Series 1 – Episode 12
|
Marker
Jenny Graham Dannon Drummond Peter Mason Alan James Joe Mallet Sue Forbes Phil White Gordon Reynolds Blackie Moses Dover |
Alfred Burke
Carole Ann Ford Philip Madoc Richard Butler Roland Curram Brian McDermott Barry Linehan Susan Burnet Vic Wise Gilbert Wynne John Garrie Charles Hill |
Uncredited cast:
Railway passengers and staff/Customers in snack bar/Waiters/ Thugs |
Joy Black, Irene Freeman, Hubert Willis, Robert Manning, John Clevedon, Dot Temple, Wilfred Boyle, Martin White, Maurice Blake |
Production
Series based on an idea by Roger Marshall & Anthony Marriott
Theme Music composed by Robert Earley Story Editor: Richard Bates Floor Manager: John Russell |
Stage Manager: Peter Llewellyn
Production Assistant: Marian Lloyd Designed by Mike Hall Producer: John Bryce Directed by Kim Mills |
Rehearsed from 10am on Thursday 4 March 1965 at York House, Twickenham
Camera rehearsed from Tuesday 16 March 1965 at ABC Television Studios, Broom Road, Teddington, Middlesex (studio not known)
Recorded from 6pm to 7pm on Wednesday 17 March 1965 at Teddington (studio not known)
Camera rehearsed from Tuesday 16 March 1965 at ABC Television Studios, Broom Road, Teddington, Middlesex (studio not known)
Recorded from 6pm to 7pm on Wednesday 17 March 1965 at Teddington (studio not known)
TV World Synopsis
Thurs. 4.15 p.m.: Drummond – solicitor from Hull – looking for a missing girl. Doesn’t he know the population of London? Worse than searching for a needle in a haystack.
Transmission
Saturday 3 April 1965, 9.10pm (Ulster)
Saturday 10 April 1965, 9.10pm (Southern)
Saturday 10 April 1965, 10.10pm (ABC Midlands and ABC North)
Saturday 19 June 1965, 10.10pm (ATV London, Border, Channel and Westward – postponed from Saturday 10 April 1965, 10.10pm)
Tuesday 29 June 1965, 10.35pm (Grampian)
Sunday 4 July 1965, 11.05pm (Scottish)
Saturday 31 July 1965, 9.50pm (Teledu Cymru and TWW)
Saturday 14 August 1965, 10.10pm (Tyne Tees)
Saturday 10 April 1965, 9.10pm (Southern)
Saturday 10 April 1965, 10.10pm (ABC Midlands and ABC North)
Saturday 19 June 1965, 10.10pm (ATV London, Border, Channel and Westward – postponed from Saturday 10 April 1965, 10.10pm)
Tuesday 29 June 1965, 10.35pm (Grampian)
Sunday 4 July 1965, 11.05pm (Scottish)
Saturday 31 July 1965, 9.50pm (Teledu Cymru and TWW)
Saturday 14 August 1965, 10.10pm (Tyne Tees)
Archive
Digital Betacam videotape copy of converted 405- to 625-line monochrome videotape – master copy held in the BFI National Archive
Rehearsal script – held in the BFI Special Collections
Rehearsal script – held in the BFI Special Collections
Story Notes
The surname of the snack bar’s proprietor is spelled Mallett in the rehearsal script, in ABC publicity material and in contemporary TV listings, but Mallet in the episode’s end credits. Phil White’s son, who is said to be buying a car on HP, is referred to as Jakey in the transmitted episode (he is unnamed in the script). Mason’s reputed Aunt Blossom, whom he describes as “six foot, with hands like red cabbages”, is named Petal in the script. John Garrie’s character is listed in the script and credits as Moses but is addressed by Marker as Blackie – it is possible that Blackie is his first name or a nickname.
Click here for deleted scenes
Click here for deleted scenes
Production Notes
The music heard playing on Jenny’s radio in the snack bar is Buckle Shoe Stomp by The Snobs – composed by lead guitarist Colin Sandland, rhythm guitarist John Boulden and manager Ivor Spencer – from a March 1964 Decca single (F 11867).
The rehearsal script calls for “train noises” to be heard during the scenes in Marker’s office, presumably coming from the nearby Clapham Junction railway station. Similarly scripted sound effects were omitted when Nobody Kills Santa Claus was recorded, replaced with faint street noises, but they were retained when this episode was committed to tape.
Alfred Burke and Roland Curram carried out some voice pre-recording on Tuesday 16 March 1965, the first day of camera rehearsals. Curram’s work would have included the tape-recorded voice of Peter Mason, which Dannon plays back to him near the beginning of Act Two.
The Morning Wasn’t So Hot made its first appearance in the Ulster region on Saturday 3 April 1965 at 9.10pm. Southern showed it next, on Saturday 10 April, also at 9.10pm, with ABC following a close third, broadcasting it one hour later.
The intention had been that ATV London, Border, Channel and Westward would relay the episode being screened by ABC at 10.10pm on Saturday 10 April. The Morning Wasn’t So Hot had therefore been selected by the production team as a strong, new episode to launch Public Eye in London and the other participating regions. “This episode was originally meant to open the series [in London],” recalled Roger Marshall in the brochure for the Kaleidoscope event Raiders of the Lost Archives ’95. “It was a reworking of the classic private eye situation – girl goes missing from home in Hull, comes to London, and falls into the clutches of a vice ring.” To ensure good press coverage (see Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?, below), the ABC team cast Carole Ann Ford as the girl in question, Jenny Graham. In late 1964, the actress had quit her role as teenager Susan Foreman in BBC1’s popular science-fiction series Doctor Who, citing her dissatisfaction with the character’s development, and her departure from the show had generated a great deal of publicity. Prior to the London debut of Public Eye, ABC held a special screening, where journalists could view The Morning Wasn’t So Hot. “We screened the show for the press, who went off and wrote their reviews,” recalled Marshall. “Whereupon ABC Television lost their nerve [over the subject matter], pulled it and substituted it with something less likely to disturb the nation’s late night cocoa. Tactically it’s not clever to open the series with a different episode from that billed in the press. Smacks of amateur night.” ABC decided that viewers of ATV, Border, Channel and Westward would, in fact, first see Frank Marker in All for a Couple of Ponies, as had been the case with ABC, Southern and Ulster.
Following this uneasy start, Public Eye began to find an audience in London during June, when a haphazard array of programming was offered by way of opposition on BBC1, including films, sports coverage and music from the likes of singer-songwriter Joan Baez. The heavily publicised The Morning Wasn’t So Hot was finally screened on Saturday 19 June against the BBC news and music from George Gershwin and Bob Dylan, and Public Eye entered the TV charts for the first time, ranking as the joint sixth most watched programme of the week for the London area with a Television Rating (TVR) percentage share of 35.
Though The Morning Wasn’t So Hot had missed its chance to be the episode that launched Public Eye in London, it was subsequently selected to kick off the series in Scotland. In the far north of the country, Grampian commenced its run on Tuesday 29 June at 10.35pm, with The Morning Wasn’t So Hot replacing the American police drama The New Breed. Five days later, Scottish Television debuted Public Eye with the same episode on Sunday 4 July at 11.05pm, as a replacement for ABC’s The Eamonn Andrews Show.
The Morning Wasn’t So Hot appears to be the only episode of Series 1 to have been broadcast by Teledu Cymru, on Saturday 31 July at 9.50pm, when it was also shown by TWW. At this point in time, Television Wales & West controlled both Welsh regions. Teledu Cymru ran a similar schedule to TWW, but with English-language programming sometimes replaced with Welsh-language content. On every other occasion between Saturday 24 July and Saturday 25 September 1965, when TWW showed Public Eye on a Saturday night, Teledu Cymru instead broadcast a Welsh-language programme, followed by the half-hour American Western series The Deputy. The Welsh programme on these dates was usually Dilyn y Band (Follow the Band), a brass band knockout competition, except on Saturday 7 August 1965, when The Deputy was preceded by the comedy sketch show Noson Lawen (A Merry Evening). When TWW moved Public Eye to Tuesday nights, Teledu Cymru did not follow suit, preferring instead to show The Human Jungle (from 28 September to 12 October 1965) or Gideon’s Way (on 2 November and 9 November 1965).
This episode formed part of a special Kaleidoscope retrospective to mark Public Eye’s 30th anniversary in 1995. Previous events hosted by the not-for-profit television preservation group had shown selected stories such as Series 6’s The Trouble with Jenny (at an event around 1991), Series 5’s A Mug Named Frank (on Saturday 7 June 1993) and, also from Series 5, Shades of White (at the Raiders of the Lost Archives 2 event on Saturday 13 August 1994), but Raiders of the Lost Archives ’95 would present a range of episodes. On Friday 6 January 1995, writer Dave Rogers videotaped an interview with Alfred Burke about his career, together with links to introduce episodes to be shown at the event, in case the actor was unable to attend due to work commitments. Happily, Burke was available and, on Saturday 5 August 1995, he joined devotees of the show to perch on the steps of the bar area at Stourbridge Town Hall and view the line-up of The Morning Wasn’t So Hot (preceded by his previously recorded introduction), Series 6’s It’s a Woman’s Privilege and Series 7’s Lifer. After this, he joined his colleagues Roger Marshall and director Jonathan Alwyn at 2pm in the main auditorium for a panel discussion, On Your Markers… A Retrospective Appreciation of Public Eye. Marshall also contributed various pieces to the event’s brochure, including a new prose story set after Series 7, entitled Return to Mrs Mortimer. Following the panel discussion, Burke introduced a double bill of Series 4’s My Life’s My Own preceded by its Armchair Theatre prequel Wednesday’s Child in the bar area, after which The Comedian’s Graveyard, also from Series 4, was shown in the main room.
The Morning Wasn’t So Hot is one of three episodes of Public Eye produced by ABC that have survived on their original 405-line videotapes – the other two being Series 2’s Works with Chess, Not with Life and Series 3’s The Bromsgrove Venus. The originals are held in the BFI National Archive. The version of The Morning Wasn’t So Hot shown at Raiders of the Lost Archives ’95 and subsequently issued on DVD was converted optically from the obsolete format using the low-tech method of pointing a 625-line television camera at a monitor displaying the original 405-line recording. As a result, the transfer suffers from some loss of image area, ghosting (when bright areas of the image cut to darkness, the bright areas take a second or so to fade) and distortion of picture geometry (due to the curvature of the screen that the camera was pointing at). Works with Chess, Not with Life and The Bromsgrove Venus are not affected by such artefacts on DVD, as they are electronic conversions to 625-line video, carried out more recently. The electronic conversion process was developed in the late 1990s and all of the BFI’s 405-line tapes have since been converted in this way. However, the optical transfer of The Morning Wasn’t So Hot found its way on to DVD by mistake.
All five of the surviving ABC episodes were released on DVD by Network Distributing on Monday 27 August 2012, in Public Eye: The ABC Years. Network’s entire Public Eye DVD range was then compiled into a boxed set, Public Eye: A Box Named Frank, published on Monday 12 November 2012. This was subsequently reissued by popular demand as Public Eye: Complete Surviving Episodes Collection on Monday 15 May 2023. The Morning Wasn’t So Hot appears on Disc 1 of each collection.
The rehearsal script calls for “train noises” to be heard during the scenes in Marker’s office, presumably coming from the nearby Clapham Junction railway station. Similarly scripted sound effects were omitted when Nobody Kills Santa Claus was recorded, replaced with faint street noises, but they were retained when this episode was committed to tape.
Alfred Burke and Roland Curram carried out some voice pre-recording on Tuesday 16 March 1965, the first day of camera rehearsals. Curram’s work would have included the tape-recorded voice of Peter Mason, which Dannon plays back to him near the beginning of Act Two.
The Morning Wasn’t So Hot made its first appearance in the Ulster region on Saturday 3 April 1965 at 9.10pm. Southern showed it next, on Saturday 10 April, also at 9.10pm, with ABC following a close third, broadcasting it one hour later.
The intention had been that ATV London, Border, Channel and Westward would relay the episode being screened by ABC at 10.10pm on Saturday 10 April. The Morning Wasn’t So Hot had therefore been selected by the production team as a strong, new episode to launch Public Eye in London and the other participating regions. “This episode was originally meant to open the series [in London],” recalled Roger Marshall in the brochure for the Kaleidoscope event Raiders of the Lost Archives ’95. “It was a reworking of the classic private eye situation – girl goes missing from home in Hull, comes to London, and falls into the clutches of a vice ring.” To ensure good press coverage (see Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?, below), the ABC team cast Carole Ann Ford as the girl in question, Jenny Graham. In late 1964, the actress had quit her role as teenager Susan Foreman in BBC1’s popular science-fiction series Doctor Who, citing her dissatisfaction with the character’s development, and her departure from the show had generated a great deal of publicity. Prior to the London debut of Public Eye, ABC held a special screening, where journalists could view The Morning Wasn’t So Hot. “We screened the show for the press, who went off and wrote their reviews,” recalled Marshall. “Whereupon ABC Television lost their nerve [over the subject matter], pulled it and substituted it with something less likely to disturb the nation’s late night cocoa. Tactically it’s not clever to open the series with a different episode from that billed in the press. Smacks of amateur night.” ABC decided that viewers of ATV, Border, Channel and Westward would, in fact, first see Frank Marker in All for a Couple of Ponies, as had been the case with ABC, Southern and Ulster.
Following this uneasy start, Public Eye began to find an audience in London during June, when a haphazard array of programming was offered by way of opposition on BBC1, including films, sports coverage and music from the likes of singer-songwriter Joan Baez. The heavily publicised The Morning Wasn’t So Hot was finally screened on Saturday 19 June against the BBC news and music from George Gershwin and Bob Dylan, and Public Eye entered the TV charts for the first time, ranking as the joint sixth most watched programme of the week for the London area with a Television Rating (TVR) percentage share of 35.
Though The Morning Wasn’t So Hot had missed its chance to be the episode that launched Public Eye in London, it was subsequently selected to kick off the series in Scotland. In the far north of the country, Grampian commenced its run on Tuesday 29 June at 10.35pm, with The Morning Wasn’t So Hot replacing the American police drama The New Breed. Five days later, Scottish Television debuted Public Eye with the same episode on Sunday 4 July at 11.05pm, as a replacement for ABC’s The Eamonn Andrews Show.
The Morning Wasn’t So Hot appears to be the only episode of Series 1 to have been broadcast by Teledu Cymru, on Saturday 31 July at 9.50pm, when it was also shown by TWW. At this point in time, Television Wales & West controlled both Welsh regions. Teledu Cymru ran a similar schedule to TWW, but with English-language programming sometimes replaced with Welsh-language content. On every other occasion between Saturday 24 July and Saturday 25 September 1965, when TWW showed Public Eye on a Saturday night, Teledu Cymru instead broadcast a Welsh-language programme, followed by the half-hour American Western series The Deputy. The Welsh programme on these dates was usually Dilyn y Band (Follow the Band), a brass band knockout competition, except on Saturday 7 August 1965, when The Deputy was preceded by the comedy sketch show Noson Lawen (A Merry Evening). When TWW moved Public Eye to Tuesday nights, Teledu Cymru did not follow suit, preferring instead to show The Human Jungle (from 28 September to 12 October 1965) or Gideon’s Way (on 2 November and 9 November 1965).
This episode formed part of a special Kaleidoscope retrospective to mark Public Eye’s 30th anniversary in 1995. Previous events hosted by the not-for-profit television preservation group had shown selected stories such as Series 6’s The Trouble with Jenny (at an event around 1991), Series 5’s A Mug Named Frank (on Saturday 7 June 1993) and, also from Series 5, Shades of White (at the Raiders of the Lost Archives 2 event on Saturday 13 August 1994), but Raiders of the Lost Archives ’95 would present a range of episodes. On Friday 6 January 1995, writer Dave Rogers videotaped an interview with Alfred Burke about his career, together with links to introduce episodes to be shown at the event, in case the actor was unable to attend due to work commitments. Happily, Burke was available and, on Saturday 5 August 1995, he joined devotees of the show to perch on the steps of the bar area at Stourbridge Town Hall and view the line-up of The Morning Wasn’t So Hot (preceded by his previously recorded introduction), Series 6’s It’s a Woman’s Privilege and Series 7’s Lifer. After this, he joined his colleagues Roger Marshall and director Jonathan Alwyn at 2pm in the main auditorium for a panel discussion, On Your Markers… A Retrospective Appreciation of Public Eye. Marshall also contributed various pieces to the event’s brochure, including a new prose story set after Series 7, entitled Return to Mrs Mortimer. Following the panel discussion, Burke introduced a double bill of Series 4’s My Life’s My Own preceded by its Armchair Theatre prequel Wednesday’s Child in the bar area, after which The Comedian’s Graveyard, also from Series 4, was shown in the main room.
The Morning Wasn’t So Hot is one of three episodes of Public Eye produced by ABC that have survived on their original 405-line videotapes – the other two being Series 2’s Works with Chess, Not with Life and Series 3’s The Bromsgrove Venus. The originals are held in the BFI National Archive. The version of The Morning Wasn’t So Hot shown at Raiders of the Lost Archives ’95 and subsequently issued on DVD was converted optically from the obsolete format using the low-tech method of pointing a 625-line television camera at a monitor displaying the original 405-line recording. As a result, the transfer suffers from some loss of image area, ghosting (when bright areas of the image cut to darkness, the bright areas take a second or so to fade) and distortion of picture geometry (due to the curvature of the screen that the camera was pointing at). Works with Chess, Not with Life and The Bromsgrove Venus are not affected by such artefacts on DVD, as they are electronic conversions to 625-line video, carried out more recently. The electronic conversion process was developed in the late 1990s and all of the BFI’s 405-line tapes have since been converted in this way. However, the optical transfer of The Morning Wasn’t So Hot found its way on to DVD by mistake.
All five of the surviving ABC episodes were released on DVD by Network Distributing on Monday 27 August 2012, in Public Eye: The ABC Years. Network’s entire Public Eye DVD range was then compiled into a boxed set, Public Eye: A Box Named Frank, published on Monday 12 November 2012. This was subsequently reissued by popular demand as Public Eye: Complete Surviving Episodes Collection on Monday 15 May 2023. The Morning Wasn’t So Hot appears on Disc 1 of each collection.
Home and Away
Library film of a steam train drawing into a station was used to establish the arrival of Jenny’s train at the beginning of the episode. The list of sets in the rehearsal script (which includes “COFFEE SHOP – KING’S CROSS”) and subsequent dialogue reveal that the station being represented is London King’s Cross, but the script’s requirements of the stock footage are more general: “A train arrives at one of London’s terminal stations. It pulls to a stop. Lots of noise, bustle and steam.” The text goes on to describe the train doors opening and the first people getting out, but in the completed episode this action was realised in the television studio rather than on film. To help bridge the stock and studio material, sound effects were played throughout the opening scene. These cues are described in the script as follows: “Sound over: totally unintelligible station announcement of the train’s arrival”, “Sound over: continuation of announcement, also train releasing steam” and “Sound over: steam and distant shunting.” Smoke effects on the station platform set added to the illusion.
As in Nobody Kills Santa Claus, mirrored stock footage of a busy London street at night was superimposed over a close-up of the snack bar window to simulate a reflection in Act One. The same piece of film as had been used for establishing Cray’s Nosh Bar in Nobody Kills Santa Claus was used again on this occasion.
The scene at the shoeshine stand in Act Three was realised in the studio, with artificial rain pouring down on Alfred Burke (as Marker) and John Garrie (as Moses). A photographic blow-up of part of the London skyline was positioned behind Burke.
Towards the end of the episode, when Jenny crosses to her window and looks down, having heard the sounds of Marker being pursued, attacked by thugs and bundled into a car, the rehearsal script calls for a “mirror shot”, i.e. the use of a reflective surface to help capture a challenging camera angle. However, director Kim Mills chose instead to use a filmed exterior shot of Jenny opening her window and peering out. The rehearsal script says, “We see the car drive away fast”, but the vehicle is kept off screen in the final production, being heard but not seen.
The scene at the shoeshine stand in Act Three was realised in the studio, with artificial rain pouring down on Alfred Burke (as Marker) and John Garrie (as Moses). A photographic blow-up of part of the London skyline was positioned behind Burke.
Towards the end of the episode, when Jenny crosses to her window and looks down, having heard the sounds of Marker being pursued, attacked by thugs and bundled into a car, the rehearsal script calls for a “mirror shot”, i.e. the use of a reflective surface to help capture a challenging camera angle. However, director Kim Mills chose instead to use a filmed exterior shot of Jenny opening her window and peering out. The rehearsal script says, “We see the car drive away fast”, but the vehicle is kept off screen in the final production, being heard but not seen.
Many a Slip
The timings that follow are based on the episode as presented on Disc 1 of the Network DVD releases Public Eye: The ABC Years, Public Eye: A Box Named Frank and Public Eye: Complete Surviving Episodes Collection. Timings from other sources may vary.
Multiple problems occur 4 minutes and 51 seconds into the episode. The vision mixer appears to cut from Marker’s balcony to his office door too early. The camera trained on the door is not yet correctly positioned and it briefly captures a member of the production team standing next to Marker’s filing cabinet holding a clipboard. After the camera’s position has been adjusted, the door is opened slightly and, through the crack, we glimpse Richard Butler as Drummond, awaiting his cue to enter. The vision mixer briefly cuts back to Marker on the balcony, before returning to Drummond, who is now coming into the office. During all this time, however, the camera’s image is overexposed. The exposure is finally corrected 5 minutes in.
11 minutes and 17 seconds in, Roland Curram fluffs his line as Mason enters Dannon’s office, getting stuck on the word “remember”: “I remember… remember… remember when this place was a chapel. ’Fore the doodlebugs.” It fits the character, though, as Mason is supposed to be uneasy and somewhat intimidated by Dannon.
At 13 minutes and 50 seconds, the shadow of a boom mic briefly passes over the side of Philip Madoc’s face as Dannon tells Mason that, in his business, an asset (i.e. Jenny) needs looking after.
15 minutes and 4 seconds in, there is a puddle of spilled tea on the counter of the snack bar.
At 19 minutes and 10 seconds, Mason’s recorded voice omits the word “can”. When Dannon plays back the tape recording of their earlier conversation, Mason’s voice is heard to say, “So when you’re ready to talk telephone numbers – you give me another call.” However, his exact words in Act One had ended, “you can give me another call.”
19 minutes and 53 seconds in, it’s Philip Madoc’s turn to fumble a line. In the rehearsal script, Dannon explains that the reason why he has not simply taken Jenny from Mason is because such action “Causes unrest. Internal feuding.” Instead, the line comes out as “Creates an in… unrest. Internal feuding.”
At 20 minutes and 48 seconds, Sue’s crying is heard too early, almost as soon as Marker has started his search of Jenny’s wardrobe. This creates the confusing impression that the crying is a result of Marker’s snooping. Alfred Burke does not react to the sound at first, because his character needs to examine Jenny’s shoes first. Having done that, at 20 minutes and 54 seconds, he turns his head in reaction to the sound. Unfortunately, he does this just as Sue’s crying gets quieter.
25 minutes and 6 seconds in, the camera is initially out of focus for its close-up on Dover, the head waiter.
At 35 minutes and 48 seconds, Brian McDermott as Alan James says that girls like Jenny “don’t sell you their bodies, you know. Not even their souls. Only their time.” It would have been more logical to place souls before bodies. In the rehearsal script, James does just that: “These girls don’t sell you their souls. Not even their bodies. Only their time.”
46 minutes and 55 seconds in, while Philip Madoc is delivering Dannon’s final, ominous speech, we hear Alfred Burke totting up Marker’s accounts on the set of Marker’s office, having commenced his final scene a few seconds too soon.
At 47 minutes and 26 seconds, Marker says to Sue Forbes, seemingly apropos of nothing, “Well, more fool you for believing him in the first place.” Sue replies, “He said that he could get me a job as a model.” “And you believed that?” reiterates Marker, “Not a fool, are you?” It would have made more sense if Susan Burnet (as Sue) had delivered her line first. It is possible that the actress missed her cue, and Alfred Burke helped out by going ahead with his line instead. In the rehearsal script, the lines are spoken in a different order – Sue says, “You know what? He said I’d make it as a model,” to which Marker replies, “More fool you for believing him. You’re not stupid, are you?”
Towards the end of the above exchange, there is a clatter as Sue’s suitcase knocks over an object on Marker’s desk.
Multiple problems occur 4 minutes and 51 seconds into the episode. The vision mixer appears to cut from Marker’s balcony to his office door too early. The camera trained on the door is not yet correctly positioned and it briefly captures a member of the production team standing next to Marker’s filing cabinet holding a clipboard. After the camera’s position has been adjusted, the door is opened slightly and, through the crack, we glimpse Richard Butler as Drummond, awaiting his cue to enter. The vision mixer briefly cuts back to Marker on the balcony, before returning to Drummond, who is now coming into the office. During all this time, however, the camera’s image is overexposed. The exposure is finally corrected 5 minutes in.
11 minutes and 17 seconds in, Roland Curram fluffs his line as Mason enters Dannon’s office, getting stuck on the word “remember”: “I remember… remember… remember when this place was a chapel. ’Fore the doodlebugs.” It fits the character, though, as Mason is supposed to be uneasy and somewhat intimidated by Dannon.
At 13 minutes and 50 seconds, the shadow of a boom mic briefly passes over the side of Philip Madoc’s face as Dannon tells Mason that, in his business, an asset (i.e. Jenny) needs looking after.
15 minutes and 4 seconds in, there is a puddle of spilled tea on the counter of the snack bar.
At 19 minutes and 10 seconds, Mason’s recorded voice omits the word “can”. When Dannon plays back the tape recording of their earlier conversation, Mason’s voice is heard to say, “So when you’re ready to talk telephone numbers – you give me another call.” However, his exact words in Act One had ended, “you can give me another call.”
19 minutes and 53 seconds in, it’s Philip Madoc’s turn to fumble a line. In the rehearsal script, Dannon explains that the reason why he has not simply taken Jenny from Mason is because such action “Causes unrest. Internal feuding.” Instead, the line comes out as “Creates an in… unrest. Internal feuding.”
At 20 minutes and 48 seconds, Sue’s crying is heard too early, almost as soon as Marker has started his search of Jenny’s wardrobe. This creates the confusing impression that the crying is a result of Marker’s snooping. Alfred Burke does not react to the sound at first, because his character needs to examine Jenny’s shoes first. Having done that, at 20 minutes and 54 seconds, he turns his head in reaction to the sound. Unfortunately, he does this just as Sue’s crying gets quieter.
25 minutes and 6 seconds in, the camera is initially out of focus for its close-up on Dover, the head waiter.
At 35 minutes and 48 seconds, Brian McDermott as Alan James says that girls like Jenny “don’t sell you their bodies, you know. Not even their souls. Only their time.” It would have been more logical to place souls before bodies. In the rehearsal script, James does just that: “These girls don’t sell you their souls. Not even their bodies. Only their time.”
46 minutes and 55 seconds in, while Philip Madoc is delivering Dannon’s final, ominous speech, we hear Alfred Burke totting up Marker’s accounts on the set of Marker’s office, having commenced his final scene a few seconds too soon.
At 47 minutes and 26 seconds, Marker says to Sue Forbes, seemingly apropos of nothing, “Well, more fool you for believing him in the first place.” Sue replies, “He said that he could get me a job as a model.” “And you believed that?” reiterates Marker, “Not a fool, are you?” It would have made more sense if Susan Burnet (as Sue) had delivered her line first. It is possible that the actress missed her cue, and Alfred Burke helped out by going ahead with his line instead. In the rehearsal script, the lines are spoken in a different order – Sue says, “You know what? He said I’d make it as a model,” to which Marker replies, “More fool you for believing him. You’re not stupid, are you?”
Towards the end of the above exchange, there is a clatter as Sue’s suitcase knocks over an object on Marker’s desk.
Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?
The casting of Carole Ann Ford in The Morning Wasn’t So Hot earned a mention in The Stage on Thursday 11 March 1965, while in the same edition’s Television Today section, Marjorie Bilbow talked to Alfred Burke in an interview entitled If you can’t do it unconsciously, then you’re in trouble. The “actor’s actor” discussed how his relative anonymity in London would soon vanish when Public Eye began its run on ATV. He also ruminated on his television script for Where Are They Now? (written under the pen name Frank Hanna and produced by Associated-Rediffusion, this had been broadcast as a Play of the Week on Monday 30 March 1964) and commented of his career, “The only thing I regret is that I don’t spend more time on stage – but then nobody spends enough time on stage any more. There isn’t, as they say, the work about.”
The Daily Mirror was also quick to pick up on Ford’s casting, devoting almost half a page of its Saturday 13 March edition to a photograph of the actress (see below) wearing a low-cut dress in her role as Jenny Graham. “It’s surprising what a change of TV channels can do for a girl,” remarked the accompanying text, under the headline Worlds Away from the Daleks… Following her battles with the malevolent mutants in Doctor Who, “Carole has landed a very down-to-earth part in the first of a new ABC series, Public Eye,” the newspaper reported. “It’s a marvellous role for an actress,” commented Ford, adding, “I play the part of a prostitute.”
The Daily Mirror was also quick to pick up on Ford’s casting, devoting almost half a page of its Saturday 13 March edition to a photograph of the actress (see below) wearing a low-cut dress in her role as Jenny Graham. “It’s surprising what a change of TV channels can do for a girl,” remarked the accompanying text, under the headline Worlds Away from the Daleks… Following her battles with the malevolent mutants in Doctor Who, “Carole has landed a very down-to-earth part in the first of a new ABC series, Public Eye,” the newspaper reported. “It’s a marvellous role for an actress,” commented Ford, adding, “I play the part of a prostitute.”
The paper mentioned Ford again closer to transmission. On Friday 2 April, in an article primarily concerned with the imminent departure of her former Doctor Who co-stars William Russell and Jacqueline Hill from the BBC series, the Daily Mirror reiterated the fact that “The actress who played Dr. Who’s teenaged grand-daughter” would soon be appearing in Public Eye. “Her part: A call-girl.”
ABC publicity material emphasised the notion that, “For Carole Ann Ford, this role represents a complete breakaway from the schoolgirl she has played so successfully in Doctor Who. With low-cut dresses and a sophisticated hairdo, Carole Ann makes the most of this opportunity to show her versatility.” However, the press release also reminded its readers that both Ford and her co-star Susan Burnet were grown-ups with young children of their own, mentioning Ford’s marriage to theatrical agent Walter Jokel and their four-year-old daughter, Miranda. “The other innocent led astray, Susan Burnet, is in private life Mrs Andrew Ray. She finds time to carry on her acting career between looking after her two-year-old daughter, Madeleine.”
Various editions of TV Times (10–16 April 1965), including those for the London and Southern regions, included a full-page colour photograph (see above) of Alfred Burke as Marker with Carole Ann Ford as Jenny Graham from the scheduled episode The Morning Wasn’t So Hot. After travelling through the fourth dimension in Doctor Who, “it’s back to earth with a bump for 23-year-old Carole Ann Ford,” noted the caption. In fact, the actress was 24 by now, but that’s time travel for you! “It couldn’t possibly be more different,” said Ford of her new role. In the Southern edition, she added, “And it’s a wonderful change for me.” In the London edition, the photograph formed part of a double-page spread with the introductory article Private Detective in the Public Eye (see All for a Couple of Ponies). The programme listings in these regions included a picture of Marker (the listing shown further down the page is from the London edition) and the Southern edition also included a photograph of Jenny clutching a golly. “What is the name of the signature tune to Saturday night’s Public Eye and is it available commercially?” wondered L Brockley of Ibstock, Leicester, in the Your View letters column of TV World. The letters editor responded, “The music was written specially for the programme by Robert Earley, but has not been commercially recorded.” Following the press screening of The Morning Wasn’t So Hot, Television Today made the London launch of Public Eye a front-page story on Thursday 8 April (see left). While acknowledging that the episode seen by new viewers in the ATV London, Border, Channel and Westward regions in two days’ time would be All for a Couple of Ponies and not The Morning Wasn’t So Hot as originally announced, the publication noted that the latter episode “remains in the schedules for the midlands, north, Southern and Ulster.” Listing the writers who had contributed to the series, the article appeared to indicate that William Emms’s episode, But the Joneses Never Get Letters, would be the second one to be transmitted by the four new regions, on Saturday 17 April, but ultimately this plan was also dropped. |
“The dangers which can befall girls who leave home and go to London in search of the bright lights are the subject of The Morning Wasn’t So Hot, ABC’s Public Eye story tonight,” announced the Leicester Mercury on Saturday 10 April. The text appeared under a photograph (see below) of Carole Ann Ford as “the girl from Yorkshire who falls into bad hands”.
That evening, the Manchester Evening News used the same image (see above), though the accompanying feature, Carole’s big chance to be bad, went into more detail. “Actress Carole Ann Ford switches tonight from schoolgirl to good-time girl in ITV’s controversial play The Morning Wasn’t So Hot,” explained the article, which formed part of Max North’s Telereview column. “The play, the latest in the Public Eye detective series, which has been running in the North since January, was originally scheduled to be shown simultaneously in the south to mark the start of the series there. But then ABC-TV decided that this story of provincial girls who get caught up in London’s call-girl racket was not the sort of thing with which to launch the series in [the] London, Westward, Channel and Border TV areas.” A somewhat defensive spokesman from ABC was quoted as saying, “It might have given the impression that the series was all going to be about this sort of subject.” The journalist then turned his attention to the guest actress, mentioning her home life (as described in the ABC press release) and noting that, “despite her youthful appearance,” she had been working in films and TV for several years. “I am delighted about playing this role,” said Ford. “One gets tired of always playing a teenager. I’ve had a good run in Doctor Who, but I’ll be glad to do a different type of part now.”
Ireland’s Saturday Night, part of the Belfast Telegraph group, was a weekly Northern Ireland sports newspaper, which also included a few pages of entertainment news. The 17 April edition carried a somewhat belated interview (see right) with Susan Burnet, whose appearance as Sue Forbes had been broadcast by Ulster Television two weeks earlier. The actress talked to Fred Billany about the problems of combining an acting career with motherhood, explaining that when she was working, she hardly got to see her two-year-old daughter, Madeleine. Burnet also described her relationship with her father-in-law, comedian Ted Ray, “who adores Madeleine and spoils her a bit,” and her actor husband, Andrew Ray. The clumsily edited interview asserted that Burnet’s favourite writers included John (i.e. Jerome David) Salinger, author of Gather in the Rye (The Catcher in the Rye), and Virginia Wolf (sic), and confusingly referred to Public Eye as “ABC TV’s new production”, despite the fact that Ulster had been airing the series since January. Billany also spoke to Alfred Burke, who said of Frank Marker, “He is a man who doesn’t want to have any part in the rat race of metropolitan life. Fundamentally, he is an honest man who has a great deal of sympathy with the underdog.” One week later, The Morning Wasn’t So Hot was still being discussed within the pages of Ireland’s Saturday Night. On 24 April, Canadian critic Milton Shulman compared Public Eye and the BBC’s Sherlock Holmes unfavourably with the American detective series Burke’s Law, which starred Gene Barry as Amos Burke, the millionaire captain of the Los Angeles Police homicide division, who is chauffeured to crime scenes in a 1962 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II, complete with car phone. The review, entitled Some of the Things Burke (of Burke’s Law) Can Teach Sherlock Holmes, again referred to Public Eye as a new series, but to Shulman it would have been, since he was based in London, where he regularly contributed to that city’s Evening Standard. Referring to a Season 2 episode of Burke’s Law, Who Killed Rosie Sunset? (transmitted by Rediffusion London on Friday 9 April 1965, but not shown by Ulster until Wednesday 26 May), and The Beryl Coronet instalment of Sherlock Holmes (broadcast on BBC1 on Saturday 10 April), the critic found the former to be “racy, pacy and alive”, while the latter “was slow, bumbling and dead.” However, he declared, “by comparison with ABC’s new series, Public Eye, both Holmes and Burke are masterpieces of TV technique. Its private eye, Frank Marker, is supposed to typify the new anti-hero figure. He has sleazy offices, shady clients, an old sports jacket, stains on his tie, is plagued by income tax demands and, when he gets into a fight, he loses. All this information came out of the TV Times. None of it was visible in Saturday’s first episode, The Morning Wasn’t So Hot.” In terms of both production technique and subject matter, it reminded Shulman of the 1948 gangster film No Orchids for Miss Blandish, which had received harsh criticism for its depictions of violence and sexuality, and which Shulman regarded as “one of the most tasteless British films ever made.” When Marker finally located Jenny, “through no detection device that was visible to the naked eye,” Shulman was dismayed to find that the girl wished to remain a prostitute. “‘Mr Marker, last week I earned £300. Did you?’ is her decisive answer to his revelation that she has been sold to other brothel keepers. There’s a moral to keep our girls pure and unsullied.” The critic also quoted lines spoken by the seedy salesman Alan James: “Roger Marshall’s dialogue would best appeal to the paperback literati of Shaftesbury Avenue with sentences like ‘The nearest he gets to power is in your bed’ and ‘He’s in town getting the lay of the land.’” Meanwhile, “Alfred Burke, as Marker, had little to do except look hang-dog and disgruntled while this flow of ‘ugh’ poured over the screen.” It is unclear how Shulman got to see the episode, because in the London area The Morning Wasn’t So Hot was postponed until June. Perhaps he had attended the early April press screening, though his review gives the impression that he watched it at home, as he reports turning over to BBC1 during a commercial break to hear Conservative minister Quintin Hogg and journalist and satirist Malcolm Muggeridge “engaging in a fascinating and adult discussion about sexual morality” on Not So Much a Programme More a Way of Life. “It is perhaps typical of our sense of values that Not So Much should be condemned as offensive while puerility like Public Eye will probably survive,” he concluded. “Which, in the end, is more corrupting?” On Saturday 19 June, the day The Morning Wasn’t So Hot was finally broadcast by ATV London, Border, Channel and Westward, the Daily Mirror ran a cute photograph (see below) of Carole Ann Ford cuddling Tama, a 13-week-old African lion cub, during a trip to London Zoo with her daughter Miranda. Curiously, the story made no mention of Ford’s appearance in Public Eye that evening. |
When The Morning Wasn’t So Hot kicked off Scottish Television’s run of Public Eye on Sunday 4 July, Glasgow newspaper The Sunday Post heralded the “New series that claims to present a true-to-life picture of Britain’s private investigators” as one of This Week’s Top Shows, awarding it a four-star rating. The following week, in the TV Comment section of the same paper, the initial response was promising. At last,” cheered reviewer Alan Stewart, “a private ’tec without any glamour. No gorgeous gals around him, no headlines, no sensation. Just a plodding investigator who knows the ropes and does his darndest for six quid a day. I like the look of this one.”
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The Sunday Times’s Maurice Wiggin, who had been so scathing in his assessment of All for a Couple of Ponies when Public Eye debuted in London in April, was more appreciative of the episode that had originally been intended to launch the series there. Though he considered the role of private eye to be “an overcrowded profession” in television’s fantasy world, “Marker of Public Eye, as played by Alfred Burke, is one of the two most sympathetic of these operators who work and live on or beyond the fringe of permissible magic.” The journalist admitted, in his review on 27 June, that “I greeted Public Eye with well-controlled enthusiasm, not to say dubiety; and indeed it remains sadly true that the anecdotes vary wildly between upper and lower extremes of narrative competence. Yet Mr Burke’s almost shabby Marker quietly grows on me, probably because he is so refreshing a change from all the Saints and Supermen. The strength of his appeal lies in his believable smallness, his unassuming ‘normality’. Here is a small-time operator who feeds the pigeons and, when thrown into the river as a warning, sensibly quits the case. Yet Marker is not without a sort of courage, a disillusioned but dogged integrity in the face of life’s relentless grinding-down.”
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Conversely, viewer S. Smith of Alloa was less than impressed. “In the first episode, someone dropped the hero in the river,” noted Smith, in a letter that appeared in the 11 July edition of another Glaswegian Sunday paper, the Sunday Mail. “If they mean to keep up this rubbish, I suggest they drop the rest of the series in the river along with him.”
Nobody Wants to Know
In Marker’s office during Act One, Drummond spots a volume of Halsbury’s Laws of England, a comprehensive legal encyclopaedia that provides the only complete statement of the law in England and Wales. The first edition was published in 31 volumes between 1907 and 1917, with Hardinge Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury (1823–1921) serving as its editor-in-chief. Updated editions have subsequently been initiated every few decades. The role of editor-in-chief of Halsbury’s Laws of England (often referred to simply as Halsbury’s Laws or just Halsbury’s) is traditionally held by a former Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, with the current incumbent, since 1997, being James Mackay, Baron Mackay of Clashfern (born 1927).
When Mason meets Dannon, the pimp cracks a joke about the agent being licensed to kill. This is a reference to Ian Fleming’s secret agent hero James Bond, who, by 1965, had appeared in numerous books and three increasingly action-packed cinema films. A far cry from Frank Marker’s low-key adventures, the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball, would follow in December that year.
“London’s not the only place with decent restaurants, you know,” states Gordon Reynolds in Act Two. “I tell you, London’s finished – washed up,” he adds later, followed by, “You don’t have to be in London to live any more. Give me Bridgnorth any day!” Evidently Reynolds’s home turf, Bridgnorth is a town and civil parish in Shropshire. It almost feels as though the series is beginning to look beyond the confines of the capital city for its storylines, as if seeking opportunities elsewhere. Though the decision to relocate Marker to Birmingham had not yet been taken, the final few episodes of Series 1 would indeed take the inquiry agent farther afield than his usual stomping ground of inner-city London – to a stately home in Shropshire in You Should Hear Me Eat Soup and to the seaside resort of Bournemouth in Have It on the House.
In Act Three, Marker refers to sex workers as brasses. The term brass is cockney rhyming slang, with “brass flute” rhyming with prostitute.
At the shoeshine stand, Moses claims to know the entire line-up of brasses working in the area, “Like it was the Arsenal forward line. Big Stella on the right wing, Connie the Irish bit behind the left back…” It may be a complete coincidence, but a retired escort named Connie Maguire, played by Dublin actress Eileen Murphy, appeared in ‘And a Very Fine Fiddle Has He’.
When Mason meets Dannon, the pimp cracks a joke about the agent being licensed to kill. This is a reference to Ian Fleming’s secret agent hero James Bond, who, by 1965, had appeared in numerous books and three increasingly action-packed cinema films. A far cry from Frank Marker’s low-key adventures, the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball, would follow in December that year.
“London’s not the only place with decent restaurants, you know,” states Gordon Reynolds in Act Two. “I tell you, London’s finished – washed up,” he adds later, followed by, “You don’t have to be in London to live any more. Give me Bridgnorth any day!” Evidently Reynolds’s home turf, Bridgnorth is a town and civil parish in Shropshire. It almost feels as though the series is beginning to look beyond the confines of the capital city for its storylines, as if seeking opportunities elsewhere. Though the decision to relocate Marker to Birmingham had not yet been taken, the final few episodes of Series 1 would indeed take the inquiry agent farther afield than his usual stomping ground of inner-city London – to a stately home in Shropshire in You Should Hear Me Eat Soup and to the seaside resort of Bournemouth in Have It on the House.
In Act Three, Marker refers to sex workers as brasses. The term brass is cockney rhyming slang, with “brass flute” rhyming with prostitute.
At the shoeshine stand, Moses claims to know the entire line-up of brasses working in the area, “Like it was the Arsenal forward line. Big Stella on the right wing, Connie the Irish bit behind the left back…” It may be a complete coincidence, but a retired escort named Connie Maguire, played by Dublin actress Eileen Murphy, appeared in ‘And a Very Fine Fiddle Has He’.
With thanks to Jonny Davies, Dominic Jackson, Owain Meredith, Mini Pci, Chris Perry, Andrew Pixley, Barbara Toft, the BFI Special Collections, the British Newspaper Archive, Network Distributing and Vortis Press.
The Missing Markers is a not-for-profit fan website written and edited by and copyright © Richard McGinlay. All rights reserved.
Public Eye (the ABC years) is copyright © StudioCanal. No attempt to infringe this copyright is intended.
The Missing Markers is a not-for-profit fan website written and edited by and copyright © Richard McGinlay. All rights reserved.
Public Eye (the ABC years) is copyright © StudioCanal. No attempt to infringe this copyright is intended.