FOYLE’S WAR. ITV (UK), PBS (US). Episode One: The German Woman. 27 October 2002 (UK date). Michael Kitchen (Det. Supt. Christopher Foyle), Honeysuckle Weeks (Samantha Stewart), Anthony Howell (Sgt. Paul Milner), Edward Fox, Robert Hardy, David Horovitch, Joanna Kanska, Dominic Mafham, Julian Ovenden, Rosamund Pike, Elizabeth Bell, James McAvoy. Series creator: Anthony Horowitz.

   Eight years after it aired, I finally watched the first episode of the Foyle’s Way series, “The German Woman.” I see what the fuss has been about now.

   Beautifully filmed, splendidly cast and intelligently written, this debut episode in the series has a lot about it to like. As the Detective Superintendent, Michael Kitchen has amazing gravitas and droll charm. His character is Always Right on the weighty moral issues this and other episodes of the series address, and you just wish he were in charge of the whole darn, messed-up world.

   Kitchen seems too splendid an actor for one not to have seen him before — I do remember him from Enchanted April but not from Out of Africa (of course this film is from 25 years ago!) and I can’t recall seeing him anything else. Any road, he’ll be remembered in posterity for this series, I have no doubt, just like David Suchet will be for Poirot.

   As his spunky driver “Sam,” Honeysuckle Weeks is an amazingly appealing presence who gives the series an acceptable bit of Girl Power! She looks so young here too, in this episode from eight years ago.

   Foyle’s son, Andrew, is played by Julian Ovenden, who had a role in the Poirot film After the Funeral. He makes less of an impression here, but I understand that the character developed more over the course of the series (he did not appear in the latest season).

   Anthony Howell, the very serious son from Wives and Daughters, the 1999 film of the Elizabeth Gaskell novel, plays the very serious Sergeant Paul Milner, the wounded war hero (he lost part of a leg) who goes to work for Foyle in the police force. He’s always a strong and substantial presence.

   The supporting cast is an embarrassment of riches, with David Horovitch (Inspector Slack from the Joan Hickson “Marple” series and Isaac from Ivanhoe) as a victimized German internee, Robert Hardy as a foolish aristocrat (he played this role before — very well — in Middlemarch), Rosmaund Pike (seen most recently in the Oscar-nominated film An Education) as his snide and bratty daughter and James McAvoy — now a major film star — in the small but memorably played role of the lovelorn druggist’s assistant.

   This excellent cast stars in a film that addresses the morality of Britain’s alien internment policy during World War Two. Just as the United States instituted an unjust internment policy in regard to the Japanese residents in the country, so did Britain in regard to Germans and Italians. In some cases, even German Jewish refuges were rounded up — a rather obviously nonsensical policy.

   The unjustness of all this is touched on by “The German Woman,” and most happily, it’s done within the framework of a classical, Golden Age style British mystery. The German wife of a local bigwig aristocrat is herself left untouched and resentment against her stirs in the local community after a German bomb is dropped on a pub, killing a young woman.

   When the German woman is killed in a particularly nasty way while out riding, it’s thought a local seeking revenge on Germans may be responsible, but other paths of suspicion appear as well, some leading within the confines her own family….

   You might, as I did, suspect a certain party very quickly, but motive still provides an interesting question. The only quibble I would have is that the murderer, when confronted by Foyle, quite improbably confesses; but this is a script convenience I can pass over with so many other excellences. This is British mystery film making at its highest level.

Editorial Comment:   Truth in Advertising. Although I do not remember it, it is possible that the first photo of the three stars together came from this first episode, but almost assuredly the second one did not.

“I’ll Be Judge — I’ll Be Jury.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 21). First air date: 15 February 1963. Peter Graves, Albert Salmi, Ed Nelson, Sarah Marshall, Rodolfo Hoyos. Teleplay: Lukas Heller, based on the novel by Elizabeth Hely (Scribner, 1959). Director: James Sheldon.

   Mark Needham (Peter Graves) is in Mexico with his wife Laura (Eileen O’Neill) when tragedy strikes. They get temporarily separated while on a picnic, and Laura is murdered. Much later, when Mark goes to the local authorities about finding her killer, Inspector Ortiz (Rodolfo Hoyos) not only indicates that he’s certain he knows who the killer is but also enlists Mark’s help in trying to get the murderer to tip his hand.

   The prime suspect, Theodore Bond (Albert Salmi), lives and works in the same village, and Mark endeavors to ingratiate himself with Bond in a game of cat and mouse. Unfortunately, even a mouse that’s been backed into a corner can be very dangerous indeed ….

   The two leads act very differently from their usual screen personas: Peter Graves, normally a level-headed responsible type, crosses over into barely contained rage at times, while Albert Salmi, whose villains were usually over the top, underplays his character as a craven coward barely able to maintain his pretense at being respectable.

   Halfway through the story, the plot resets itself, with Ed Nelson and Sarah Marshall assuming greater prominence.

   Peter Graves (1926-2010) had an extensive career in Hollywood, sometimes in crime dramas: Stalag 17 (1953), Black Tuesday (1954), The Night of the Hunter (1955), The Naked Street (1955), 23 episodes of the TV series Court Martial (1965-66), 143 installments of Mission: Impossible (1967-73), The Underground Man (1974, as Lew Archer), Number One with a Bullet (1987), and 35 additional episodes of the new Mission: Impossible redux (1988-90).

   Albert Salmi (1928-90) spent most of his career on television, with occasional forays into films: The Ambushers (1967), Night Games, the pilot plus 45 episodes of Petrocelli (1974-76), one Ellery Queen (1976), Love and Bullets (1979), and one of the best Murder, She Wrote segments, “Murder Takes the Bus” (1985).

You can see this episode on Hulu here.

Editorial Comments:   Author Elizabeth Hely has four books including in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, three of them featuring Commissaire Antoine Cirret as detective, including I’ll Be Judge — I’ll Be Jury, the original title of which was Dominant Third in England.

   Besides changing the detective’s name, the Hitchcock TV version also moved the locale from France to Mexico. Other changes to the story may also have been made, but these are the more obvious ones.

   One of Hely’s other novels was made into a TV movie, The Smugglers, based on Package Deal (Robert Hale, UK, 1965). In it Donnelly Rhodes plays Antoine Cirret, while Shirley Booth is an American tourist in Europe who unwisely agrees to transport a religious statue from one country to another.

“An Out for Oscar.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 26). First air date: 5 April 1963. Larry Storch, Linda Christian, Henry Silva, John Marley, Myron Healey, Alan Napier, David White, George Petrie, Rayford Barnes. Teleplay: David Goodis, based on the novel My Darlin’ Evangeline by Henry Kane (Dell, pbo, 1961). Director: Bernard Girard.

   Only a blind man could fail to see that beautiful Eva Ashley (Linda Christian) is trouble from the get go. Since love is blind, it might explain why Oscar Blenny (Larry Storch) has fallen for her — hard.

   While working at a Vegas casino, Eva has two-timed not just one but two possible meal tickets: Pete Rogan (Myron Healey) and Bill Grant (Henry Silva). Oddly enough, it isn’t Grant who kills Rogan, but Eva herself. The official verdict is self-defense, and Eva has no tears to shed for Pete.

   Hoping to use Grant as a way out of a very uncomfortable situation, Eva tries to get him to take her to Mexico, where Grant has been exiled by their boss, Mike Chambers (John Marley). Chambers sees Eva as a liability, but more than that — “a chiseler” is how he puts it, and, brother, is he so right! But Grant is fed up with her, too, and abandons Eva on a lonely street corner.

   Enter mild-mannered Oscar, a guest at the casino hotel. Eva’s got his number: He’s her next meal ticket. What makes him even more attractive is that he’s a bank teller in a Los Angeles bank — and if there’s one thing Eva can’t get enough of, it’s money. Oscar is totally taken in, and it’s wedding bells for them.

   A couple of weeks have passed when Bill Grant, just back from his exile in Mexico, shows up at the Blennys’ apartment. In addition to a little nooky with Eva, Grant has a surefire “perfect crime” plan for stealing $250,000, needing only Oscar’s cooperation. Moreover, unknown to Eva, Grant has plans for that quarter million that don’t include her ….

   … all of which will culminate in a perfect murder — done in broad daylight — with dozens of witnesses — AND the approval of the police.

   Mystery*File readers who may be aficionados of “the perfect murder” should enjoy this one. By the end of the third act, the viewer is hooked: Just how is this tangled situation going to unravel? The ending is awash in irony. Good show.

   Since 1950, Henry Silva has been ably playing villains in films and TV, e.g., The Untouchables, The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Johnny Cool (1963), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), Sharky’s Machine (1980), Dick Tracy (1990), and many others.

   Larry Storch also appeared in “The Jack Is High,” reviewed here, a segment of the Kraft Suspense Theatre.

Hulu:   http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1524105241/

Editorial Comment: As Rittster points out in Comment #1, a TV play written by David Goodis is a rarity. It was posted quite a while ago on this blog, but back in September 2007, Tise Vahimagi sent me an article in which he did a complete rundown of all of Goodis’s television credits, as well as W. R. Burnett’s. Check it out here.

“The Paragon.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 20). First air date: 8 February 1963. Joan Fontaine, Gary Merrill, Virginia Vincent, Linda Leighton, Richard Carlyle. Teleplay: Alfred Hayes. Story: Rebecca West (source unknown). Director: Jack Smight.

   Alice Pemberton (Joan Fontaine) is one of those individuals who, wherever they go, leave discouragement in their wake. She always rubs people the wrong way and yet never seems to notice the harm she does.

   From criticizing her sister’s child-rearing abilities to flicking lint off the maid’s uniform, Alice is a walking, talking affront to anyone who knows her. Her husband John (Gary Merrill) just can’t get through to her; she’s perfect and she expects everybody else to be also.

   One night Alice has a dream, a nightmare really, of a dark shape floating through the bedroom window and settling over her face, smothering her. It just so happens that one of the people who know Alice well is making plans to make her dream come true ….

   Joane Fontaine is best remembered for Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941). She also appeared in Jane Eyre (1944), Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948), Born to Be Bad (1950), The Bigamist (1953), Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956), and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).

   We’ve already dealt with Gary Merrill’s criminous career.  See “The Paragon” on Hulu here.

THE NIGHTMARE MAN. BBC-TV, UK, four-part mini-series, 01 May to 22 May 1981. James Warwick, Celia Imrie, Maurice Roëves, Tom Watson, Jonathan Newth, James Cosmo. Screenplay: Robert Holmes, based on the novel Child of the Vodyanoi by David Wiltshire. Director: Douglas Camfield.

   That both the screenwriter and the director were involved with the BBC’s Dr. Who, both before and after, suggests why this moderately well-plotted SF-thriller comes off so well.

   All four parts take place on a unnamed Hebrides island, up around Scotland way. About 35 square miles in size, the island has a police force of four men, headed by Inspector Inskip (Maurice Roëves), and a coast guard station with three more.

   Is that enough to protect the island’s inhabitants from a crazed killer whose victims have been mauled to death by a creature that seems to be half animal and half human? Under ordinary circumstances, yes, but the island is socked in by fog with no access to the mainland. Until the weather clears, the people on the island are strictly on their own.

   Pictured on the DVD cover are the two principal characters in this four-act play. James Warwick as Michael Gaffikin, the island’s dentist, an outsider who honorable intentions are questioned by the closely-knit townspeople in regard to the incipient love affair between him and the island’s druggist, Fiona Patterson, played the lovely Celia Imrie.

   Only once do we see the latter in anything resembling glamorous, however, during a dinner date with Gaffikin, in which she wears a daring low-cut dress. Otherwise she is as bundled up against the fog as the rest of the guys. Of course it is she who has previously mapped out the island, so it is also she who is their guide up and down and across some fairly rugged terrain (actually filmed in Cornwall), trying to reach campers in danger and to track the increasingly murderous intruder — who just may be an alien newly arrived from space.

   As usual in stories like these, the truth, while equally fantastic is also rather prosaic, making the fourth of the four episodes the weakest. It takes a lot of sedentary (standing around) exposition to make the details of the island’s attacker understood.

   But before then, by which I mean the previous three episodes, this is a fine example of horror fiction, slightly old-fashioned now and only moderately gory, one supposes, due to its being made for TV — shown only once, by the way, until recently released by the BBC on Regions 2 and 4 DVD.

   I watched all four episodes (two hours) in one evening. I couldn’t stop myself.

WAKING THE DEAD. BBC, UK, Series 8: 06-07, 13-14, 20-21, 27-28 Sept 2009. Trevor Eve (Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd), Sue Johnston (Dr. Grace Foley), Wil Johnson (DI Spencer Jordan), Félicité Du Jeu (DC Stella Goodman), Tara Fitzgerald (Dr. Eve Lockhart), Stacey Roca (DS Katrina Howard).

   This long running series (back for four stories, each spread over two one-hour parts, no adverts) is as barmy as any that is currently being shown.

   Detective Supt. Peter Boyd, who runs a cold case squad, is so far over the top, irrational and prone to outbursts, that you wonder why anyone would work for him at all.

   However the stories are usually very watchable and often set up an intriguing premise. The problem is that the resolutions are always a complete letdown and never bother trying to explain who has done what and why.

   Boyd is never supervised and seems unbothered by his methods but this series went a step further and set Boyd up as some sort of avenger. Illogical and beyond reason but it can be entertaining.

“The Thirty-First of February.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 15). First air date: 4 January 1963. David Wayne, William Conrad, Elizabeth Allen, Staats Cotsworth, William Sargent, Bob Crane, King Calder, Bernadette Hale, Kathleen O’Malley, Robert Carson. Teleplay: Richard Matheson, based on the novel The Thirty-First of February (1950) by Julian Symons. Director: Alf Kjellin.

   As the play opens, an inquest is being held into the death of Valerie Anderson (Kathleen O’Malley), who evidently tried to walk down a flight of steps to her cellar, despite a burned-out light bulb, stumbled, and broke her neck in the fall. Everything seems to point to accidental death, and the coroner rules it that way.

   Val’s husband Andrew (David Wayne) decides the best thing to do would be to go immediately back to work. But it’s there among his colleagues that things begin to deteriorate.

   Little items which would ordinarily be minor annoyances begin to crop up and incrementally erode Andrew’s sangfroid: a desk calendar marking the date of Val’s death, an unsigned poisoned pen letter implying Val was having an affair with someone at the firm, two interoffice memos that get mixed up and sent to the wrong people, a new employee who seems to be following Andrew around, another desk calendar with the nonsensical date of “February 31st” inscribed on it, and even having his house ransacked.

   And then there’s that police sergeant (William Conrad), who on every occasion they meet keeps insinuating that Andrew murdered Valerie but insists he isn’t implying any such thing.

   Not only is Andrew’s emotional composure slowly cracking, but his vulnerabilities are also becoming more obvious. You see, Andrew never loved Val; he admits as much to the woman he really loves, Molly O’Rourke (Elizabeth Allen) — but he does so just before he tries to choke her. He also comes to believe that several of his colleagues, as per the letter, were having an affair with Valerie and irrationally accuses them to their faces, making him look even more paranoid.

   One thing’s for sure: If Andrew did kill Val, then his guilty conscience is tearing him apart — but, if he didn’t kill her, then he’s in the crosshairs of a plot not just to put him in prison but also to drive him insane ….

   David Wayne’s criminous credits include Hell and High Water (1954), as The Mad Hatter on four episodes of TV’s Batman (1966-67), Arsenic and Old Lace (TVM, 1969), one Banacek (1973), as Inspector Richard Queen (sans moustache) in 23 episodes of Ellery Queen on TV (1975-76), and an appearance on Murder, She Wrote in a clever locked-room mystery, “Murder Takes the Bus” (1985).

   William Conrad was always playing heavies, both figuratively and literally. Credits include The Killers (1946), Body and Soul (1947), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), Tension (1949), East Side, West Side (1949), One Way Street (1950), Dial 1119 (1950), Cry Danger (1951), The Racket (1951), Cry of the Hunted (1953), The Brotherhood of the Bell (TVM, 1970), as Nero Wolfe on TV (14 episodes, 1981), and in the series Jake and the Fatman (104 episodes, 1987-92).

Hulu: http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi853016601/

“The Trains of Silence.” An episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre (Season 2, Episode 28). First air date: 10 June 1965. Jeffrey Hunter, Tippi Hedren, Warren Stevens, Lloyd Bochner, Patrick Whyte, Francis DeSales, Dale Johnson. Teleplay: William Wood. Story: Ben Maddow. Story consultant: Anthony Boucher. Director: Douglas Heyes.

   Fred Girard (Jeffrey Hunter) storms into a hotel demanding to see the man who lives in the penthouse, his old college friend Wolfe Hastings (Lloyd Bochner).

   Fred is a Canadian geologist who has made a huge discovery: mineral deposits laced with titanium ore worth a cool three million dollars at current assay rates. He needs Wolfe, a reclusive multimillionaire, to finance development. All he wants is to see Wolfe, but he gets stonewalled from the get go, first by Wolfe’s alcoholic personal secretary Lee Anne (Tippi Hedren) and later by Wolfe’s righthand man, Mark Wilton (Warren Stevens).

   The D-Day invasion of Normandy proved easier than getting in to see Wolfe. Fred’s initial attempt to penetrate Wolfe’s lair nearly gets him killed. When that fails, Wilton tries to buy him off with a $3 million check — provided he leaves town to cash it. Fred accedes at first, but then has second thoughts. Now he wants to see Wolfe more than ever.

   With the unwilling assistance of an alley cat, at long last Fred breaks through the wall of security surrounding Humpty Dumpty and all the king’s men and discovers an ugly secret about his old college chum.

   Unfortunately for Fred, he’s the one — and not Humpty — who’s been chosen to take the fall — from a rooftop sixteen floors up ….

   This is Jeffrey Hunter’s show: He dominates every scene he’s in, and he’s in every scene. The script is already sharp, but Hunter improves on it. Tippi Hedren was a Hitchcock “discovery,” with The Birds (1963) being her first big starring role, followed by Marnie (1964).

   Warren Stevens has often played villains. A few of his crime drama credits: Phone Call from a Stranger (1952), Gorilla at Large (1954), Black Tuesday (1954), Women’s Prison (1955, reviewed here ), The Price of Fear (1956), Accused of Murder (1956), Intent to Kill (1958).

   TV credits for Stevens include two episodes of Checkmate, four appearances on Hawaiian Eye, three Kraft Suspense Theatre‘s (including “One Tiger to a Hill,” reviewed here ), Madigan (1968), and four episodes each of Mission: Impossible and Ironside.

“The Tender Poisoner.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 14). First air date: 20 December 1962. Dan Dailey, Howard Duff, Jan Sterling, William Bramley, Philip Read, Richard Bull, Bettye Ackerman. Writer: Lukas Heller, based on the novel Five Roundabouts to Heaven (1953; aka The Tender Poisoner, US, 1953) by John Bingham. Director: Leonard Horn.

   Barney Bartel (Dan Dailey) is an unhappily married man who has fallen for a woman, Lorna (Bettye Ackerman), ten years younger than his wife Beatrice (Jan Sterling). Barney’s pal Peter Harding (Howard Duff) knows about the affair and seems anxious to discourage Barney — but things aren’t always what they seem, are they?

   For Peter the situation has its advantages, indeed it does; for Barney, though, the situation is becoming intolerable. The first step involves getting rid of Beatrice, in preparation for which Barney must do an experiment on his dog, one involving poison …

   Longtime hoofer Dan Dailey proves in this show that he could do serious crime drama. Most of us may have forgotten the TV series Dailey did in 1959-60, 39 episodes of The Four Just Men inspired by characters created by Edgar Wallace. His only other series was the comedy The Governor & J. J. (1969-70).

   Howard Duff’s character is almost identical to the shifty guy he played in Naked City (1948). He also appeared in Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949), Spy Hunt (1950), Shakedown (1950), Private Hell 36 (1954), Women’s Prison (1955), While the City Sleeps (1956).

   On TV he was in Dante (26 episodes, 1960-61) and Felony Squad (73 installments, 1966-69), one Ellery Queen (1976), six appearances on Police Story, 37 episodes of Flamingo Road, and one as Thomas Magnum’s grandfather on Magnum, P.I.

   Jan Sterling was in a few crime dramas: Mystery Street (1950), Union Station (1950), Appointment with Danger (1951), Split Second (1953, reviewed here), The Human Jungle (1954), Female on the Beach (1955), and two episodes of The Name of the Game.

Hulu: http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi869793817/

Editorial Comment:   The photo you see of Howard Duff is strictly a case of “None of the Above,” as far as the credits go as listed for him by Mike. If you know the part he’s playing, then you almost assuredly know who it is who’s in the scene with him.

MURDERLAND. ITV, UK; 3-episode miniseries: 19 October, 26 October, 2 November 2009. Robbie Coltrane, Amanda Hale, Bel Powley, Sharon Small, Lorraine Ashbourne, Nicholas Gleaves, Lucy Cohu, Yasmin Paige. Screenplay: David Pirie. Director: Catherine Morshead.

   This was a single story, written by David Pirie and told over three one-hour parts (less adverts).

   In the first we see a young woman, on the brink of marriage, who goes to retired detective Hain (played by Robbie Coltrane), the man who investigated her mother’s murder 15 years before.

   We see the murder and the investigation through her young eyes as she discovers her mother was a prostitute working at a shabby massage parlour.

   In the second part we see the investigation through the eyes of Hain and we realise much more of what has gone on before; in the third episode we see the story brought up to date as new witnesses are discovered and the killer finally brought to justice.

   This was a very watchable piece of television which certainly engaged my interest and the time went very quickly. However like many programmes nowadays, I wasn’t entirely convinced at the end that it all made sense — for example it seemed a little odd that the workings of the massage parlour were unchanged after 15 years.

   Still it was a commendable effort and I enjoyed watching it.