is blind. Or is it?

Paul Temple really is a treat for fans of classic British action adventure television. The location shooting (yes, actual location shooting) in exotic places is a major plus. This series looks stylish and classy. Francis Matthews is a perfect suave playboy crime-fighter hero (and he is certainly the definitive screen Paul Temple) and he and Ros Drinkwater make a great team. Judging by the episodes that have survived the quality of the scripts, although variable, was often very high indeed. It’s all great fun. Very highly recommended.

Network’s excellent DVD release includes all sixteen surviving episodes. It doesn't include a huge amount in the way of extras but the interview with Francis Matthews is certainly worthwhile.