Series 3 – Episode 13
|
Frank Marker
Briers Tad Wheldon Fay Chief Inspector Robertson Leonard Pratt Alan Jordan Solicitor Bank Manager Robert J. Muirie |
Alfred Burke
Trevor Bannister Tony Steedman Geraldine Sherman John Bailey Arthur Cox Simon Brent Michael David Geoffrey Lewis Wallace Campbell |
Joey Carew Gerry Carew Mrs Dayton |
Dan Jackson Rudi Patterson Fay Sparks |
Uncredited cast:
Plain-clothes policemen (one called Mac) – doubling as customers at Hawaiian bar PC Messiter – doubling as customer at Hawaiian bar Waitress at Hawaiian bar Customers at Hawaiian bar – one doubling as secretary in insurance office, one doubling as customer at driving school Customers at Hawaiian bar – one doubling in insurance office Customer at Hawaiian bar – doubling as policeman Bar girl at Hawaiian bar Receptionist at Hawaiian bar Passers-by |
Alan Vickers, Kenneth Fraser Jay Alexander Louise Collard Pat Simons, Karla Stephens, June Gray, Sharon Young Raymond St Claire, Paul Blomley Derek Chaser Elizabeth Ng Anna Sirr Yvonne Warner, Patricia Walters, Cyril Walters, Alice Douglas, Les Airdoe |
All extras were required to double as silhouettes in street clothes outside the driving school if necessary
Production
Series based on an idea by Roger Marshall and Anthony Marriott
Theme Music composed by Robert Earley Story Consultant: Richard Bates Floor Manager: Patrick Kennedy Stage Manager: Daphne Lucas Production Assistant: Jacqueline Davis Production Assistant Timer: Mary Ellis Wardrobe Supervisor: Jan Rowell Make-Up Supervisor: Jean Mackenzie Call Boy: Peter Groom |
Technical Supervisor: Peter Cazaly
Cameras: Dickie Jackman Sound: Mike Pontin Lighting: Peter Kew Vision Mixer: Nigel Evans Racks: Alan Fowler Grams: Vic Finch Associate Producer: Robert Love Designed by Michael Knight Producer: Michael Chapman Directed by Peter Duguid |
Rehearsed from Tuesday 3 October 1967 at Steadfast Hall, Riverside, Kingston upon Thames
Camera rehearsed from 10.30am on Wednesday 18 October 1967 at Studio 1, ABC Television Studios, Broom Road, Teddington, Middlesex
Recorded from 5.05pm to 7.15pm on Thursday 19 October 1967 at Studio 1, Teddington
Camera rehearsed from 10.30am on Wednesday 18 October 1967 at Studio 1, ABC Television Studios, Broom Road, Teddington, Middlesex
Recorded from 5.05pm to 7.15pm on Thursday 19 October 1967 at Studio 1, Teddington
TV World Synopsis
An interesting proposition … for several parties, not least Marker. But who foots the bill?
Click here for detailed synopsis
Click here for detailed synopsis
Transmission
Friday 12 April 1968, 9pm (Tyne Tees)
Saturday 13 April 1968, 9.10pm (ABC Midlands and ABC North) Saturday 13 April 1968, 10.15pm (ATV London) Tuesday 16 April 1968, 11.25pm (Scottish) |
Friday 19 April 1968, 11.5pm (Grampian)
Tuesday 25 June 1968, 10.30pm (Ulster) Thursday 27 June 1968, 9pm (Border) Tuesday 2 July 1968, 10.30pm (Southern) |
Archive
Camera script – held in the BFI Special Collections
Story Notes
The insurance company’s name is spelled “Smallbroom” in Act One, but “Smallbrook” in Act Three. The latter spelling seems more likely, referring to an area of Birmingham.
In the opening scene, Pratt refers to Robertson as “Chief Detective Inspector”, which is not a valid police rank – the word “Detective” should come first. It is possible that this word was subsequently dropped from Robertson’s title – when he arrives at Marker’s office in Act Three, the policeman refers to himself as “Chief Inspector Robertson”, and there is a conspicuous gap after “Chief”, where a word could have been erased. In the camera script’s end credits and in contemporary TV listings, the character is billed simply as “Insp. Robertson”.
The location of Marker’s attic office in Handsworth is confirmed when he checks the telephone number of Prosser, Deighton and Muirie in Act One. Marker’s own number is still Northern 3899, as stated when he picks up the phone to receive instructions in the middle of Act Two. Earlier in Act Two, he dials down to Mr Soutar, his estate agent landlord seen in three previous episodes, and also speaks to Soutar’s secretary, Tessa, seen in Don’t Forget You’re Mine (though she is not named here). By now, Marker has been operating in Birmingham for a “Couple of years”, as he informs Robertson in Act Three.
Joey Carew is billed as “Joe Carew” in TV listings. The surnames of the Carew brothers are given only in the credits, not within the script itself.
In the opening scene, Pratt refers to Robertson as “Chief Detective Inspector”, which is not a valid police rank – the word “Detective” should come first. It is possible that this word was subsequently dropped from Robertson’s title – when he arrives at Marker’s office in Act Three, the policeman refers to himself as “Chief Inspector Robertson”, and there is a conspicuous gap after “Chief”, where a word could have been erased. In the camera script’s end credits and in contemporary TV listings, the character is billed simply as “Insp. Robertson”.
The location of Marker’s attic office in Handsworth is confirmed when he checks the telephone number of Prosser, Deighton and Muirie in Act One. Marker’s own number is still Northern 3899, as stated when he picks up the phone to receive instructions in the middle of Act Two. Earlier in Act Two, he dials down to Mr Soutar, his estate agent landlord seen in three previous episodes, and also speaks to Soutar’s secretary, Tessa, seen in Don’t Forget You’re Mine (though she is not named here). By now, Marker has been operating in Birmingham for a “Couple of years”, as he informs Robertson in Act Three.
Joey Carew is billed as “Joe Carew” in TV listings. The surnames of the Carew brothers are given only in the credits, not within the script itself.
At the police station in Act Three, Marker tells Robertson, “Haven’t smoked since I was in the Merchant Navy,” which may appear to indicate that he is declining the offer of a cigarette at this point. However, other evidence suggests that Marker does actually smoke in this scene. For one thing, it seems unlikely that the clean-living Robertson, who eschews toxins such as caffeine and tannin, would encourage smoking. More compellingly, a surviving still photograph shows Marker in a dingy basement room (which could be the police station’s interview room), holding a cigarette in his hand.
This script, together with four others from Series 4 (Welcome to Brighton?, Divide and Conquer, Paid in Full and The Comedian’s Graveyard), was novelised as Public Eye: Cross That Palm When I Come to It, published by Sphere Books in September 1974. With a front cover photograph of Marker from the Series 6 episode A Family Affair (see left), the book is written with great (if occasionally overly explicit) style by Audley Southcott (1926–2005), a former soldier, advertiser and production designer, and writer and producer of the First World War drama Tom Grattan’s War and the children’s series Follyfoot (both made by Yorkshire Television). The 189-page novelisation is dedicated “To Glenda Mortimer”, a reference to Mrs Mortimer, a recurring character played by Pauline Delany from Series 4 onwards. On the next page is a disclaimer, which is similarly written as though Marker and the people he encounters are real: “MR MARKER WISHES IT TO BE KNOWN THAT AS HE IS NEXT DOOR TO BEING SKINT, IT’S NO GOOD SUING HIM FOR LIBEL. Also, because he doesn’t want to spend any more time in prison, all the names are changed. And the times. And the addresses. And the phone numbers. Except for Mrs Mortimer, who said she’d be proud. This book is therefore dedicated to her.” In fact, even Mrs Mortimer’s name was partially altered, as her first name in the TV series is Helen. The text gives Marker’s age as 43, states that he likes his job and compares it to solving human crossword puzzles. The events in Birmingham take place during March, with Marker being released from prison after serving a year of his two-and-a-half-year sentence in early May. It is possible that the author had meant to type March rather than May, because the remainder of the novelisation then takes place around Easter at the start of Marker’s seven months’ parole. The book ends with Marker on his way to Windsor, but under very different circumstances to those presented in Series 5’s A Mug Named Frank. The latter change may have been for reasons of copyright or simply script availability, since A Mug Named Frank was written by Michael Chapman, whereas the scripts that form the basis of Cross That Palm When I Come to It are all by Roger Marshall. The back cover (see left) identifies the novelisation as “PUBLIC EYE No. 1”, which suggests that further adaptations based on Windsor and Eton episodes were planned, but none were ever published. For a detailed analysis of the differences between the Birmingham segment and the scripted/broadcast version of Cross That Palm When We Come to It, see the special, one-off section entitled Brought to Book, below. |
Production Notes
The camera script indicates that this episode was No.8, its position in recording order, and it had a target running time of 46 minutes and 25 seconds, not including commercial breaks. The first day of camera rehearsals (Wednesday 18 October 1967) ended at 9.15pm, with work resuming the next day (Thursday 19 October) at 10.00am. Extras (see Uncredited cast, above) were required only on the second day.
The production made use of five pedestal cameras, one periscope camera (which was used for a low-angle two-shot of Robertson and Marker as the former finds some of the stolen jewellery in the latter’s bin in Act Three), three boom mics and one fishpole mic (which was used for the scene in the gents toilet cubicle in Act Two). There was running gas and water on the set of Marker’s office, and running water on the police station set.
Background sound effects helped to create a specific ambience for each setting, such as an office atmosphere for the insurance office, a bank atmosphere for the bank manager’s office, and a railway platform atmosphere for the gentlemen’s toilet at New Street station. The sounds of “Exotic birds, sea lapping shore etc. etc.” were used for the scene in the Hawaiian bar, while light traffic and footsteps from the streets outside were heard during the driving school scenes. Traffic noises were also heard in Marker’s office – these were lighter during Marker’s first scene, perhaps signifying early morning, and during the night-time scenes towards the end of the episode. As in previous episodes, building site sounds were also heard, presumably representing Kane’s Timber Yard downstairs, which fell silent during the night-time scenes. The police station scene called for a “Police Station atmos”, the nature of which is not specified in this script, but which in previous episodes (Have Mud, Will Throw and Mercury in an Off-White Mac) had included slow typing and light traffic.
Two recording breaks were planned, both of them in Act Three. The first took place between the final scene in Marker’s office and the police station scene, and the second between the police station scene and the insurance office scene.
Viewers in the Tyne Tees area were the first to see Marker go to jail when Cross That Palm When We Come to It debuted on Good Friday (12 April) 1968 and brought the third series to a close. The following week, the slot was filled by the partially networked Granada crime drama Spindoe. In the Midlands, Marker’s fate aired opposite another Frank: the imported television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music on BBC1 on Saturday 13 April. The following week, ABC replaced Marker with repeats of John Steed and Emma Peel in The Avengers, while ATV opted for its own filmed Canadian crime series, Seaway. Cross That Palm When We Come to It completed STV’s run late at night on Tuesday 16 April, after which the slot was given to Gideon’s Way. When the third series of Public Eye concluded on Grampian on Friday 19 April, it was succeeded by Spindoe. Ulster’s run came to an end on Tuesday 25 June, after which the slot was occupied by A Man of Our Times, while Love Story took over from Public Eye in both the Border and Southern regions after the series concluded on Thursday 27 June and Tuesday 2 July respectively.
The production made use of five pedestal cameras, one periscope camera (which was used for a low-angle two-shot of Robertson and Marker as the former finds some of the stolen jewellery in the latter’s bin in Act Three), three boom mics and one fishpole mic (which was used for the scene in the gents toilet cubicle in Act Two). There was running gas and water on the set of Marker’s office, and running water on the police station set.
Background sound effects helped to create a specific ambience for each setting, such as an office atmosphere for the insurance office, a bank atmosphere for the bank manager’s office, and a railway platform atmosphere for the gentlemen’s toilet at New Street station. The sounds of “Exotic birds, sea lapping shore etc. etc.” were used for the scene in the Hawaiian bar, while light traffic and footsteps from the streets outside were heard during the driving school scenes. Traffic noises were also heard in Marker’s office – these were lighter during Marker’s first scene, perhaps signifying early morning, and during the night-time scenes towards the end of the episode. As in previous episodes, building site sounds were also heard, presumably representing Kane’s Timber Yard downstairs, which fell silent during the night-time scenes. The police station scene called for a “Police Station atmos”, the nature of which is not specified in this script, but which in previous episodes (Have Mud, Will Throw and Mercury in an Off-White Mac) had included slow typing and light traffic.
Two recording breaks were planned, both of them in Act Three. The first took place between the final scene in Marker’s office and the police station scene, and the second between the police station scene and the insurance office scene.
Viewers in the Tyne Tees area were the first to see Marker go to jail when Cross That Palm When We Come to It debuted on Good Friday (12 April) 1968 and brought the third series to a close. The following week, the slot was filled by the partially networked Granada crime drama Spindoe. In the Midlands, Marker’s fate aired opposite another Frank: the imported television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music on BBC1 on Saturday 13 April. The following week, ABC replaced Marker with repeats of John Steed and Emma Peel in The Avengers, while ATV opted for its own filmed Canadian crime series, Seaway. Cross That Palm When We Come to It completed STV’s run late at night on Tuesday 16 April, after which the slot was given to Gideon’s Way. When the third series of Public Eye concluded on Grampian on Friday 19 April, it was succeeded by Spindoe. Ulster’s run came to an end on Tuesday 25 June, after which the slot was occupied by A Man of Our Times, while Love Story took over from Public Eye in both the Border and Southern regions after the series concluded on Thursday 27 June and Tuesday 2 July respectively.
Home and Away
Cross That Palm When We Come to It included five specially filmed location sequences, which were shot around Birmingham on Thursday 5 and Friday 6 October using 35mm film and 16mm sound. These included the sequence of Briers and Marker meeting in the cemetery in Act One (3 minutes and 26 seconds) and Marker following instructions to travel by bus to a market in Stratford-upon-Avon and then on to a cinema, all the while being tailed by Wheldon and Briers in a car in Act Two (3 minutes and 2 seconds). The script has Marker boarding the bus at a bus station. This probably refers to Digbeth Coach Station, now known as Birmingham Coach Station (see Don’t Forget You’re Mine). The script does not specify whether Stratford Indoor Market or Stratford Outdoor Market was used, but the latter seems the more likely option.
Marker’s meeting with Fay in New Street railway station was shot on the second day. The complete sequence, beginning with Marker boarding a taxi to the station and ending with him entering the public toilet, ran for 1 minute and 47 seconds. Following a brief studio scene inside a lavatory cubicle, a shorter filmed sequence (28 seconds) saw Marker leaving the station and refusing a taxi, preferring to walk to a bus stop instead.
The final location sequence (of unknown duration) was for the very end of the episode, showing Marker being delivered to Winson Green Prison (now known as HM Prison Birmingham) in a police van. Instead of the usual closing film of Marker walking the streets of Birmingham at night, the first of the end credit captions, for Alfred Burke as Frank Marker, was superimposed over a wide shot of the prison facade after the gate has closed behind him. Intriguingly, though there was sound on the film, additional “Prison FX” were cued in at this point – possibly these were similar to the ambient sounds heard during the opening titles of Welcome to Brighton? Following Burke’s credit, the location film was briefly interrupted by a couple of photo captions (1 second and 4 seconds respectively) showing mugshots of Marker. A similar device, possibly using the same mugshots, can be seen in the opening titles of Welcome to Brighton? After these, filmed footage resumed for the rest of the end credits. The camera script gives no indication as to what this footage comprised, but an article published in the Sunday Mirror (see Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?, below) suggests that viewers saw Marker walking through the inside of the jail and up some iron stairs to his cell. It is not known how much (if any) of Robert Earley’s theme music played over the end credits of this episode.
Marker’s meeting with Fay in New Street railway station was shot on the second day. The complete sequence, beginning with Marker boarding a taxi to the station and ending with him entering the public toilet, ran for 1 minute and 47 seconds. Following a brief studio scene inside a lavatory cubicle, a shorter filmed sequence (28 seconds) saw Marker leaving the station and refusing a taxi, preferring to walk to a bus stop instead.
The final location sequence (of unknown duration) was for the very end of the episode, showing Marker being delivered to Winson Green Prison (now known as HM Prison Birmingham) in a police van. Instead of the usual closing film of Marker walking the streets of Birmingham at night, the first of the end credit captions, for Alfred Burke as Frank Marker, was superimposed over a wide shot of the prison facade after the gate has closed behind him. Intriguingly, though there was sound on the film, additional “Prison FX” were cued in at this point – possibly these were similar to the ambient sounds heard during the opening titles of Welcome to Brighton? Following Burke’s credit, the location film was briefly interrupted by a couple of photo captions (1 second and 4 seconds respectively) showing mugshots of Marker. A similar device, possibly using the same mugshots, can be seen in the opening titles of Welcome to Brighton? After these, filmed footage resumed for the rest of the end credits. The camera script gives no indication as to what this footage comprised, but an article published in the Sunday Mirror (see Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?, below) suggests that viewers saw Marker walking through the inside of the jail and up some iron stairs to his cell. It is not known how much (if any) of Robert Earley’s theme music played over the end credits of this episode.
Brought to Book
There are many differences between the camera script for Cross That Palm When We Come to It and the opening Birmingham section of Audley Southcott’s 1974 novelisation, Cross That Palm When I Come to It. These may be the result of (a) the author having access to an earlier draft of the script; (b) the author using artistic licence to alter or invent certain details while adapting the script into prose; or (c) a combination of the two. On balance, it seems most likely that Southcott was referring to the camera script and used his own imagination to fill in certain details that are not readily apparent in the script – though there are a few tantalising instances where additional dialogue might have been sourced from an earlier version of the script, or even a copy of the episode itself. Visual descriptions have been added to this site’s detailed synopsis from the novelisation (in particular, the New Street station sequence in Act Two), but only when they do not contradict the camera script or other evidence, as noted below.
The insurance company scenes are completely absent from the novelisation. Instead, the book begins by introducing Marker (on pages 9–11). The insurance company is mentioned (on pages 49 and 52), but by a different name, Midlands Relion.
The opening chapter of the novelisation contains a discussion between Marker and the fake solicitor (on pages 11–12) that leads directly into dialogue from the second scene of the camera script. Marker returns to his office from a trip to the corner shop to find “an old geezer” sitting at his desk, pecking away at his typewriter with two fingers. “Hullo,” says Marker, “You must be the new secretary. Not as pretty as the old one.” “You should lock the door,” the solicitor tells him. “Usually do,” replies Marker. These two lines appear in the camera script, but much later in the scene. “Anyway,” continues Marker, “nothing here worth pinching.” “You’d be surprised,” says the solicitor. “I doubt it,” replies Marker. The solicitor pulls the paper from the typewriter and stands up, “offering Marker his own chair with old-world charm.” Marker then proceeds to make and drink a mug of tea, which appears not to have happened in the broadcast episode – the design of the set for Marker’s Birmingham office means that he would have had to move to a separate kitchen area to do so, whereas the floor plan in the novelisation seems to match that of Marker’s Eton office in Series 5 to 7, including a “Second-hand gas-ring with (illegal) rubber connexion” in the main office area (page 10). Similarly, Marker has a mug with his first name on it (page 11), which is a feature of the 1970s episodes, introduced in A Mug Named Frank. “I know,” says Marker, sarcastically, “You’re my rich uncle from Australia.” This line may have been inspired by the character of Arthur Wickham, who returns from New Zealand, apparently with a fortune, in Memories of Meg. “I’m your fairy godmother,” replies the solicitor. “I don’t believe in fairies,” says Marker, “Or Father Christmas.” The solicitor takes a newspaper cutting from his briefcase. “There’s been a jewel robbery,” he informs Marker. “I believe you,” Marker replies. This additional dialogue may be Southcott's invention, or it could represent material that was present in an earlier iteration of the script but was cut for timing reasons. The rest of the chapter matches the camera script fairly closely, often word for word, but with the solicitor rather than Marker reading from the newspaper cutting. Despite the disclaimer’s assertion that all the phone numbers have been changed, the telephone number of Prosser, Deighton and Muirie (here spelled Murie) remains the same: Great Barr 0026 (page 14).
Southcott describes the solicitor (on page 12) as “A desiccated old crow in a black jacket and pinstripe trousers, whitish shirt and blackish tie. Shabby-genteel. Shabby, anyway. A ginger-grey lock of hair straggled across his otherwise bald head, like a cat that had died some time ago.” It is unlikely that the solicitor in the television episode was so old and bald. Michael David, who played the character on screen, was 37 at the time of recording, and had a full head of slightly greying hair. In fact, the description sounds more like Tony Steedman, the balding actor who played Tad Wheldon in this episode. Many of Southcott’s descriptions of characters are at odds with the likenesses of the actors who played them, which may be artistic licence or may indicate that the novelist lacked photographic reference.
In the novelisation (page 16), there is a small amount of additional dialogue after the solicitor has told Marker about cashing the banker’s draft. “Who are these people?” asks Marker, referring to the jewel thieves. “I don’t know anything about them,” the solicitor insists, “Don’t want to know.” Southcott may have adapted this from a line in Act Three, when the real Muirie says, in reference to the insurance company, “Wouldn’t want to know them.” “That’s your side of it,” continues the solicitor in the book, “Strictly your side.” He flutters his hands “in a flurry of legal-minded propriety. He was almost convincing.” The discussion then continues with Marker’s scripted line, “How do I know what’s missing?”
In the novelisation, Tad Wheldon’s driving school becomes a second-hand car dealership. Wheldon (who is given a different first name, Harry) is a much younger man than the one depicted on screen by Tony Steedman. The actor was 40 years of age but already grey and balding at the time of recording, whereas Harry is 26, with “expensively cut, fashionably longish hair” (page 17). The dialogue in these scenes differs substantially from the camera script. Wheldon’s line “See you on Thursday” is placed in an entirely different context: “How many times I got to tell you,” says Harry on page 19, berating Briers for using the telephone to discuss their criminal activity, “The blower’s for saying yes and no and see you on Thursday. Right? One crossed line and we’re all for the high jump.” In the book, Briers is given the first name Charlie, whereas his first name is never mentioned in the camera script – even Fay calls him Briers. Fay is renamed Kay and her affair with Harry is made much more explicit than in the television version. In the script she is Briers’s girlfriend, but in the book she is his wife. Southcott invents the pretext that Harry has been giving Kay driving lessons, which obviously wouldn’t have worked in the broadcast episode because Briers is a driving instructor, though Southcott may have been inspired by the driving school setting: “now it was turning into bleedin’ night school and all,” reflects Briers on page 20 of the book.
It is raining in the novelised version of the cemetery scene (pages 21–24), but there is no evidence of this in the camera script. Briers discards a pair of shears at the end of the scripted sequence, so it appears that he is trimming a hedge in order to justify his presence in the cemetery. In the novelisation, Briers carries a bunch of flowers and stands at the grave of “Ebenezer Dolittle, late of this parish” (page 22), pretending to be a mourner. In the book, Briers gives Marker a white plastic carrier bag with the children’s comic-strip character Rupert Bear on it (page 23). However, in Act Two of the script, the solicitor refers to it as a paper bag.
Descriptions of the Hawaiian bar at the end of Act One of this site’s story summary are informed by a surviving still (see top of page) and pages 24–25 of the novelisation. The book also mentions the presence of parakeets and birds of paradise in bamboo cages, but these may have only been heard, not seen – the camera script includes the sound of exotic birds as a background effect.
The insurance company scenes are completely absent from the novelisation. Instead, the book begins by introducing Marker (on pages 9–11). The insurance company is mentioned (on pages 49 and 52), but by a different name, Midlands Relion.
The opening chapter of the novelisation contains a discussion between Marker and the fake solicitor (on pages 11–12) that leads directly into dialogue from the second scene of the camera script. Marker returns to his office from a trip to the corner shop to find “an old geezer” sitting at his desk, pecking away at his typewriter with two fingers. “Hullo,” says Marker, “You must be the new secretary. Not as pretty as the old one.” “You should lock the door,” the solicitor tells him. “Usually do,” replies Marker. These two lines appear in the camera script, but much later in the scene. “Anyway,” continues Marker, “nothing here worth pinching.” “You’d be surprised,” says the solicitor. “I doubt it,” replies Marker. The solicitor pulls the paper from the typewriter and stands up, “offering Marker his own chair with old-world charm.” Marker then proceeds to make and drink a mug of tea, which appears not to have happened in the broadcast episode – the design of the set for Marker’s Birmingham office means that he would have had to move to a separate kitchen area to do so, whereas the floor plan in the novelisation seems to match that of Marker’s Eton office in Series 5 to 7, including a “Second-hand gas-ring with (illegal) rubber connexion” in the main office area (page 10). Similarly, Marker has a mug with his first name on it (page 11), which is a feature of the 1970s episodes, introduced in A Mug Named Frank. “I know,” says Marker, sarcastically, “You’re my rich uncle from Australia.” This line may have been inspired by the character of Arthur Wickham, who returns from New Zealand, apparently with a fortune, in Memories of Meg. “I’m your fairy godmother,” replies the solicitor. “I don’t believe in fairies,” says Marker, “Or Father Christmas.” The solicitor takes a newspaper cutting from his briefcase. “There’s been a jewel robbery,” he informs Marker. “I believe you,” Marker replies. This additional dialogue may be Southcott's invention, or it could represent material that was present in an earlier iteration of the script but was cut for timing reasons. The rest of the chapter matches the camera script fairly closely, often word for word, but with the solicitor rather than Marker reading from the newspaper cutting. Despite the disclaimer’s assertion that all the phone numbers have been changed, the telephone number of Prosser, Deighton and Muirie (here spelled Murie) remains the same: Great Barr 0026 (page 14).
Southcott describes the solicitor (on page 12) as “A desiccated old crow in a black jacket and pinstripe trousers, whitish shirt and blackish tie. Shabby-genteel. Shabby, anyway. A ginger-grey lock of hair straggled across his otherwise bald head, like a cat that had died some time ago.” It is unlikely that the solicitor in the television episode was so old and bald. Michael David, who played the character on screen, was 37 at the time of recording, and had a full head of slightly greying hair. In fact, the description sounds more like Tony Steedman, the balding actor who played Tad Wheldon in this episode. Many of Southcott’s descriptions of characters are at odds with the likenesses of the actors who played them, which may be artistic licence or may indicate that the novelist lacked photographic reference.
In the novelisation (page 16), there is a small amount of additional dialogue after the solicitor has told Marker about cashing the banker’s draft. “Who are these people?” asks Marker, referring to the jewel thieves. “I don’t know anything about them,” the solicitor insists, “Don’t want to know.” Southcott may have adapted this from a line in Act Three, when the real Muirie says, in reference to the insurance company, “Wouldn’t want to know them.” “That’s your side of it,” continues the solicitor in the book, “Strictly your side.” He flutters his hands “in a flurry of legal-minded propriety. He was almost convincing.” The discussion then continues with Marker’s scripted line, “How do I know what’s missing?”
In the novelisation, Tad Wheldon’s driving school becomes a second-hand car dealership. Wheldon (who is given a different first name, Harry) is a much younger man than the one depicted on screen by Tony Steedman. The actor was 40 years of age but already grey and balding at the time of recording, whereas Harry is 26, with “expensively cut, fashionably longish hair” (page 17). The dialogue in these scenes differs substantially from the camera script. Wheldon’s line “See you on Thursday” is placed in an entirely different context: “How many times I got to tell you,” says Harry on page 19, berating Briers for using the telephone to discuss their criminal activity, “The blower’s for saying yes and no and see you on Thursday. Right? One crossed line and we’re all for the high jump.” In the book, Briers is given the first name Charlie, whereas his first name is never mentioned in the camera script – even Fay calls him Briers. Fay is renamed Kay and her affair with Harry is made much more explicit than in the television version. In the script she is Briers’s girlfriend, but in the book she is his wife. Southcott invents the pretext that Harry has been giving Kay driving lessons, which obviously wouldn’t have worked in the broadcast episode because Briers is a driving instructor, though Southcott may have been inspired by the driving school setting: “now it was turning into bleedin’ night school and all,” reflects Briers on page 20 of the book.
It is raining in the novelised version of the cemetery scene (pages 21–24), but there is no evidence of this in the camera script. Briers discards a pair of shears at the end of the scripted sequence, so it appears that he is trimming a hedge in order to justify his presence in the cemetery. In the novelisation, Briers carries a bunch of flowers and stands at the grave of “Ebenezer Dolittle, late of this parish” (page 22), pretending to be a mourner. In the book, Briers gives Marker a white plastic carrier bag with the children’s comic-strip character Rupert Bear on it (page 23). However, in Act Two of the script, the solicitor refers to it as a paper bag.
Descriptions of the Hawaiian bar at the end of Act One of this site’s story summary are informed by a surviving still (see top of page) and pages 24–25 of the novelisation. The book also mentions the presence of parakeets and birds of paradise in bamboo cages, but these may have only been heard, not seen – the camera script includes the sound of exotic birds as a background effect.
The scene in the bank manager’s office at the beginning of Act Two is not present in the novelisation. It is replaced by a sequence (pages 27–28) depicting Marker carrying the money back to his office, now armed with “a new 18-inch crowbar wrapped up in newspaper and a brand-new canvas money belt he’d just bought in the Army Surplus.” In the book, Marker carries the money in a green fibreboard laundry box with the words “SUNLIGHT LAUNDRY BIRMINGHAM EAST” stencilled on the side (page 27), but in the camera script he uses a suitcase. The novelisation states that the money is a mixture of “used fives and oncers”, but only five-pound notes can be seen in a surviving still from the end of the Act Two, showing Wheldon and Briers examining the cash (see right). This is supported by Briers’s comment that the amount of money “Doesn’t look to be much.” |
In the book (pages 28–30), Joey remains nameless and
Gerry is renamed Alf. They are “rough-looking customers with work-stained suits and flat hats”, who appear to be white and certainly in no way resemble Layton & Johnstone (see Nobody Wants to Know, below). Perhaps inspired by a plot development from It’s Learning About the Lies that Hurts, in which a vital witness disappears to Spain on a package holiday, Marker claims (on page 29) to be away on holiday in that country: “Costa Brava, I think he said. One of those packages.”
Marker has a different hiding place for the money in the novelisation. Southcott dispenses with the involvement of Marker’s estate agent landlord Soutar, and instead has Marker purchasing a crowbar (page 27) and borrowing a power saw from the woodyard downstairs (page 30). He uses these tools to lift the floorboards under the filing cabinet and saw through the joists beneath, creating a hidey-hole.
The first driving school scene of Act Two becomes a sexually explicit bedroom scene in the novelisation (pages 31–35). The dialogue is entirely changed, up to the point where Wheldon telephones Marker – though in recognition of the original setting, Kay is supposed to be receiving a driving lesson. “Mmm . . . . this is my sort of driving lesson,” she says (on page 32). “Twenty-five bob an hour,” replies Harry. “Worth every penny,” says Kay. “Doesn’t say anything about crumpet in the Highway Code,” remarks Harry, “Funny that.”
In the novelisation, Marker goes to a bus stop (page 37) rather than the bus station. Only Briers pursues him, in a two-year-old Ford Cortina. Marker catches a Number 8 bus, whereas the script specifies a bus to Stratford, a town not covered by West Midlands bus route 8, a circular route that follows Birmingham’s inner ring road. The cinema, the Roxy, is showing The House That Dripped Blood, a horror anthology film directed by Peter Duffell, which is something of an anachronism. Characters use pre-decimal currency in this section of the book, but the film was released in the UK on Sunday 21 February 1971, almost a week after decimalisation on Monday 15 February 1971.
In the book, Marker uses telephone directories rather than newspapers as decoy money, and he has cut them into banknote-sized pieces (pages 31 and 39). However, the papers in the broadcast episode were probably still recognisably newspapers. If they had been cut up to resemble banknotes, as happens in Nobody Kills Santa Claus, one would expect there to be a close-up or some dialogue to point this up to the viewer, and there is no evidence of this in the camera script. Furthermore, Inspector Robertson reads from a newspaper in Marker’s office in Act Three.
When Kay removes her sweater in the novelisation (page 45), she is not wearing a bra. This is unlikely to have been the case in the television episode.
In the novelisation, Marker is enjoying a Chinese takeaway when the police arrive. In the book, he continues eating and throwing empty cartons into the bin, until the impact of the final carton alerts Robertson to Marker’s hiding place (pages 45–48). In the camera script, Marker appears to finish his meal at the beginning of the scene. The script does not specify what Marker is eating, but a chip-shop supper would be more in character. Inspired by the Sunday Mirror article referenced below, I have made it sausage and chips. Nor does the script make clear how Robertson’s attention is drawn to the wastepaper basket, but the link between the newspaper he has just been reading and traditional chip-shop packaging might account for his eureka moment.
In the camera script, Robertson’s line “Carry on” appears to be addressed to his two constables, telling them to begin their search of Marker’s office. In the novelisation (page 46), the instruction is directed at Marker, who is still in the middle of his meal. Southcott builds in additional dialogue to support his interpretation: “I was just having my supper,” says Marker. “Carry on,” replies Robertson, “Don’t mind us.”
When Marker goes into the kitchen to attend to the kettle, there is a gap of several lines in the dialogue area of the script, which invites speculation that some material was deleted at this point. Intriguingly, there is a section of additional speech in the novelisation (page 46) that would fit rather nicely, though this may have been devised by Southcott rather than having originated in an earlier version of the script: “You’re not a local lad,” observes Robertson, “Londoner?” “Clapham,” replies Marker, who is still eating his chicken chow mein, “Clapham Junction. It’s in London.” “I know where it is,” says Robertson, who comes across as a less pleasant character in the book. His appearance, too – “big and beefy and bustling” (page 50) – seems more like Alister Williamson’s Detective Sergeant Willows in If This is Lucky, I’d Rather Be Jonah… than John Bailey’s slender frame.
Instead of the scripted tea-making sequence, the discussion about beverages (page 46) is prompted by Robertson’s colleague (the inspector has just one subordinate with him in the novelised scene), who “had been unearthing the tea things out of the filing cabinet. He was tipping the sugar out onto a sheet of newspaper. When he had a nice little pile, he started on the tea.” As noted earlier, Southcott’s description matches Marker’s Eton office, in which the inquiry agent kept his tea things in a filing cabinet, rather than his Birmingham office, where he had a separate kitchen area.
Unlike his television counterpart, Southcott’s version of Marker is a regular smoker (on page 35, for instance). Therefore, Marker’s line about not having smoked since he was in the Merchant Navy does not appear in the book. Nevertheless, the novelist preserves this aspect of Marker’s backstory, and the inquiry agent thinks back to his time in the Merchant Navy while waiting for the inspector to return (page 50).
In the novelisation, Marker never finds out who shopped him to the police (pages 51 and 55).
In place of the final insurance office scene, Southcott adds a coda (pages 54–56) that explains what became of the solicitor, Kay, Wheldon and Briers. The bogus Mr Murie, real name George Frederick Follick, “got charged in his own name two months later, for a quite different offence, that of interfering with small boys in Markeaton Park, and got put away for eighteen months among the big boys in Strangeways, where they didn’t like him much and gave him a rough time, because one thing a con really despises is a child molester.” Meanwhile, “Kay Briers managed to get herself molested quite a lot of times by Harry Wheldon. She liked it at first, because Harry was quite a molester. Then he started doing it for real, with his fists.” She never made it to Saint-Tropez or any of the places in the sun they had discussed (on page 32). Neither did Harry, “because he smashed himself up one night driving a souped-up Daimler Sovereign down the M6. It took them an hour and forty-nine minutes to cut him loose with acetylene torches and when they started pumping morphine into him they found he was dead.” Formulating a plan that bears comparison to that of Jenny Graham in The Morning Wasn’t So Hot, Kay “took herself off to London with her share of the loot, bought herself the butt-end of a lease on a Mayfair penthouse, set herself up as a very pricey call-girl, captured herself a good-looking duke and got herself married to him at the church in Farm Street. When last heard of, she was living happily ever after. Which only goes to prove that if you’re lucky and have got brains and are beautiful and good at sex, well, you can win sometimes.” Charlie Briers bought a first-class plane ticket to New York, where he met a go-go dancer “who led him into bad company. He went into the small-time gambling scene, and the porno-movie scene, and the blue-meanie scene and then he wanted out.” Blue meanies (Panaeolus cyanescens) are a highly potent species of psychedelic mushroom, which stains blue when bruised and is named after the antagonists in the surreal 1968 animated Beatles film Yellow Submarine. “Then he upped and married a little chick from Sawson, Nebraska, five weeks after he’d met her, and set up in a cardboard box business in a small way, and then in a medium-sized way, which only goes to prove that it takes all sorts.” There is no such place as Sawson, Nebraska, so either Southcott invented the name, or he meant to refer to the village of Dawson in Richardson County, Nebraska. Sadly, there is no documented comeuppance for Leonard Pratt or Alan Jordan, as they do not appear in the book, but hopefully Robertson managed to catch them out eventually.
In the book (page 58), Marker begins his prison sentence at Maidstone rather than Winson Green.
Gerry is renamed Alf. They are “rough-looking customers with work-stained suits and flat hats”, who appear to be white and certainly in no way resemble Layton & Johnstone (see Nobody Wants to Know, below). Perhaps inspired by a plot development from It’s Learning About the Lies that Hurts, in which a vital witness disappears to Spain on a package holiday, Marker claims (on page 29) to be away on holiday in that country: “Costa Brava, I think he said. One of those packages.”
Marker has a different hiding place for the money in the novelisation. Southcott dispenses with the involvement of Marker’s estate agent landlord Soutar, and instead has Marker purchasing a crowbar (page 27) and borrowing a power saw from the woodyard downstairs (page 30). He uses these tools to lift the floorboards under the filing cabinet and saw through the joists beneath, creating a hidey-hole.
The first driving school scene of Act Two becomes a sexually explicit bedroom scene in the novelisation (pages 31–35). The dialogue is entirely changed, up to the point where Wheldon telephones Marker – though in recognition of the original setting, Kay is supposed to be receiving a driving lesson. “Mmm . . . . this is my sort of driving lesson,” she says (on page 32). “Twenty-five bob an hour,” replies Harry. “Worth every penny,” says Kay. “Doesn’t say anything about crumpet in the Highway Code,” remarks Harry, “Funny that.”
In the novelisation, Marker goes to a bus stop (page 37) rather than the bus station. Only Briers pursues him, in a two-year-old Ford Cortina. Marker catches a Number 8 bus, whereas the script specifies a bus to Stratford, a town not covered by West Midlands bus route 8, a circular route that follows Birmingham’s inner ring road. The cinema, the Roxy, is showing The House That Dripped Blood, a horror anthology film directed by Peter Duffell, which is something of an anachronism. Characters use pre-decimal currency in this section of the book, but the film was released in the UK on Sunday 21 February 1971, almost a week after decimalisation on Monday 15 February 1971.
In the book, Marker uses telephone directories rather than newspapers as decoy money, and he has cut them into banknote-sized pieces (pages 31 and 39). However, the papers in the broadcast episode were probably still recognisably newspapers. If they had been cut up to resemble banknotes, as happens in Nobody Kills Santa Claus, one would expect there to be a close-up or some dialogue to point this up to the viewer, and there is no evidence of this in the camera script. Furthermore, Inspector Robertson reads from a newspaper in Marker’s office in Act Three.
When Kay removes her sweater in the novelisation (page 45), she is not wearing a bra. This is unlikely to have been the case in the television episode.
In the novelisation, Marker is enjoying a Chinese takeaway when the police arrive. In the book, he continues eating and throwing empty cartons into the bin, until the impact of the final carton alerts Robertson to Marker’s hiding place (pages 45–48). In the camera script, Marker appears to finish his meal at the beginning of the scene. The script does not specify what Marker is eating, but a chip-shop supper would be more in character. Inspired by the Sunday Mirror article referenced below, I have made it sausage and chips. Nor does the script make clear how Robertson’s attention is drawn to the wastepaper basket, but the link between the newspaper he has just been reading and traditional chip-shop packaging might account for his eureka moment.
In the camera script, Robertson’s line “Carry on” appears to be addressed to his two constables, telling them to begin their search of Marker’s office. In the novelisation (page 46), the instruction is directed at Marker, who is still in the middle of his meal. Southcott builds in additional dialogue to support his interpretation: “I was just having my supper,” says Marker. “Carry on,” replies Robertson, “Don’t mind us.”
When Marker goes into the kitchen to attend to the kettle, there is a gap of several lines in the dialogue area of the script, which invites speculation that some material was deleted at this point. Intriguingly, there is a section of additional speech in the novelisation (page 46) that would fit rather nicely, though this may have been devised by Southcott rather than having originated in an earlier version of the script: “You’re not a local lad,” observes Robertson, “Londoner?” “Clapham,” replies Marker, who is still eating his chicken chow mein, “Clapham Junction. It’s in London.” “I know where it is,” says Robertson, who comes across as a less pleasant character in the book. His appearance, too – “big and beefy and bustling” (page 50) – seems more like Alister Williamson’s Detective Sergeant Willows in If This is Lucky, I’d Rather Be Jonah… than John Bailey’s slender frame.
Instead of the scripted tea-making sequence, the discussion about beverages (page 46) is prompted by Robertson’s colleague (the inspector has just one subordinate with him in the novelised scene), who “had been unearthing the tea things out of the filing cabinet. He was tipping the sugar out onto a sheet of newspaper. When he had a nice little pile, he started on the tea.” As noted earlier, Southcott’s description matches Marker’s Eton office, in which the inquiry agent kept his tea things in a filing cabinet, rather than his Birmingham office, where he had a separate kitchen area.
Unlike his television counterpart, Southcott’s version of Marker is a regular smoker (on page 35, for instance). Therefore, Marker’s line about not having smoked since he was in the Merchant Navy does not appear in the book. Nevertheless, the novelist preserves this aspect of Marker’s backstory, and the inquiry agent thinks back to his time in the Merchant Navy while waiting for the inspector to return (page 50).
In the novelisation, Marker never finds out who shopped him to the police (pages 51 and 55).
In place of the final insurance office scene, Southcott adds a coda (pages 54–56) that explains what became of the solicitor, Kay, Wheldon and Briers. The bogus Mr Murie, real name George Frederick Follick, “got charged in his own name two months later, for a quite different offence, that of interfering with small boys in Markeaton Park, and got put away for eighteen months among the big boys in Strangeways, where they didn’t like him much and gave him a rough time, because one thing a con really despises is a child molester.” Meanwhile, “Kay Briers managed to get herself molested quite a lot of times by Harry Wheldon. She liked it at first, because Harry was quite a molester. Then he started doing it for real, with his fists.” She never made it to Saint-Tropez or any of the places in the sun they had discussed (on page 32). Neither did Harry, “because he smashed himself up one night driving a souped-up Daimler Sovereign down the M6. It took them an hour and forty-nine minutes to cut him loose with acetylene torches and when they started pumping morphine into him they found he was dead.” Formulating a plan that bears comparison to that of Jenny Graham in The Morning Wasn’t So Hot, Kay “took herself off to London with her share of the loot, bought herself the butt-end of a lease on a Mayfair penthouse, set herself up as a very pricey call-girl, captured herself a good-looking duke and got herself married to him at the church in Farm Street. When last heard of, she was living happily ever after. Which only goes to prove that if you’re lucky and have got brains and are beautiful and good at sex, well, you can win sometimes.” Charlie Briers bought a first-class plane ticket to New York, where he met a go-go dancer “who led him into bad company. He went into the small-time gambling scene, and the porno-movie scene, and the blue-meanie scene and then he wanted out.” Blue meanies (Panaeolus cyanescens) are a highly potent species of psychedelic mushroom, which stains blue when bruised and is named after the antagonists in the surreal 1968 animated Beatles film Yellow Submarine. “Then he upped and married a little chick from Sawson, Nebraska, five weeks after he’d met her, and set up in a cardboard box business in a small way, and then in a medium-sized way, which only goes to prove that it takes all sorts.” There is no such place as Sawson, Nebraska, so either Southcott invented the name, or he meant to refer to the village of Dawson in Richardson County, Nebraska. Sadly, there is no documented comeuppance for Leonard Pratt or Alan Jordan, as they do not appear in the book, but hopefully Robertson managed to catch them out eventually.
In the book (page 58), Marker begins his prison sentence at Maidstone rather than Winson Green.
Many a Slip
The money belt (or one just like it) would appear again among Marker’s belongings in A Fixed Address, the final episode of Series 4 – though quite how it came to be back in his possession is not clear.
Dialogue in Act Three suggests that the fake Mr Muirie was working for the insurance company, whereas in the novelisation he receives instructions from Harry Wheldon (pages 35–36). The latter interpretation doesn’t seem to make sense – if the solicitor is working for Harry, then where does he get the reward money from, and why should he encourage Marker to haggle the price down to 10% or less?
Dialogue in Act Three suggests that the fake Mr Muirie was working for the insurance company, whereas in the novelisation he receives instructions from Harry Wheldon (pages 35–36). The latter interpretation doesn’t seem to make sense – if the solicitor is working for Harry, then where does he get the reward money from, and why should he encourage Marker to haggle the price down to 10% or less?
Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?
On the same day, a small article entitled Shock End in the Derby Evening Telegraph warned that in the final episode of the current series, Marker “meets a totally unexpected situation. The programme has a shock ending which will startle its fans.”
“Depend on Alfred Burke, the Frank Marker of Public Eye, to give his loyal viewers something to think about when the third series came to a clanging end last night.” So wrote Bernard McElwaine in his Saturday View column in the Sunday Mirror on 14 April (see left). “Marker was sentenced to two years. Stunned viewers must have blinked when they saw the gates of a prison shut behind him and followed his tired feet up the iron stairs to his cell. How did it happen? Poor Marker, the underpaid private eye who looks like a sad Robin Hood who has missed the last bus to Sherwood Forest on a wet night, was betrayed.” McElwaine was sorry to see Marker go. “He was so refreshingly real after all the big-headed boozy private eyes who lived high. Marker was a non-gourmet with a gas-ring who lived on sausages or out of tins. Glamorous places? Marker moved his office from Clapham Common, London, to Birmingham. The only waving palms he ever saw were attached to the arms of untipped waiters. He never even had a car, girls or guns. Burke has made Marker so real, I bet that someone tries to send him a food parcel in prison.” Writing on Wednesday 17 April in the Morning Star, Stewart Lane noted that, “as Alfred Burke prophesised in his interview last Saturday, the final episode of ABC’s Public Eye was, indeed, very interesting … Can he [Marker] be brought back for yet another series? We’ll have to wait and see.” Tom Gregg wondered the same thing in his TV Topics column in the Runcorn Guardian on Thursday 18 April. “ABC’s Public Eye series came to an end on Saturday with Frank Marker (Alfred Burke), scruffy but incorruptible, being sent to jail unjustly on a charge of receiving,” he wrote, in a small feature entitled The end? “Can private detectives start up in business again once they have blotted their escutcheons? I do hope so, for Public Eye has been consistently so rich an entertainment that I, for one, would feel positively deprived were it allowed to die. Perhaps new evidence will appear that will give Marker a Queen’s Pardon – and Marker fans several more helpings.” |
On Friday 26 April, ‘The Old Codgers’, who edited the Live Letters column of the Daily Mirror, published a query from Janet Clayton of Kippax, West Yorkshire asking about the location of the public house seen in There’s No Future in Monkey Business. The Old Codgers, who described themselves as “two of Frank’s greatest fans”, replied not only with an answer to the question, but also remarked that they “were shocked to see him get nicked on a frame-up the following week. ABC TV don’t yet know whether he will be returning, but if he doesn't get full remission for good conduct, we Old Pair will be busting in to spring him ourselves!”
The subject of Marker’s arrest had certainly provoked a response from viewers in ITV regions where the series had now concluded. “Frank Marker in jail!” exclaimed Mrs L. Rust of Bexley, Kent (see right) in the TV Times letter column Viewerpoint (4–10 May 1968). “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when watching the final episode of Public Eye and seeing him getting locked up. Thank you, Alfred Burke, for a splendid series, one of the highlights of the week’s viewing.” |
On Saturday 1 June, the Daily Mirror ran an article about the world-famous detective Colin Finlay, the proprietor of the Finlay Bureau of Investigations in Crystal Palace. After outlining his approach and business practices, the authentic investigator for hire was asked about the portrayal of his industry in fiction. Finlay nominated the most accurate embodiment of his trade as being Frank Marker in Public Eye: “He was seedy, he did dull jobs and there wasn’t one bit of glamour in life.” |
Over in the Live Letters section of the Daily Mirror on Tuesday 7 May (see left), the feeling that Marker had been wrongfully arrested was gaining momentum. Mr H. Brock of Morecambe wrote in to say: “I was pleased to see that you, too, were shocked at the imprisonment of Frank Marker. Personally, I fail to see either the sense in, or the reasons for, Marker being jailed. In that final episode, he was engaged to recover stolen property. He covered himself by having a letter of authority from the insuring company and also the costs of recovery were paid by a certified cheque. These should have been sufficient evidence of both the proper engagement of Frank Marker in his professional capacity and the identity of his employers, the lack of which evidence appeared to be the basis of Marker’s conviction. As a transaction to recover stolen property with the intention of returning it to the owner via the insurers, I fail to comprehend the illegality. I feel that the image of Frank Marker has been built up as a man engaged in a seedy profession in a somewhat seedy manner, but with an innate feeling for the under-dog and for justice. And putting a man like that in jail is an affront to the sensibility of the viewing public.” The Old Codgers agreed, but had then spoken to Alfred Burke, who explained that Marker “had been fairly copped. ‘The letter of authority,’ he pointed out, ‘was typed on Marker’s own typewriter by the phoney solicitor. And I was only shown picking up the money at the bank – there was no question of a certified cheque. But even if Marker’s employers had been traced, the whole transaction was still illegal – there can be no such collusion between insurance companies and thieves.’” In any case, The Old Codgers were confident that Marker’s stay ‘inside’ would not be too uncomfortable: “his fans have written to ask where they can send food parcels!” Soon a stream of packages containing cake, socks and cigarette papers were arriving at the office of ABC Television, addressed to Frank Marker.
|
Marker’s legion of fans need not have worried. When he emerged from prison the following year, he would be doing so under the auspices of a new television company. ABC and Rediffusion were amalgamated to form Thames Television, which began broadcasting on Tuesday 30 July 1968. Full networking and chart-topping viewing figures lay ahead for Public Eye…
Nobody Wants to Know
In Act One, Marker asks the solicitor if he is “On the rolls, or off?” He is referring to the roll of solicitors, a register that was then held by the professional association The Law Society. Since 2007, the register has been held by an independent regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
At the end of Act One, Briers refers to Wheldon sarcastically as “The Edward G. Robinson of Balsall Heath.” Edward G. Robinson (1893–1973) was a Romanian-American actor of stage and screen. He appeared in 30 Broadway plays and more than 100 films during his 50-year career and is best remembered for his tough-guy roles as gangsters in films such as Little Caesar (1931) and Key Largo (1948). Balsall Heath is an inner-city area of Birmingham.
In Act Two of the script, when speaking to Soutar’s secretary, Tessa, Marker refers to the Carew brothers as “Layton and Johnson”. This is probably a reference to Layton & Johnstone, an African-American vocal and piano duo consisting of Turner Layton and Clarence ‘Tandy’ Johnstone, who were popular during the 1920s and 1930s. Tessa appears not to get the reference, because Marker tells her they were “Before your time.”
Viewers would get to hear the judge’s sentencing of Marker as a flashback voice-over in Welcome to Brighton?, delivered by an uncredited Frank Duncan: “Frank Marker. You have pleaded guilty to a serious crime, that of receiving stolen property. As a so-called inquiry agent, you occupied a position of trust. This you abused. You will go to prison for two years and six months.”
In the camera script, Marker is taken to prison in the back of a Black Maria, which is a nickname for a police van. The origin of the term is uncertain, though such vehicles were traditionally painted black or very dark blue. The name Black Maria is common among racehorses, beginning with an 1832 appearance in the Niles Weekly Register (Wednesday 10 October), and police vans were originally horse-drawn carriages. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable suggests that the vehicle was named in honour of Maria Lee, a large and fearsome black woman who kept a boarding house for sailors in Boston, Massachusetts in the 1820s, whom the police would often call on for help with difficult prisoners: “She was a woman of such great size and strength that the unruly stood in dread of her, and when constables required help, it was a common thing to send for Black Maria, who soon collared the refractory and led them to the lock-up.” Alternatively, a 1962 article in the Hackensack, New Jersey newspaper The Record claims that the Black Maria is named after a “large and riotous London woman [who] was often picked up by the police for excessive drinking on Saturday nights. When the van went by, people would say ‘There goes Black Maria again!’ and the word stuck.”
The solicitors Prosser, Deighton and Muirie would be mentioned again in Return to Mrs Mortimer, a short story written by Roger Marshall for the brochure of the Kaleidoscope event Raiders of the Lost Archives ’95, held in Stourbridge on Saturday 5 August 1995. The story was reprinted in a booklet accompanying the Network DVD releases Public Eye: The Complete 1969 Series (published on Monday 19 July 2004) and Public Eye: A Box Named Frank (issued on Monday 12 November 2012).
At the end of Act One, Briers refers to Wheldon sarcastically as “The Edward G. Robinson of Balsall Heath.” Edward G. Robinson (1893–1973) was a Romanian-American actor of stage and screen. He appeared in 30 Broadway plays and more than 100 films during his 50-year career and is best remembered for his tough-guy roles as gangsters in films such as Little Caesar (1931) and Key Largo (1948). Balsall Heath is an inner-city area of Birmingham.
In Act Two of the script, when speaking to Soutar’s secretary, Tessa, Marker refers to the Carew brothers as “Layton and Johnson”. This is probably a reference to Layton & Johnstone, an African-American vocal and piano duo consisting of Turner Layton and Clarence ‘Tandy’ Johnstone, who were popular during the 1920s and 1930s. Tessa appears not to get the reference, because Marker tells her they were “Before your time.”
Viewers would get to hear the judge’s sentencing of Marker as a flashback voice-over in Welcome to Brighton?, delivered by an uncredited Frank Duncan: “Frank Marker. You have pleaded guilty to a serious crime, that of receiving stolen property. As a so-called inquiry agent, you occupied a position of trust. This you abused. You will go to prison for two years and six months.”
In the camera script, Marker is taken to prison in the back of a Black Maria, which is a nickname for a police van. The origin of the term is uncertain, though such vehicles were traditionally painted black or very dark blue. The name Black Maria is common among racehorses, beginning with an 1832 appearance in the Niles Weekly Register (Wednesday 10 October), and police vans were originally horse-drawn carriages. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable suggests that the vehicle was named in honour of Maria Lee, a large and fearsome black woman who kept a boarding house for sailors in Boston, Massachusetts in the 1820s, whom the police would often call on for help with difficult prisoners: “She was a woman of such great size and strength that the unruly stood in dread of her, and when constables required help, it was a common thing to send for Black Maria, who soon collared the refractory and led them to the lock-up.” Alternatively, a 1962 article in the Hackensack, New Jersey newspaper The Record claims that the Black Maria is named after a “large and riotous London woman [who] was often picked up by the police for excessive drinking on Saturday nights. When the van went by, people would say ‘There goes Black Maria again!’ and the word stuck.”
The solicitors Prosser, Deighton and Muirie would be mentioned again in Return to Mrs Mortimer, a short story written by Roger Marshall for the brochure of the Kaleidoscope event Raiders of the Lost Archives ’95, held in Stourbridge on Saturday 5 August 1995. The story was reprinted in a booklet accompanying the Network DVD releases Public Eye: The Complete 1969 Series (published on Monday 19 July 2004) and Public Eye: A Box Named Frank (issued on Monday 12 November 2012).
With thanks to Jonny Davies, Andrew Pixley, Barbara Toft, the BFI Special Collections, the British Newspaper Archive and Network Distributing.
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.