#direct factual origins (there's an episode about a catholic priest going undercover with a gang of street toughs which ends with footage of | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mariocki · 11 months ago

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Alfred Burke puts on his best policing face as Parisian detective Inspector Maron, in Overseas Press Club - Exclusive!: The Billion Franc Mystery (1.6, ABPC, 1957)

#fave spotting #alfred burke #overseas press club exclusive!#the billion franc mystery #1957 #classic tv #public eye #abpc #an obscure series‚ even by the standards of pre 1960s telly. OSPC was a coproduction between Ardleigh Films and Associated British Pathé #(they of the famous news reels‚ and themselves a subsidiary of Associated British Picture Corporation). a year or two later and this #would probably have been made in house by ABC themselves‚ but the franchise was only a year old at this point and still finding its feet #the concept is simple but promising: each week‚ a member of the Overseas Press Club of America (a real and still extant organisation) tells #a tale from their careers‚ an unusual instance or shocking event that makes for good tv. these tales are true! says the narrator in the #show's opening moments‚ and these ppl exist! frankly that's something i take with a large grain of salt; whilst some stories certainly have #direct factual origins (there's an episode about a catholic priest going undercover with a gang of street toughs which ends with footage of #the actual figure that inspired the ep) but others are highly questionable (the first‚ about a Norwegian resistance fighter who has plastic #surgery and takes the place of a relatively high ranking nazi officer; i feel like that's something that would be better known‚ yknow??)#this ep is about a nazi plot to destabilise the French franc just prior to ww2; quite believable and certainly the nazis did dabble in #producing counterfeit money‚ tho the examples i found online all relate to pound sterling or latterly the us dollar‚ not the franc)#our journalist of the week is played by Lee Patterson‚ a minor film star in british b movies at this point‚ with swooningly handsome Anton #Diffring (who had fled nazi persecution himself) as the villain. Alfie's part is pretty small‚ he's just the french cop keeping every one #in sight and letting events play out (cue some wonderful Alfie cheshire cat grins). Patterson (and maybe Diffring) got to fly out to actual #real Paris to film some location work and establishing shots (a benefit of making a series about the OSPC was that they arranged flights #for cast and crew). poor Alf didn't get a holiday tho; his scenes are conspicuously studio based‚ even when he's meant to be on the banks #of the Seine...#so yes‚ a fun little series‚ even if (so far) the wide scope of potential stories does seem to favour ww2 stuff. good luck finding a copy #tho; it took me months of trawling to find a reasonably priced 2nd hand copy (Amazon currently have a copy for £79.99 which.. for 2 discs #is kind of insane). a victim of the price gouging which seems to have affected some of the lesser known network titles since their #dissolution. sad times for the fan of painfully obscure old tv.. if I ever learn how to make things be on a computer‚ tho‚ I'll happily #share

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