Tue 21 Jan 2020
TV Episode Review: THE SWEENEY “Ringer” (1975).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[12] Comments
THE SWEENEY “Ringer.” ITV, Thames Television. 02 January 1975 (Season 1, Episode 1). John Thaw, Dennis Waterman, Garfield Morgan. Guest Cast: Ian Hendry, Brian Blessed, Jill Townsend. Writers: Trevor Preston, Ian Kennedy Martin. Director: Terry Green.
“The Sweeney” is Cockney slang for London’s Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police (short for Sweeney Todd, a rhyming version of ‘Flying Squad’). It was on British TV for four seasons, followed by three theatrical movies. John Thaw (Inspector Morse) played Detective Inspector Jack Regan, while Dennis Waterman (New Tricks) was his second in command, Detective Sergeant George Carter.
I’m not sure why this first episode is titled “Ringer,” but it’s a good one. A car that Regan has borrowed from a sleep-in girl friend to do some surveillance work for the day is stolen, along with his camera and several photos he’d already taken. (He had, unfortunately left the car unlocked.)
The brighter of the two thieves has the clever idea of selling the photos to the subject of Regan’s observations, a highly-connected gangster who has some sort of hush-hush operation about the get underway. and he doesn’t fancy the Flying Squad having any idea that something is going on.
The resulting story has both an abundance of close-up dialogue as well as intense action — not of cars roaring up and down city streets and isolated country roads, as most American cop and PI shows were wont to do — but intense person-on-person action, which is down to earth and certainly a whole lot more, well, personal.
It is also remarkable how well-cast and effective the actors in this 60 minute play are, every single one of them, big parts or small. I wish that my American ears were more used to British accents (no subtitles on the video I saw), but I picked up more than enough to tell you that I really enjoyed this one.
January 21st, 2020 at 3:07 pm
Interesting to see John Thaw looking a little younger than he appeared in the always-excellent ‘Morse’ series.
Ian Hendry –whew –now there’s a wonderful actor from several fine British movies. ‘The Hill’ and ‘Repulsion’ to name just two. What I like about Hendry is that in one of these titles he played as vile a character as I’ve ever seen and in the other he turns it completely around and comes off as quite a nice chap.
January 21st, 2020 at 7:03 pm
I’m only now getting caught up with putting names to faces to most British movie andespecially TV actors, and that includes Ian Hendry. I’m sure I’ve seen in various things over the years, but this time was the first I really know who he was. He is excellent in this.
January 21st, 2020 at 3:10 pm
One of the best ways to understand heavy accents is to use headphones – there are wireless headphones that allow you to move all around without the wire chaining you to the set.
TV sets sound speakers are for the most part garbage. Certain sounds travel better than others which is why the soundtrack can blow your roof off and you are still unable to hear what the actors are saying.
THE SWEENEY was an important series in British TV history as it introduced a more violent street realism to British TV than the traditional British small town cozy or the surreal to silly spy shows of ITV. If you like THE SWEENEY I recommend you try THE PROFESSIONALS.
January 21st, 2020 at 7:00 pm
Once I get used to the speech patterns of various accents I do all right. But if the accents seem to be too “various” if you know what I mean, then it takes longer. And you’re right. The less than ideal sound quality of these old shows doesn’t really help either.
I have a British set of all five seasons of THE PROFESSIONALS on DVD, and I have a multi-region player to watch them on. I’m about half way through, but I stalled out a couple of years ago. Thanks for the reminder that I ought to get back to watching them. It’s a very good show.
January 21st, 2020 at 9:20 pm
PS. Those of you unfamiliar with THE SWEENEY, be sure to watch the video clip I embedded. You will see it is exactly as violent as Michael says it was. A sedate Miss Marple show it was not. I don’t believe that scenes such as this could have been shown on network TV in the US in 1975. If they did, I don”t remember it.
January 21st, 2020 at 10:40 pm
British laws on ‘appropriate viewing’ are often sit oddly with us Yanks. As do those of other countries in Europe. Continental TV offerings can be off-the-hook. But London had schizoid censorship (at least it did when I was there). The “infamous” Soho was as mild as Bob Eubanks’ Newlywed Game. A corner barbershop in Italy would be more risque’. One thing though is that Brit advertising is very rich in verbal wit; I never saw such inventive word-play. All over the city, even bus stops were intellectual and droll. But depending on the channel/program you can get quite a shock: ‘The Singing Detective’ for example is sizzling.
But whereas ‘Morse’ was fairly tame, there was another show at the time, which struck me as taking-it-to-the-next-level and that was ‘Cracker’. Taut, intense, and grisly. I wonder if it’s ever been reviewed here.
January 24th, 2020 at 11:04 pm
I hope one day you find the 1960s series Redcap which marked John Thaw’s TV debut. In that he played a military policeman, a concept that was revived in the early 2000s in a short lived series called Red Cap. I’ve never seen the first one, but the second one is well worth looking up.
January 25th, 2020 at 1:03 am
Hendry, aside from this, was the original star of THE AVENGERS, his assistant a character called John Steed played by Patrick McNee.
I read several Ian Kennedy Martin SWEENEY novels, but have only seen a few episodes of the series.
September 30th, 2020 at 10:11 am
This website was a welcome chance find a few weeks ago.
I am a seventy-one year old who grew up on the borders of north east London and Essex, UK.
It is called “Ringer” because that was the term for the common organised crime practice of – before securely locked vehicles – stealing a car and changing it’s appearance – thus ringing it.
I do not know where it came from, but it started before all vehicles needed to pass a Ministry of Transport – safety test – introduced sometime in the later 1960s.
Not all car traders were respectable – was it similar in urban USA ?
Buyers had to be very careful not to buy a “ringer” – possibly with a forged MOT certificate.
The MOT test found out such practices as the “cut and shut” trade – where a car repairer bought two vehicles – one damaged in a front end collision and the other a rear end collision.
So they were “cut” and shut” together – resprayed and sold as a good looking vehicle.
As for the lingo – well every trade and area has jargon that changes over time – cockney rhyming slang – Sweeney Todd for Flying Squad is just a version. Initially used by folks “in the know” so other hearers did not understand – but pretty soon every one knows the commoner ones. apples & pairs = stairs, currant bun = stairs – they continue being invented and adapted to this day and are a subject of much study and humour.
I may write more about “The Sweeney” TV Series which is still on daily repeats on UK TV and in my opinion became predictable and of little real interest the longer the series went on. Nonetheless as someone familiar with some of London from the 1950s onwards – just watching it is nostalgic and always of some interest.
I am not much of a reader and have not seen all the episodes but I think The Ringer was particularly good for several reasons. _ I wish I had seen it before recently – when it was rebroadcast as many characters and set-ups were known or expected in advance.
Seeing it did prompt me to seek out the – not exactly a pilot – but separate TV film/movie produced a year or so earlier in the Thames TV/Euston Films series “Armchair Cinema” – still available brand new – one of that series (on DISC 2) was called “Regan” and was effectively a prequel to the series – establishing some facts about Regan and setting out the state of the Metropolitan Police Force and how attempts were being made to make it more accountable and less individualistic than hitherto.
September 30th, 2020 at 10:20 am
Andrew
Wonderful background information. Thanks very much! If you ever do write up more about the series, I’d like to know about it.
I have to confess, though, that so far this has been the only episode I’ve seen. That’s even though there seem to be an abundance available. Not for lack of desire, simply a lack of time and so many other shows to discover and watch!
September 30th, 2020 at 11:00 am
That was a quick response – Steve – yes television has sucked too much of my life away – although it is only latterly that I am watching a lot of it – so that many programmes – from after childhood – passed me by although I usually got to know about the most popular ones, but now I am seeing them for the first time.
I try to stream or buy DVDs (usually second-hand) just to avoid the mind numbing adverts – we have had a surfeit of firms trying to trick us into paying for our funerals in advance – in between buying incontinence underwear.
The Sweeney came out after the first flush of commercial TV – it was only the BBC and no adverts but paid by a licensing system – until 1955 and initially ITV – or channel 3 had to lure us away from BBC – so they tried to be more serious about drama and such-like and we had Armchair Theatre type programmes that morphed into Armchair Cinema and then so called realistic dramas – but from 1982 there was competition with new commercial stations until we had satelite and an outpouring of TV – with it just being a way of earning for the shareholders with quality much less.
Parts of the Metropolitan Police (Greater London area – the centre and about 20 miles in every direction – as it was) – was known for corruption particularly where gambling, alcohol and sexual services were concerned – some squads were more notorious than others -the Flying Squad – seemed to simultaneously have the highest and lowest reputation for honest policing – they covered the whole area and dealt with more serious crimes.
There was big clean-up of the “Met Police” from the 1970s – I think the commissioner at the time was Sir Robert Mark – I have looked it up he started in 1972 – – Regan was “old school†but supposedly not corrupt – so the series starting around 1974/5 was about right.
The Professionals and The Saint were just tacky and silly shallow fantasy entertainment – designed to sell world-wide hence the casting – in my opinion – basically good fun – fairly well done – but not to be taken seriously.
The Sweeney – in it’s earlier episodes, as with the more recent Endeavour (prequel to Morse) seems to be trying to get at more underlying social issues,
I think I read that the Endeavour series – very definitely modern history drama – is about to end – as it has got to 1969 or thereabouts – I put it in a similar category to Call the Midwife – which is taking a fairly serious look back at the 1960s in an entertaining way.
I am rambling – sorry.
September 30th, 2020 at 7:15 pm
I wondered about the origin of the term “Ringer” – it is from the idiom to ring the changes – which comes from the way what is called “change ringing” – (campanology) of church bells occurs – it is one of those special interests of English Country Life – probably not much understood by non practitioners like me.
https://www.bellringing.org/
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/ring+the+changes%2c+to