#alan bromly

[sci-firenegade]

Breaking Point, a completely-missing BBC thriller TV series! William Russell is one of the main characters (he's a spy, but not the glamorous kind apparently!).

It seems like it would've been really cool, but alas, the Beeb does not care for us.

(Douglas Camfield also directed, and Richard Hurndall was in it).

(If you like Man from UNCLE, skip this).

The Stage - Thursday 27 October 1966

Transcription:

Victor Canning shows the master touch

BBC-2 thriller serial of high quality

BY SHAUN USHER

I DON'T know why the freashness, vitality, and general high quality of BBC-2's latest Saturday serial, Breaking Point should have given me such a surprise. On reflection, it seems only logical that a veteran among thriller writers, Victor Canning, should come up with a regular Rolls Royce of a scriptm

He seems determined to take well-thumbed situations, and demonstrate that a master touch still can knock sparks from them.

Happy-go-lucky Irish special agents have been around before, a few thousand times. So has the everlasting razor blade, surpressed at vast cost by wicked steel magnates.

Yet Breaking Point—in its opening episode, at least—turned such doubtful ingredients into splendid entertainment. It showed a pleasant quirkiness, which producer Alan Bromly and director Douglas Camfield never allowed to slip into U.N.C.L.E. idiocy.

Example: the Government spies munched bananas and apples while eavesdropping electronically on a secret meeting; and refreshingly unBond-like hero (William Russell) was more worried about his small son's school life than the temperature of the next vodkatini.

William Russell added charm and edge to some good dialogue as the spy from Whitehall, Kennedy. Rosemary Nichols, the obligatory pretty girl helper, gave the part extra dimension by being cattily sexy instead of merely decorative.

Bernard Kay glowered and snarled promisingly as the boorish scientist chased by several sides for his knowledge; Richard Hurndall was beautifully smooth as a millionaire out to silence him.

Michael Miller turned the bluff, vaguely Royal Navy spymaster—yet another of those freshened cliche figures—into a real person.

Paul Guess, Leslie Rocker, Robert Lee, Michael Segal, Royston Tickner, Ves Delahunt, Norma Parnell, Norman Hartley and Brian Beasley, all did well, if fleetingly, in brief supporting roles.

And I hope Vernon Dortcheff is given a chance to develop his downtrodden, rather waspish official eavesdropper.

To sum up: everybody concerned with Breaking Point should award themselves the David Attenborough Star, with cathode clusters, for sterling services to BBC-2 — and the British Thriller.

[mariocki]

Bat Out of Hell: Part 2 (1.2, BBC, 1966)

"Are you suggesting that the dead man isn't Mr. Stewart?"

"What do you think?"

"But Mrs. Stewart identified the body!"

"Yes, she did. So did you too, if it comes to that."

"It must have been Mr. Stewart."

"Why? His face was disfigured, badly disfigured; you certainly didn't recognise him by his face."

"Well no, but he was dressed the same, he had Mr. Stewart's clothes on. He was wearing his signet ring."

"On the wrong finger."

[thebraxiatelcollection]

Been doing a bit of digging about Nightmare of Eden and found this fact which I couldn’t help but laugh at:

According to accounts by visual effects designer Colin Mapson and assistant floor manager Val McCrimmon, Alan Bromly simply didn't understand how to direct the programme efficiently - and wasn't interested in learning. Consequently, he was removed from the project by Graham Williams in the midst of principal photography. Williams himself finished the project. Although Barry Letts had preceded Williams as an "emergency director" (for "Inferno" when the contracted director, Douglas Camfield, was hospitalised with heart problems), this was the only known instance of a producer stepping in for a director that he had been forced to fire. Mapson, a longtime veteran of the programme, flatly called it "without doubt, the most disastrous Doctor Who (1963) I've ever been involved in". When production finally wrapped, crew members were presented with T-shirts saying, "I'm Relieved the Nightmare is Over".

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

Reviewed: Doctor Who Season 17 - The End of Dr Who

Reviewed: #DoctorWho Season 17 - The End of Dr Who

There are times when seasons of Doctor Whoslip seamlessly from one to the next. Then there are times of seismic shifts: notably Season 6 to 7 with Troughton replaced by Pertwee and monochrome bursting into colour. But despite the complete regular cast change, behind the scenes there is a continuity. Terrance Dicks sticks around, as does Robert Holmes, and Dudley Simpson scores once more. The…

[365daysofthedoctor]

137. NIGHTMARE OF EDEN

When two spaceships collide in hyperspace, a high-tech zoo destabilises and nightmare creatures from Eden are released… but a deadly addictive drug has incapacitated the spaceship’s crew.

Image from http://tygerwhocame2t.blogspot.co.uk/ .

[icewarrior2000]

Nightmare of Eden

(Series 17, Episodes 13-16)

Summary: Two spaceships materialise on top of each other and the crews proceed to bicker about liability as though they’ve had a low speed collision reversing out of a space in a supermarket car park.  The Doctor and Romana attempt to mediate and salvage the situation but things are complicated by Professor Tryst, a scientist with a collection of alien slaves and a dodgy accent, and the fact that crew members and passengers keep getting mauled to death.  In the end, it all turns out to be about drug smuggling. Romana is pretty wet and the Mandrels are ridiculous Muppet rejects, but they do have lovely flares.

Watch it because: Despite its flaws, it’s an interesting morality tale about the drugs trade.

Original Air Date: 24 November – 15 December 1979.

Doctor: Tom Baker.

Companions: Romana (Lalla Ward) & K9 Mk II (Voiced by David Brierley).

Writer: Bob Baker.

Director: Alan Bromly.

Producer: Graham Williams.

[mariocki]

Bat Out of Hell: Part 1 (1.1, BBC, 1966)

"Diana, if we fall out we've had it. Whatever happens now, we've got to stick together - we've got to stick together and play it cool. Now for god's sake let's remember that."

[mariocki]

Bat Out of Hell: Part 5 (1.5, BBC, 1966)

"Look, I probably oughtn't to ask you this, but did you know about Mrs. Stewart and Mark Paxton?"

"Well, I suspected they were more than just friends if that's what you mean, sir."

"Do you know, it never even crossed my mind, not for a minute. Yet now you come to think about it, he was a good looking chap and they were always together. I'm beginning to think I'm a bit of a dimwit!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, sir, you just haven't got a suspicious nature."

"But that's just it, I have - as a rule, I'd suspect my own grandmother."

[mariocki]

Bat Out of Hell: Part 4 (1.4, BBC, 1966)

"Now listen, everybody: whoever did this was looking for something, and that isn't to say he found it. I want this place searched from top to bottom - this room, the bedroom, the stairs, the whole damn place."

"What are we looking for?"

"I don't know, but find it!"

[mariocki]

Bat Out of Hell: Part 3 (1.3, BBC, 1966)

"That's Mr. Stewart's wallet."

"Yes, I thought you'd recognise it."

"Where was it found?"

"At Benchley Wood; curiously enough, not very far from the spot where we stood talking yesterday afternoon. I expect you've seen this before too, sir."

"Yes I have, he used it for telephone numbers."

"Amongst other things."

"Other things?"

"Yes, he's jotted something else down here. T: one hundred pounds; T: three hundred pounds; T: four hundred and fifty pounds; T: nine hundred pounds."

"Well, I'm afraid I don't know what that means, Inspector."

"I think it's obvious what it means, sir - the question is: was the money received by Mr. Stewart or paid out by him?"

"My guess is it was paid out."

"Mine too, sir, which makes me rather curious."

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

Reviewed: Doctor Who Season 11 - Self-Destruction

Reviewed: #DoctorWho Season 11 - Self-Destruction

There are things in this world and in this country that are worth getting cross about – that merit a strong reaction. As you know. I know, too, because I work for a Foodbank. Collecting money on a freezing day last Christmas, a nice old lady put a tenner into my bucket. “We had rationing during the War,” she said, “but we didn’t have bloody Foodbanks.” As a country, we’re now giving out 1.6…