Pre-recorded for broadcast 26 September - 31 October 1959; novelisation Garry Halliday and the Ray of Death published at 9s 6d by Faber & Faber, 10 November 1961, with jacket design by Ley Kenyon including a photograph of Terence Longdon as Halliday.
A passenger on a flight to Paris is found to be carrying a strange jigsaw puzzle; Garry Halliday follows the clues to expose a plot involving a killer heat ray, organised by his only adversary the Voice from his secret HQ in the Lake District.
Regular cast: Terence Longdon (Garry Halliday); Terence Alexander (Bill Dodds); Jennifer Wright (Jean Wills); Elwyn Brook-Jones (The Voice); Juno Stevas (Sonya Delamere, eps 1-2, 4-5), David Langford (Tim Halliday, eps 1-4); Hamilton Dyce (Sir Charles Logan, eps 2-5); Richard Warner (Dr Edmundo, eps 2-6); Jeremy Burnham (Philip Latters, eps 2-6); Neville Becker (Gaston, ep 2, 4-6); Zorenah Osborne (Marciana, eps 4-6); Frederick Treves (Andre, eps 4-6); Michael Collins (Inspector Franks, eps 5-6); Philip Howard (Sergeant Banks, eps 5-6). Commentator: Geoffrey Palmer (eps 2-6).
Crew: Justin Blake (writer); John Turner (film cameraman); Eddie Wallstab (film editor); Stewart Marshall (designer); Richard West (producer).
Flying and airport sequences by courtesy of Silver City Airways Ltd.
1. The Jig-Saw Puzzle (5.25pm, Saturday 26 September 1959) - Genome/Radio Times
Guest cast: John Hussey (Abraham Perry); Annette Kerr (Spinster); Stanley Groome (Cockney man); Nora Gordon (Cockney woman); André Maranne (Customs officer)
Bill Dodds: "You wait 'til you meet her [his new girlfriend, Sonya]. She's not a bit like me. Just as well really, eh?" (Dialogue quoted in the Stage and Television Today, 1 October 1959, p. 16/8.)
Summary (based on the first chapter of the novelisation, "The Mysterious Jig-Saw Puzzle"): Since their last adventure, Garry Halliday, Bills Dodds and Jean Wills have left BOAC and set up the Halliday Charter Company with a single aircraft (a Dakota) and an office on an airfield in Kent. Dodds's well-to-do fiancee, Sonya Delamere, suggests that the company run day-trips to France for the well-heeled people she knows; Sonya the joins the crew on the first flight to Paris. Among the passengers is Halliday's young nephew, Tim.
Bored, Tim tries to make conversation with the grown-up passenger beside him, who he notes has brought nothing with him but a jigsaw. When Tim asks to do the jigsaw, the passenger — Abraham Perry — snaps rudely at Tim. When Sonya tries to intercede, Perry snaps at her as well. In the fuss, the jigsaw puzzle falls to the floor. Tim helps collect up the pieces and returns them to Perry.
On landing in Paris, Garry Halliday is surprised to hear Tim's story and then learns from the French customs official that they recently confiscated another, identical jigsaw puzzle from a shifty-looking traveller. Tim confirms that the confiscated jigsaw is identical to Perry's showing a view of a lake. Tim admits he also kept one of the pieces from Perry's set to get his own back on the rude man.
Perry heads to the cafe Le Grain Qui Meurt (the title, surely, a play on André Gide's memoir about growing up in Paris in the late 19th century). There, in a secret room with a TV camera, he reports to The Voice that he has lost one of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle he was meant to smuggle into the country. The Voice discovers that the Hallidays are involved and instructs Perry to recover the missing piece by any means necessary.
Back at the offices of the Halliday Charter Company on the airstrip in Kent — where Halliday and his friends also live — Halliday and Dodds test the jigsaw piece that Tim took from Perry but can find no secret properties or code. Late that night, Perry climbs up into Tim's bedroom and wakes the boy to demand the return of the jigsaw piece. Halliday hears the commotion and runs in. Perry tries to escape out the window but falls to his death.
2. A Cargo of Phosphorous (5.25 pm, Saturday 3 October 1959) — Genome/Radio Times
Guest cast: John Harrison (Sergeant Eustace); Sally Travers (Mrs Meats); Ann Taylor (Shop assistant)
Summary (based on the second chapter of the novelisation, "A Cargo of Phosphorous"): Halliday doesn't mention the jigsaw piece to police sergeant Eustace, wanting to investigate further himself.
The Voice, meanwhile, assures a South American man called Edmundo that a replacement, complete jigsaw will be delivered to him shortly. Then, The Voice blackmails Sir Charles Logan, who is a regular client of the Halliday Charter Company, to book another flight, this time to take a cargo of phosphorous. This kind of shipment is usually carried in rows of plastic containers with a layer of oil on top to prevent the phosphorous from igniting. The Voice instruct Logan to make a hole in one of these containers, fill the hole with a plug and then replace the oil with water. Just before the flight takes off, Logan is to remove the plug. The water will drain away, leaving the highly volatile phosphorous exposed to ignite and start a fire while the plane is in flight. This complicated device is delivered to the Halliday Charter Company by one of Logan's staff, scientist Philip Letters. Tim strikes up a friendly conversation about science.
Meanwhile, Halliday visits Perry's home and with the help of caretaker Mrs Meats gets to look inside. He finds two clues: the address of the cafe in Paris and another jigsaw of the lake, its name on the box "Lake Bowenwater". In a toy shop, Halliday gets the assistant to look up the details of this jigsaw in a catalogue. It's a discontinued product. Garry is then attacked by Gaston, a henchman working for The Voice, but Mrs Meats intervenes.
Halliday returns to the airfield with the jigsaw he took from Perry's home.The new consignment of phosphorous has been delivered by Sir Charles Logan. Tim spots Logan adjusting the consignment (ie removing the plug to make it volatile). Tim tries to tell Halliday and the others but they are keen to leave on time and take to the air.
Logan then has second thoughts and radios Halliday a warning about the consignment of phosphorous being liable to ignite. Halliday sends Dodds to investigate — just in time to see it catch fire.
3. The Invention (5.25 pm, Saturday 10 October 1959) — Genome/Radio Times
Guest cast: John Harrison (Schoolmaster); Howard Somers (French waiter); John Stirling (Ian)
Summary (based on the third chapter of the novelisation, "The Invention"): With the plane on autopilot, Halliday and Dodds are able to manhandle the container of burning phosphorous out of the cargo bay and drop it into the sea. However, the plane has been damaged and Halliday has burned his hands, so they make an emergency landing. Safe on the ground, they deduce that Sir Charles Logan was responsible.
Logan reports his failure to The Voice, who tells him that Halliday may believe it was an accident. Logan is told to recover the missing jigsaw piece from Halliday's nephew.
Halliday and Dodds visit the cafe in Paris (having got the address from Perry's home), and sit there with the box containing the jigsaw puzzle prominent on their table. They're distracted by a spilled drink and then discover that someone has been at the box: it no longer contains puzzle pieces; it is full of cash instead. They return to England.
Meanwhile, Tim has been sent back to school — but still has the purloined piece of jigsaw. In a chemistry lesson, Tim's classmate Ian spills some ammonia, which reveal the secret hidden on the back the puzzle piece. It is part of a chemical formulae. Tim rings Halliday to tell him, and their conversation is overheard by Sir Charles Logan who has arrived at the Halliday office in a bid to recover the jigsaw piece. Halliday spots Logan, who runs off — further proof that he is crooked.
Halliday drives to Tim's school with scientist Philip Latters and they are shown the fragment of chemical formula hidden on the puzzle piece. Latters recognises his own handwriting. This is part of his formula for a new invention to produce cheap, efficient heating by drawing energy out of the atmosphere. Using equipment in the school lab, he demonstrates the process. Halliday wants to experiment further by concentrating the beam and manages to set fire to a book. He realises that The Voice is developing a version of this invention on a much bigger scale: enough to burn up a whole town.
4. The Chamber of Death (5.25 pm, Saturday 17 October 1959) — Genome/Radio Times
Guest cast: Howard Somers (French waiter)
Summary (based on the fourth chapter of the novelisation, "The Chamber of Death"): Halliday and the others discuss the military potential of Latters' invention. They then catch Sir Charles Logan breaking into the school, meaning to steal back the purloined piece of jigsaw.
Logan's story is a sad one. Since his wife died, his business has been crumbling. When Latters came to him with his new invention, Logan saw a chance to save his business. He sought investors to help develop the new technology and was amazed to be offered £250,000 by an anonymous buyer. He didn't think to ask questions until it was too late and he was caught up in a plot to sell weaponry based on the new invention to a country behind the Iron Curtain and other disreputable customers.
Now keen to make amends, Logan agrees to help Halliday and his friends. They give him the stolen jigsaw piece — now of no value to them as they have discovered its secrets — so that he can return it to The Voice, as instructed.
They know The Voice is communicating with his people via radio so Bills Dodds sets himself up with a receiver to try and triangulate the source. Sonya tracks down another, unsold box of the jigsaw puzzle showing Bowenwater lake, which Jean — who is not known to the villains — takes to the cafe in Paris. Halliday watches as the switch is deftly made, a man in a raincoat making off with the pieces. Halliday follows and catches up with the man, producing pieces that he claims the man has "dropped".
Dodds then listens in on The Voice plotting with this same man, Dr Edmundo. But Dodds makes a blunder with his receiving equipment, which the villains hear. The Voice ends the transmission.
Logan is due to meet with The Voice. Halliday accompanies him to Limehouse, intending to eavesdrop on the conversation. But Gaston is waiting with a gun and directs both Halliday and Logan into a room with a camera, where they hear The Voice speak to them from his remote hideaway. He taunts them while eating Turkish delight. Then poison gas begins billowing into the room.
5. The Secret of the Safe (5.25 pm, Saturday 24 October 1959) — Genome/Radio Times
Guest cast: Richard Dare (Clerk); Roger Snowdon (Sebastiano); Walter Randall (Perfidio); David Lyn (French inspector); Jill Tracey (Maureen); Vernon Morris (Terry); Anthony Woodruff (Doctor); Claire Gordon (Nurse)
Summary (based on the fifth chapter of the novelisation, "The Secret of the Safe"): Halliday uses a chair to smash the barred window. The Voice, watching, summons Gaston to prevent any escape. In the struggle that follows, Gaston and Sir Charles Langdon both succumb to the poison gas. Langdon dies but Halliday hauls Gaston to safety.
Worried not to have heard anything, Dodds calls Inspector Franks (from the previous serial).
In Limehouse, locals Maureen and Terry find two bodies in the street. One of them, Gaston, awakens, threatens them and then stalks off. Terry gives first aid to Halliday while Maureen runs off to call for an ambulance. Gaston reports to The Voice that Halliday is dead. Delighted, The Voice calls Dr Edmundo and demands a final payment of 5 million francs in exchange for the last remaining piece of the puzzle with which Edmundo can build a death-ray weapon.
Halliday wakes in hospital to find his friends and Inspector Franks waiting. Despite the doctor's protestations, Halliday leaves hospital and he and Dodds fly to Paris and track Edmundo to his office. They inform the French police, who arrive too late — Edmundo and his associates have fled.
In another hide-out, Edmundo make a speech to his associates in front of a map of South America, explaining how their new weapon will help them "bring peace" to the region, now they have the complete formula. Halliday steps boldly in to the room and the villains draw their guns.
6. A Flame in the Sky (5.25 pm, Saturday 31 October 1959) — Genome/Radio Times
Guest cast: Richard Dare (Clerk); Roger Snowdon (Sebastiano); Walter Randall (Perfidio); David Lyn (French inspector); Alec Foster (Old Crampton); John Crocker (Local inspector); Ivor Salter (Sergeant Love); Robin Lloyd (First airport official); Norman Hartley (Second airport official); Peter Noel Cook (Police constable)
Summary (based on the sixth chapter of the novelisation, "A Flame in the Sky"): Halliday says, coolly, that he has the police with him and that if he is shot Edmundo and his associates will face the guillotine. He wants to discuss matters but Edmundo thinks he's stalling. They fight — and the police arrive just in time. Edmundo is arrested; Halliday asks him where they can find The Voice.
Edmundo reveals that the picture on the jigsaw is a clue. The police descend on a house on an island in Bowenwater in the Lake District. The local police, including one Sergeant Love, know of the "kindly" old gentleman who lives there. As the police approach, a helicopter takes off from near the house. The police reach the house, where Latters finds a version of his machine. Determined not to let The Voice escape, he uses the invention to shoot down the helicopter.
The Voice is dead — it seems. But then the police discover the caretaker, Old Crampton, tied up in a cupboard. This is odd because on their way to the house they saw Crampton in a boat, crossing the lake. Halliday realises that the helicopter was a decoy and that The Voice has eluded them once more. They can't pursue him because no one knows what The Voice looks like. But Halliday is sure that their paths will cross again.
Production notes
On 12 August 1959, four months after the conclusion of the first Garry Halliday serial on TV, the organiser who ran the administration of children's programmes on BBC Television informed the Copyright Department that they should cover the expenses incurred by writer Jeremy Bullmore when staying at a hotel in Tripoli as it was a work-related trip for the series. In issuing this memo, Jack Rich underlined that this was an exception to the usual rule that the BBC didn't pay writers' expenses. The memo was copied to producer Richard West and staff writer Ada Wood. (Source: Children's Programme Organiser [JE Rich] to Miss DL Ross, Copyright, "GARRY HALLIDAY SERIES", 12 August 1959, WAC T48/103/1 John Bowen Drama Writer’s File).
Ada Wood had accepted the original storyline for Garry Halliday more than two years' previously. Her name being included on this memo suggests she'd returned to the series to help develop Halliday's further adventures. From the start, she'd been more enthusiastic about Garry Halliday than her colleague Anthony Steven.
But what was Bullmore doing in Tripoli, given that this wasn't used as a setting until the fourth Garry Halliday serial, more than a year later (tx 5 November — 17 December 1960)?
Producer Richard West says in his memoir that one advantage of the deal done with Silver City Airways for the first serial was that they provided facilities for travel, such as to Paris. The implication is that the Parisian setting of the second serial came out of this association with the airline. The first serial had been partly set in the Netherlands with — according to the Kentish Express — some filming in Rotterdam, but used a windmill in southern England to double for the Netherlands. Subsequent adventures made a feature of location filming overseas and, even at this early stage, the team were looking for settings beyond the second serial.
West says Silver City offered, "a once-weekly flight to Tripoli, Libya," which he took advantage of in a bid to find, "fresh ideas and new locations". However, "No sooner had I arrived there [than] I was urgently summoned back, in order to direct a six-part serial adaptation of St Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson."
St Ives — starring William Russell and Audrey Nicholson — was broadcast from 12 June to 17 July 1960, suggesting West went to Tripoli in the spring of that year. But the recollections in his memoir don't always match the chronology we can check elsewhere. For example, he recalls the series of single-episode Garry Halliday stories (serial 8) coming before the run of 13 consecutive episodes telling two distinct stories (serials 6 and 7). So it may be that he flew to Tripoli earlier than he remembered and was there with Bullmore. Or, it may be that Bullmore went first, in the early summer of 1959, and West then made the same journey a few months later, when the fourth serial was closer to becoming reality.
Whatever the case, the suggestion is that, after the first serial, Garry Halliday's subsequent adventures were devised location first. As we'll discuss in relation to the fourth serial, West said that the team flew (again) to Tripoli with lead actor Terence Longdon without even having a story to tell. Their intention was to film whatever atmospheric settings they could find, after which Bullmore would, "devise a story into which our film could be suitably inserted."
For the meantime, the BBC's head of copyright would not pay Bullmore's hotel expenses, in line with a general rule in place for the preceding two years. A handwritten note on the memo in question suggested that West could, if he wanted, pursue the matter through a different department. (Source: Miss DL Ross, Copyright Department, to Ch.P.O.Tel [JE Rich], "GARRY HALLIDAY SERIES", 17 August 1959, WAC T48/103/1 John Bowen Drama Writer’s File).
On 10 September 1959, the Nottingham Evening Post reported that the first Garry Halliday serial had "proved so popular" that a second had been written and a third planned for the new year (p. 15). At the time this was published, location filming in Paris must have been under way as the first episode of the new serial was broadcast on 26 September. According to the Junior Radio Times for that week (a supplement to the regular listings magazine Radio Times), location filming also took place at Ferryfield Airport in Lydd, Kent, the team capturing new material rather than simply reusing footage from the first serial.
Some of this footage survives. The BBC Library holds short sequences of street scenes in Paris around the Arc d'Triumph, various shots of a Dakota DC-3 aircraft at Lydd, and of a fire inside a plane. None of this material shows the series' leads; it seems the BBC Library retained footage that was unspecific and so could be used in other, unrelated programmes.
Terence Longdon, Terence Alexander and Elwyn Brook-Jones all returned to the second series as Garry Halliday, his co-pilot Bill Dodds and nemesis The Voice. In the role of stewardess (and, some sources suggest, Halliday's girlfriend) Jean Wills, Ann Gudrun was replaced by Jennifer Wright (1931-2006). A love interest for Dodds was also introduced; Sonya Delamere was played by Terence Alexander's then wife Juno Stevas (1925-2014), which may mean the part was specially written for her.
As young Tim Halliday, West cast David Langford, the "good-looking young actor" he'd previously cast in the title role of Pepe Moreno; West says in his memoir that Langford's ambition was to give up acting and become a butcher.
For the last two episodes of the new serial, Michael Collins and Philip Howard reprised their roles as Inspector Franks and Sergeant Banks. Also in these two episodes was Walter Randall as the villainous Perfidio. It was here that he met assistant floor manager Douglas Camfield for the first time; the two became close friends. (Source: Michael Seely, Directed by Douglas Camfield, p, 34). Camfield, who later became a director, cast Randall in many of his productions, including several episodes of Doctor Who. We'll return to Camfield in discussing subsequent Garry Halliday serials.
With its listings for each episode of the second serial, Radio Times noted that Longdon was appearing on stage in The Sound of Murder at the Aldwych Theatre and Brook-Jones in The Crooked Mile at the Cambridge Theatre, London. These stage commitments may explain why, unlike the first serial, the second was pre-recorded rather than being broadcast live.
Though much TV was still broadcast live at this point, according to Asa Briggs' history of the BBC, the corporation bought an Ampex tele-recording machine in August 1958. Pre-recording was not just a matter of scheduling studio space. It also allowed for retakes on the studio floor and some editing ahead of broadcast, meaning more polished productions. Briggs cites Duncan Wood, producer of Hancock's Half Hour, using Ampex to pre-record episodes out of chronological order,
“allowing for changes of scene and costume … Wood used great skill also in employing the camera in close-ups to register (and cut off at the right point) Hancock’s remarkable range of fascinating facial expressions … Galton and Simpson regarded the close-up as the ‘basis of television.’” (Briggs, p. 213)
With this facility and location filming in Paris, the second Garry Halliday serial may well have been a more technically accomplished and impressive production than the first.
"Children must have loved it. I know I did. The characters were vivid, the script was good, often witty. ... Then again, when a man falls from a window, we see him lying twisted on the ground."
Further reading
No comments:
Post a Comment