Wed 16 Feb 2022
British TV Episode Review: QUILLER “The Price of Violence.†(1975).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV Espionage & Spies[15] Comments
QUILLER. “The Price of Violence.†BBC, 60 minutes. 29 August 1975. (Season 1, Episode 1.) Michael Jayston (Quiller), Moray Watson (Angus Kinloch). Guest Cast: Sinéad Cusack, Ed Bishop. Screenplay: Michael J. Bird, based on the character created by Adam Hall (Elleston Trevor). Director: Peter Graham Scott. Currently available on YouTube.
It’s been over five years since the greatly missed Michael Shonk reviewed Adam Hall’s Tango Briefing, the fifth adventure of the master spy known only as Quiller. Along with that review he discussed the BBC TV series based on the books. At that time, only three of the episodes were known to have survived. Lo and behold, the whole season has recently turned up, easily found by doing a search for them on YouTube. I only wish that Michael were still with us to see them.
There is much to like in “The Price of Violence,†the very first episode, but something I found as awfully rough going was that there is no dialogue at all in the first nine minutes, only scenes of some of the usual Mideast violence in Israel and Lebanon. Without knowing who any of the characters are, or — truthfully — no idea of what is happening, it all goes by too vaguely and with no particular context or meaning, then only to be forgotten once the story itself begins.
Which has Quiller home in disgrace, his mission in the war zone a failure. As a penance, he’s not cashiered outright, nor put in a desk job, but put into a state of semi-limbo instead, a situation to which he does not take kindly. But his immediate superior (played impeccably well by Moray Watson), as well as the director of the totally secret “Bureau,†have other plans for him, and he’s ever so subtly nudged into becoming the bodyguard of the head of the World Food Commission, a totally innocuous man who otherwise has no play in the proceedings.
Involved, however, is the man’s legal advisor, played to perfection by Sinéad Cusack, and sparks between Quiller and herself fly immediately. (She was to turn up again in two later episodes.) Quiller is a loner and a cynic, but as a man deeply involved in the spy business, never carries a gun. The sad but steely-eyed Michael Jayston was made for the part. George Segal, who played Quiller in the movies, was not.
The series lasted for only one season of thirteen episodes, all now available, at least for the time being.
February 16th, 2022 at 9:47 pm
Reviews of the series were bad at the time, probably because expectations were so high for the Hall/Trevor series. Cinematic as the books are in their mix of action and literacy it is a pity no one ever saw fit to adapt them to the screen beyond the Segal film.
Still, it is nice to see this famously “lost” series available.
Jayston (NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA) was the voice of James Bond in the BBC radio adaptation of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE adding a bit of irony to his playing Quiller. Ed Bishop, who shows up here, is probably best remembered for the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson live action SF series UFO and was Philip Marlowe in the BBC radio adaptations of the Raymond Chandler books.
February 16th, 2022 at 11:18 pm
One reason contemporary reviews may have been bad is that (based on this one) it takes a little effort to be sure you’re catching on to everything you’re watching on the screen as it happens. Before writing this review, I saw it second time to be sure I had all the details correct, and when I did, you’d be surprised at how much I missed the first time. Well I was — surprised, that is. The way Quiller was maneuvered into taking the bodyguard job was very slickly done, indeed.
February 16th, 2022 at 11:23 pm
I’m a fervent fan of Hall’s book series. At one and the same time, I can see how they would be apt for adaptation and also problematic. Hall writes Quiller in so jittery a fashion. The character is lightning-quick; always leaps ahead of where you think he’s headed.
Fleming’s Bond was always sure to throttle back frequently during a Bond read and pamper himself. Quiller seems to thrive on pain, speed, and action. A true adenalin-junkie. How to put that on film, in a realistic manner?
Michael Jayston is a distinctive-faced actor firmly etched in my mind as the stolid ‘Peter Guillam’ in LeCarre’s Karla trilogy. George Smiley’s trusted lieutenant while he sets his trap. He shone in that role. I like Jayston and I wish he’d had more of a career.
But I can’t quite see him as ‘Quiller’. Contrary to other reviewers, I like Segal as Quiller. He has a bitter, chiseled face, physical bodily presence, and an acid delivery of his lines.
The bottom line for me is that Adam Hall’s Quiller moves so fast that a gun slows him down. He’s a “penetration specialist”. His knack is getting in and out of enemy countries. He doesn’t fall for lasses during a mission. It’s a magical creation. He may not be a great spy but he’s demonic in any kind of fistfight and he knows all sorts of cool stuff like munitions and jet planes.
It’s as if Donald Westlake wrote a “Parker” for the spy-fiction realm. High entertainment.
February 17th, 2022 at 12:47 am
I have no clue if I’d agree what you’re saying, Lazy, (other than your rating of the lead’s performance as Peter in LeCarre’s Karla trilogy) but it was a joy reading your writing, as is often the case.
February 17th, 2022 at 8:24 am
Well! That’s certainly a noble compliment to pay to me, sir. My humble thanks!
February 17th, 2022 at 5:49 pm
For fans of Michael Jayston, here’s the link to the YouTube page were all of the Quiller episodes can be found:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU-8vErfxyTwvgT5Hd06HmQ/videos
I haven’t investigated further, but it looks like the other videos pasted there are of episodes of other TV shows Jayston appeared in.
February 17th, 2022 at 10:22 pm
The second episode is based on the novel the TANGO BRIEFING and fairly faithful to the book considering it is adapted into a fifty minute format.
I think you have a point Steve about the amount of information packed into the story and some people having trouble following, that, and like James Mitchell’s CALLAN Quiller is not a particularly nice man, a damn tough and smart one, but not television nice, and like Callan he doesn’t get warm and fuzzy as it goes along (American television of that era even made Nero Wolfe warm and fuzzy).
The way they were shown here didn’t help. It ran late on CBS it’s fifty minutes extended to seventy-five with commercials filling up the extra time and some cuts despite that. They butchered the British anthology series THRILLER and the NEW AVENGERS the same way.
As Lazy says Quiller has even less human down time than Bond. He’s an action junkie (also true of Bond, but Fleming goes on more at length about how Bond’s downtime affects him negatively — drinking, affairs, etc and uses Bond to indulge his own fantasy of fast cars, beautiful women, and great food and drink).
I thought Jayston was good enough as Quiller if a bit slight physically, but I’ve always had in mind more of a Stanley Baker, Edward Judd, or younger Oliver Reed type, less polish and more edge than Bond. Daniel Craig wouldn’t have been a bad Quiller for that matter or Idris Elba.
Hall’s Quiller books are usually described as Fleming’s penchant for exaggerated action combined with Le Carre’s plots, and while there are set pieces I would kill to see filmed including one of the best car chases I’ve ever read and a memorable karate battle in a snake shop they would likely prove difficult to film, including, as Lazy points out, how much ahead of everyone else Quiller is.
Hall is a master of suspense, but you have to wonder if most screenwriters and directors would have been half as good as keeping the suspense up considering how quick Quiller thinks and moves. Audiences expect to be strung along and “discover” things just before the hero, not trail behind him dazed and a bit confused.
February 17th, 2022 at 11:58 pm
Strangely enough, the next time I read a Quiller novel, I suspect I’m going to be seeing Michael Jayston. But I do like your suggestions of Daniel Craig or that younger Oliver Reed you mention.
As for ” Audiences expect to be strung along and “discover†things just before the hero, not trail behind him dazed and a bit confused. ”
Isn’t that the truth? Any detective show on network TV you can fall asleep and still be able to follow the story.
February 18th, 2022 at 3:11 am
Ah, I relished that hand-to-hand fight in the snake store. Yes, I agree about Hall’s technique.
Many scenes where Quiller is under pressure in his adventures, he seems to have a response already waiting to hurl back at whoever is pressuring him. He just uncorks some retaliation without articulating it very much beforehand, and it’s usually so swift it “happens in less time than it takes to tell”.
But there are other scenes which do what Ian Fleming usually did not: convey an escalating sense of panic and frenzy in his protagonist, when a situation isn’t going the right way. Such is the snake shop scene.
Quiller really doesn’t like being afraid. He doesn’t like what it does to his system. He’s not bothered by herpephobia (or whatever its called) but as he says, he just “hates the bloody things” and when he’s thrown into a pile of serpents by an enemy black belt-type, genuine nervous fright makes him spazz in a way that gives him the frenzy he needs to win that battle (even though he’s taken by surprise and gets a late start). It’s extraordinary reading.
There’s other episodes in the books where Hall places Quiller in more drawn-out situations. Interrogations, expiring from thirst, cold, heat, exhaustion, broken bones, running out of air, etc. In those predicaments one enjoys Quiller’s internal dialogue with his own body as he gradually dehydrates, goes mad, freezes, or burns. That too, is a treat; and one learns a bit at the same time. Quiller knows curious little physiological techniques like how to induce unconsciousness, how to hyperventilate, how to separate body from mind, etc.
But these other instances where he explodes are just crazy good. Love this level of writing. Although I was fascinated by Fleming when I first plunged into the Bond series, its true that too many pages are spent describing Bond’s decadence and how-he-passes-his-off-hours.
Fleming was so more than just a thriller author, he had so much to say about culture and society and I value him for that. But when I want a pulse-racing read I would turn to Adam Hall or some of the other big names often discussed in this blog. Hall certainly isn’t the only master of thrills –there’s Westlake for instance –but by God he is marvelous.
February 18th, 2022 at 3:33 am
p.s. another factor which negates Quiller as a good movie or TV hero: his coldness and cynicism towards women. The guy is brutally sardonic towards females. I’ve read seven(?) of the books so far and have yet to find him with a single kind or warm thought in this vein. He barely even speaks to them. Won’t waste time on them. The flirtation in ‘Memorandum’, isn’t that really the only instance where he gets involved? Of course in the film it’s the stupendously beautiful actress Senta Berger so a little tete e’ tete had to be included. But otherwise Quiller shirks romance and is utterly without compunction. Basically treats them like hazards, as dangerous as anyone else he meets in the course of a mission.
February 18th, 2022 at 11:53 pm
Quite a few of the Bond novels, most of them actually, depend on Bond seducing women to succeed or turn on his having won a woman’s trust through his behavior. The Quiller books usually depend on his not being distracted. Fleming is mostly taking wartime intrigue and redefining it against the Cold War.
Hall, on the other hand, is writing about the complexities of the Cold War where Quiller’s almost machine like approach is an advantage.
Neither Bond nor Quiller are nice men, a fact made clear by both writers. Quiller is what Mathis accuses Bond of being in CASINO ROYALE, a machine, a highly tuned racing engine. Fleming, because he is trying to do something other than just write thrillers, keeps forcing humanity on Bond. Hall allows Quiller to keep humanity at bay.
Fleming was never a suspense writer, and in that nowhere near the level of Elleston Trevor under any name. In some ways you almost can’t compare the two experiences.
Fleming is like having a whiskey in a club with a gifted raconteur spinning a tale that gets a little taller as the whiskey flows a litte faster. Hall is more like being grabbed by the lapels and shaken until stirred like one of Bond’s martinis. The two reading experiences are as far apart as you can imagine in the same basic area of the same genre.
February 20th, 2022 at 12:12 am
Nicely encapsulated.
When I think of my favorite TV series espionage figures: I harken back to: Napoleon Solo …Alexander Munday …Mister Briggs, Mister Phelps… and ‘Number Six’ (Patrick McGowan in ‘The Prisoner’).
February 20th, 2022 at 12:13 am
McGoohan, that is!
February 20th, 2022 at 12:16 am
Might as well mention David Jansen as the Fugitive (to make #14), my favorite TV series of all time
June 8th, 2022 at 3:20 pm
After becoming a rabid Quiller fan, I was lucky enough to befriend Elleston Trevor (aka Adam Hall) in the last years of his life, and a more wonderful gentleman you cannot imagine. I respectfully disagree with Lazy about Quiller’s attitude toward women. He has trysts in some, but by no means all, of the books, and his respect for them is such that the only times he ever killed in cold blood were to avenge women betrayed. As for the show, I too loved Jayston as Guillam, and thought him pretty well cast as Quiller, but so far have only seen “The Tango Briefing,” the sole episode written by Hall or based on one of the books. I found Segal horrifically miscast, yet in general, as much as I love the books and would be thrilled to see a GOOD Quiller movie, I’ve started to think that, for many of the reasons mentioned, he may not be particularly adaptable. I’m now introducing my wife to The Prisoner, which of course puts me in mind of Danger Man/Secret Agent as well. John Drake had definite similarities to Quiller (neither carried a gun nor, while not being celibate, was a Bond-like skirt-chaser), so I think McGoohan would have been an excellent choice. I’m now winding up an article on the entire 19-book series for bare*bones, which I hope will appear in about three months.