Colonel March of Scotland Yard starring Boris Karloff |
|
The stories were:
1 Hot Money 2 Death in the Dressing Room 3 New Invisible Man 4 The Second Mona Lisa 5 At Night all Cats are Grey 6 The Abominable Snowman 7 The Lively Ghost 8 The Sorcerer |
9 The Deadly Gift
10 Passage at Arms 11 The Headless Hat 12 The Case of the Kidnapped Poodle 13 The Misguided Missal 14 Death and the Other Monkey 15 Death in Inner Space 16 The Devil Sells His Soul 17 Error at Daybreak |
18 The Invisible Knife
19 The Stolen Crime 20 The Missing Link 21 Murder is Permanent 22 Present Tense 23 The Silent Vow 24 The Silver Curtain 25 The Strange Event At Roman Fall 26 The Talking Head |
|
The first home grown filmed crime series to be shown on the new Independent Television Channel in Britain.
In fact, the date the first three stories on this list were made was back in 1952, directed by the great Cy Endfield, as the feature film Colonel March Investigates.
The remaining 23 stories were filmed in 1954, the first television series produced under the auspices of Hannah Weinstein (1912-1984),
once famously described by Peter Noble as "the Queenpin of the half hour movie." Although her name does not appear in the screen credits, it is certain that this is the tv series that she cut her teeth on.
The stories were based on a crime novel written by eminent criminal novelist Carter Dickson (aka John Dickson Carr). Boris Karloff starred as the enigmatic Colonel March head of D3, The Department of Queer Complaints, with Ewan Roberts as Inspector Ames. My favourite episode: perhaps #17 Error at Daybreak, tho' no story is really scintillating Best moment: in #13 The Misguided Missal, Col March indulges in some neat trickery to outsmart even the great Chan Canasta Dud episode: #10 Passage at Arms is very dull, odd that it was chosen as the first of the series to be screened on ITV! To the Dinosaur TV Crime Menu |