MICHAEL SHAYNE “Spotlight on a Corpse.” NBC, 13 January 1961 (Season 1, Episode 15). 60 minutes. Richard Denning (Michael Shayne), Herbert Rudley (Lt. Will Gentry), Gary Clarke (Dick Hamilton). Neither of the characters Lucy Hamilton or Tim Rourke appear in this episode. Guest Cast: Herbert Marshall, Robert Lansing, Constance Moore, Ruta Lee, Alan Hewitt, Jack Kruschen. Based on characters created by Brett Halliday. Director: Sidney Salkow.

   Found murdered on a movie set is the associate producer-writer who also happens to be a notorious womanizer. Mike Shayne is hired by the producer who wants his own investigation done, but the thing is, his current would-be investor actually likes the idea of all the publicity a killing such as this would produce. A killing in more ways than one?

   I wonder how many viewers at the time found the story line interesting. The money and the problems thereof that are involved in putting a movie together isn’t the sort of thing that people even bother to read about in their daily newspaper, much less in a sit-back-and-relax sixty minute TV show.

   Or is that only me?

   What I found far more watchable was a subplot involving the acting pair of Constance Moore (the elderly female lead) and Herbert Marshall (her former director now relegated to being her dialogue coach), who as a team are completely at odds with the young director (Robert Lansing), who thinks their way of making films are completely outmoded.

   As for Richard Denning, he doesn’t fit my picture of Michael Shayne very much at all. He’s doesn’t have the build for it. He’s too cerebral. He’s too pleasant, and as written, too agreeable. He made a great Mr. North, but as Mike Shayne, the tough Irish detective, he’s a complete lightweight. In my opinion.

      —

PostScript: The credits, I believe, claim this episode was based on a Mike Shayne novel. I don’t recognize the story line, but then again, I haven’t read them all. Anyone?

THE CORONER “First Love.” BBC, UK. 60 minutes. 16 November 2015 (Season 1, Episode 1.) Claire Goose as Jane Kennedy, Coroner, Matt Bardock as Davey Higgins, Detective Sergeant, Grace Hogg-Robinson as Beth Kennedy, Jane’s daughter. Director: Ian Barber.

   The story in this first episode is better than average, but as the first episode, it fails badly in introducing the players. A synopsis on IMDb helps:

   “Following the failure of a relationship high-flying solicitor Jane Kennedy returns to the small Devon coastal town of Lighthaven, that she left when she was a teenager. She takes up the position of coroner investigating sudden, violent and suspicious deaths. Jane moves back, with her teenage daughter Beth to live with her mother. In her new role Jane must work alongside Davey Higgins, the boy who once broke her heart, who is now the local Detective Sergeant.”

   There are just the beginning of hints at all this in the episode itself. We don’t get a clear statement as to why Jane Kennedy has moved back to her home town, only that she has, nor what her relationship withe Davey Higgins is and/or was. They are working together, she as the local coroner (and how does it happen she has the job so quickly?), he as a local police office, and (for the most part) comfortably so.

   The mother-daughter relationship, on the other hand, is obviously prickly. There is a lot of that going around. See Dicte, the first episode of which, from 2013, was reviewed here. In fact, the story line is very much the same. Young girl falls for an iffy guy from a faster crowd than her mother wants her to be anywhere near.

   The boy friend in this episode happens to have been the best friend of another young boy who is suspected of committing suicide by jumping off a high stone tower. It is possible, however, that he may have been pushed, and it is up to Jane and Davey to check into it before Jane can prepare her final report.

   In spite of the strong sense of déjà vu on my part, which arose only by the sheer chance of seeing the first episodes of both series so close together, the story itself is well done. This is another series I can see myself spending more time with (streaming now on Britbox.)

THE GREAT DETECTIVE. “Train of Events.” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 02 January 1980 (Season 2, Episode 1). (11th overall of 30 [or is it 35] episodes.) Cast: Douglas Campbell (Inspector Cameron), James Duggan (Sergeant Striker), Sandy Webster (Dr. Chisholm), Sean McCann (McCarthy, the conductor), Maurska Stankova (Klara Elek, the widow), John Grima (Vilmos Elek, the dead man), Richard Farrell (Conley), Patrick Brymer (the cabbie). Producer: Peter Wildeblood. Writer: Larry Gaynor. Director: Rudi Dorn.

   Ordinarily a ride on the Sudbury to Toronto night train is an unexciting affair, but not this evening. Aboard is Provincial Inspector Alistair Cameron, his assignment being to keep tabs on a gold bullion shipment worth $200,000; there has been much anarchist activity of late, and Cameron is there to make sure they don’t get a chance to subsidize their revolution with other people’s money. An unwelcome addition to the passenger load, at least as far as the Inspector is concerned, is Sergeant Striker, who has been assigned to Cameron as his “bodyguard” in case things get out of hand with the anarchists.

   Everything goes well until the train stops for water; then bullets start to fly from the siding, punching holes in windows and woodwork alike — and, it would seem, one unfortunate man in the passenger car. After everything calms down, with the anarchists breaking off the attack, the Inspector insists on inspecting the gold, which is under armed guard in a specially modified combination car near the engine; satisfied that the bullion is intact, Cameron permits the train to proceed non-stop to Toronto, where it arrives with the early morning sun — but without the railway car, the guards, and the gold! Needless to say, the bank intends to have the Inspector’s guts for garters for this …

   And it’s here that the story turns into an impossible crime, and a well-done one at that. Conundrums abound: How did an entire car disappear from a moving train? When the passenger killed during the ambush is autopsied, how can it be that he was shot from no farther than six inches? And what bearing did his profession have on the robbery? In searching the train, now a crime scene, why can’t Striker find any signs whatsoever of bullet damage?

   And what’s the significance of that forlorn lady’s wig found stuffed under a seat? What about those two rather hefty women who bumped into the Inspector when he left the train? After there’s a gas explosion in a shack in the railyard, why, according to the coroner, did the victims perish the way they did instead of being killed in the blast? What about that piece of plywood Cameron and Striker find not far from an over-river railway bridge? And, finally, how did the widow of the man killed in the ambush get to be such a good shot? (Actually that last one is never asked or answered in the show; we were just wondering.)

   “Train of Events” is a model of how to do an impossible crime story on episodic TV: it’s the right length, not too long and not too short (roughly an hour, unlike the usual overly-padded Banacek episode); every element and scene contributes to forwarding the plot; and the characters and tone are lightly tongue-in-cheek without being a distraction. We especially appreciate how the director took great pains to reconstruct the events, nicely adding to the Great Detective’s Big Reveal of the crime.

   IMDb tells us that this series was “based on the first government appointed provincial detective Alistair Cameron, set during the late Victorian Era. He is assisted by his friend Dr. Chisholm, a pathologist. He relocates from Scotland to Canada for his job, takes in a house keeper, and becomes guardian of his niece. He also has a sergeant who assists on his cases.”

   Wikipedia also tells us that The Great Detective was based on the exploits of John Wilson Murray (1840-1906), who was “Ontario’s first full-time criminal detective with the title Detective for the Government of Ontario. He held the position until his death and solved hundreds of crimes.”

   The big three performers in “Train of Events” are Douglas Campbell (1922-2009) as Inspector Alistair Cameron (25 episodes), Sandy Webster (1923-2017) as Dr. Chisholm (20 episodes), and James Duggan (died in 2013) as Sergeant Striker (9 episodes). Early in his career, Douglas Campbell was a stage sensation, scoring big with Shakespeare in the ’50s (being naturally portly and blustery, he made the perfect Falstaff); he once described himself as a “William Morris socialist,” whatever that means.

   Among a lot of other actors doing one-shots on The Great Detective who have achieved notice elsewhere: Geraint Wyn Davies, John Neville, Megan Follows, Maury Chaykin, Sharon Acker, Nick Mancuso, Len Cariou, Henry Beckman, Alan Scarfe, and James Bradford (who played Inspector Regan in three episodes of the show).

   The CBC seems to have developed amnesia about The Great Detective series; we can’t find anything about it on their website.

      —

NOTE: This episode, which was obviously taped off an A&E broadcast (hence the low quality), is available on YouTube, but the individual who posted it there is not allowing it to be embedded on other sites. You can watch it here, at least for now.

ART OF CRIME (L’art du crime). “Une Beauté faite au Naturel: Parties 1 & 2.” France 2 / Gaumont Television / France Télévisions. 17 November 2017. Nicolas Gob (Antoine Verlay), Eléonore Bernheim (Florence Chassagne), Philippe Duclos (Pierre Chassagne). Guest Cast: Miou-Miou, Stéphan Wojtowicz, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Venantino Venantini (Leonard de Vinci). Dircetor: Charlotte Brändström.

   A man who had been stealing a painting from an old French mansion at night is found stabbed to death, his outstretched pointing to a marker stone with name of Leonard de Vinci engraved upon it. Question: Is it possible that an unknown painting by the Italian master is hidden behind the otherwise worthless painting?

   Tackling the case on behalf of the police are two mismatched (of course) detectives, one a street smart cop, Antoine Verlay, now assigned to the department handling crimes of art fraud and theft, and an art historian and authenticator, Florence Chassagne.

   They do not get along especially well, but working on the theory that opposites attract, you just know, deep down inside, they will find working together more than the chore it is in this, their very first case together.

   Art of the Crime was on for three seasons. Even though I didn’t follow all of the details about the world of art, forgeries, I found the story line fascinating. The amount of money that’s at stake is certainly grounds for many more stories like this one. The color photography is absolutely splendid, especially the scenes in the underground areas of he mansion, where Verlay and Chassagne find themselves temporarily trapped.

   And thanks to the latter’s vivid imagination, Leonardo da Vinci himself makes an appearance. What’s not to like?

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.

DICTE “Personskade (Personal), Part One.” Miso Film/TV2 Danmark, 07 January 2013. 60m. Iben Hjejle (Dicte Svendsen), Lars Brygmann (John Wagner), Emilie Kruse, Dar Salim, Simon Krogh Stenspil. Based on characters in novels by Elsebeth Egholm. Director: Jannik Johansen.

   The ending of this one really caught me by surprise. Not because it was a shocker or based on a twist that I didn’t see coming. No it’s a lot simpler than that, and I feel stupid by even bringing it up. I didn’t realize that the story was part one of two, and I wasn’t even watching the clock. Ha! on me.

   But one thing’s for sure. As soon as I get done typing this, I’m going to go watch Part Two.

   This is the first episode of three seasons of Dicte, consisting of five two-parters per season, or 30 episodes in all. (I probably could have left you to do the math). Dicte Svendsen, recently divorced, is a news reporter who has just moved back to her home town of Aarhus with her daughter Rose, a young lady who appears to be in the equivalent of high school in the US. She is certainly young enough that her mother has to keep a close eye on the friends she is making.

   It is by accident, though, that Dicte begins her first brush with a big story. A young girl is found dead, murdered, her body mutilated in such a way that a botched Caesarean must have taken place, and Dicte is the first on the scene.

   Photos taken by the news photographer accompanying her are the bargaining chips she needs for John Wagner, the police officer in charge of the case, to allow her to keep investigating the story.

   There is a theme here. When younger, Dicte was forced by her parents to give up a child a soon as he was born; now Dicte has problems dealing with her daughter’s new male friend. And the girl who died, probably a prostitute, has forcibly lost the surrogate child she was carrying.

   To me, actress Iben Hjejle seems too young to have such a long history behind her, but maybe that’s because I am much older than she. The story is a little darker than Death in Paradise, to take a recent example reviewed here, or The Invisibles, to pick another, but not not as ,much as Dexter or Hannibal here in the US. There will be Much more TV on my agenda this year, I can see that now.

DEATH IN PARADISE “Murder on the Honore Express.” BBC, UK. 10 January 2019 (Season 8, Episode 1). Ardal O’Hanlon (DI Jack Mooney), Joséphine Jobert (DS Florence Cassell), Don Warrington (Commissioner Selwyn Patterson), Tobi Bakare (Officer J. P. Hooper). Created by Robert Thorogood. Director: Paul Logue.

   Death in Paradise is a comedy-mystery set on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie. The leading characters have changed over the years, but the cast as listed above make up the staff of the police department as of the beginning of the eighth season. (A ninth and tenth season have already been announced.)

   And as far as traditional mysteries are concerned, this one is as good as episodic TV can get. It isn’t quite a “locked room” mystery, but it is a murder such that there is no possible way for anyone to committed it. When a bus makes its final stop, a man sitting at the far back is found stabbed to death. None of the other passengers moved from their seat, and no could have gotten on without one of them noticing.

   The small police force are stopped, but that does not stop hem from following up all the leads they can. Quite curiously, though, all of the passengers are discovered to have motives, including the driver.

   Adding to the viewer’s enjoyment of following the investigation along is the humorous byplay between the main characters, with a new one joining the team next week. Saint Marie may be dangerous place to live for some, but it certainly provides a colorful backdrop to the stories. (The series is filmed in Guadeloupe.)

   This the only episode of any season of the series I’ve seen so far. I probably shouldn’t started with Season Eight. I accomplished that only by mistake. What watching the first episode of this most recent season did do, though, was to convince me to go way back to the beginning. I have a lot of catching up to do!

THE INVISIBLES “Pilot” (Season 1, Episode 1). 01 May 2008. BBC, 60 min. Anthony Head, Warren Clarke, Dean Lennox Kelly, Jenny Agutter, Mina Anwar, Paul Barber, Emily Head, Darren Tighe. Creator/screenplay: William Ivory. Director: William Sinclair.

   The Invisibles was a short-lived British comedy-mystery series that consisted of six episodes and was never renewed. The episodes do not seem to have titles, so I’m calling this first one the pilot.

   And as the pilot it does a first rate job of establishing the characters and setting extremely well. Maurice Riley (Anthony Head) and Syd Woolsey (Warren Clarke) are two of three members of a gang of burglars, who retired when the third of them died. They were called “The Invisibles” by the press due to the fact that in all of the years they were in working together, they were never caught.

   Now some 15 years later, bored to death of easy living, the two remaining members find themselves in need to go back to work. Syd’s son is in a jam, moneywise, and against Maurice’s wife’s strict orders, back to their black-clothed clandestine activities they go.

   Things do not go well at first. Their skills are rusty, and security devices have been updated greatly during their years of retirement. But along the way their path leads them to the third member’s son (or he finds them), and at the end of the first episode they are ready to tackle the world in full gear again.

   Even in this first episode the two main characters have great chemistry together. It is as if they really were two mates who have known each other for a long time. The humor in that is raised by both their camaraderie and their struggles to get themselves in shape to work again is largely quiet and unforced, but none the less effective for all that.

   The complete series is available both on DVD and streaming on Acorn TV.

THE PROTECTORS. “2,000 Ft to Die.” Incorporated Television Company (ITC), UK. 29 September 1972 (Episode 1, Season 1). 30min. Robert Vaughn (Harry Rule), Nyree Dawn Porter (Contessa Caroline di Contini), Tony Anholt (Paul Buchet). Guest Cast: Harvey Hall. Co-prodcuers: Gerry Anderson & Reg Hill. Screenplay: Terence Feeley. Director: John Hough .

   The Protectors were a somewhat informal group of European jet set private eyes who often got together to solve cases too tough to handle on their own, each having their individual specialties. They were Harry Rule (London), Contessa Caroline di Contini (Italy), and Paul Buchet (Paris).

    The year 1972 was rather late in the history of television for action adventure shows such as this one to have only 30 minutes of running time. The first episode, “2,000 Ft to Die,” would maybe make sense if it were twice the length, but it didn’t, and it doesn’t.

   It has something to do with a scientist who is the last of five working on a project to create srtifical gold who is still alive, and he calls in The Protectors for help. It doesn’t stop him from doing a stunt for some moviemakers consisting of jumping out of an airplane with a supposedly faulty parachute. Whoever it is who wants him dead makes sure that it really is faulty.

   You can’t make a coherent TV show consisting only of good-looking people, glamorous party scenes, and colorful camera shots and lots of action. That’s all I saw in this one, I’m sorry to say. The show did last for 52 episodes running over two season, so maybe I’m wrong. I don’t think it caught on in this country.

THE ROCKFORD FILES “Caledonia – It’s Worth a Fortune!” NBC, 06 December 1974 (Season 1, Episode 11). James Garner (Jim Rockford), Shelley Fabares, Ramon Bieri, Richard Schaal, Sid Haig. Teleplay: Juanita Bartlett, based on a story by John Thomas James (Roy Huggins). Director: Stuart Margolin.

   Rockford is hired by Shelley Fabares as the wife of a critically ill penitentiary prisoner who whispers to her the location of a hidden fortune in collectible stamps, but she needs help in actually digging them up. For a percentage of the find, Rockford readily agrees.

   But also on their trail are the convicted man’s former partner, who is also the man the woman was having an affair with, as well as two hoodlums who turn out to have been in the same cell block as the imprisoned man. The big stumling block as far as Rockford and his client are concerned is that they only know the town to start their hunt in (Caledonia). The ex-partner has the only set of directions.

   And why is local sheriff so intent in running them all out of town?

   If this all sounds very complicated, it is, but there’s still plenty of time to be spent on watching cars drive up an down the local highways, including at least one reckless chase or two.

   The overall tone is light and breezy, though, with good rapport between James Garner and his lady co-star, making it very easy for the viewer (me) to safely sit back and enjoy watching this first season episode with no effort at all.